All Episodes

ABC:LHS #074-1   "The Workshop of the World"...
...provided doughboys with blankets, footwear, and head gear. By the time the US Congress declared war in April, 1917, hundreds of Americans had already been fighting, and many had died, the first of more than 125,000 Americans to die, including 1400 Philadelphians, in what many thought would be the "war to end all wars."
 

ABC:LHS #074   The United States was dragged into a war...
...that it seemed nobody wanted, but that was inevitable anyway. Philadelphia produced massive amounts of materials for the American doughboys.
1LT Dillwyn Parrish Starr was impatient for action. He joined Britain’s esteemed Coldstream Guard and was readily accepted by them. He was killed at the Battle of the Somme before the United States even got officially involved.
CPT Alan Wood Lukens came from two families of steel mongers. Although he was killed in late September of 1918 at Meuse Argonne, his family did not discover the truth until several months later. Lukens was awarded a Distinguished Service Cross posthumously.
MAJ Alfred Reginald Allen trained as a research neurologist and became one of the best photomicrographers in the country. He wrote operas, overtures, and hymns, and he founded the Savoy Company to perform the operettas of Gilbert & Sullivan. Yet when he volunteered for war service, it was as an officer in the Army.
2LT Elisha Kent Kane Wetherill trained at PAFA and in Paris with James Whistler. He was apparently wounded by poison gas and spent the last few years of his life suffering from its effects.

BBB:LHWS #043   Polish born violinist Timothee Adamowski...
...was soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra for many years and served as one of the first conductors of the Boston Pops Orchestra. For many years his name was romantically linked with that of famed Australian soprano Nellie Melba, but he surprised everyone when he married Gertrude Pancoast of a famed Philadelphia medical family.

ABC:LHS #073-5   George W. Melville...
...was the MacGyver of his day. He could seemingly create anything out of nothing when the situation called for it. As an engineer he was unsurpassed. He was one of only a few survivors of the ill-fated attempt to reach the North Pole by the ship Jeannette, captained by George DeLong. He then went back to recover the bodies of those who had been left behind. He has a statue at the Naval Yard and was twice painted by Thomas Eakins. 

ABC:LHS #073-4   Admiral Sylvanus William Godon...
...spent his life in the Navy. The high point was probably the capture of the USS Erie with its cargo of 897 enslaved Africans. The captain of that ship, Nathaniel "Lucky Nat" Gordon, went to the gallows for his crime. 

ABC:LHS #073-3   Commodore David Conner...
...was responsible for the successful amphibious landing of 12,000 men at Vera Cruz during the Mexican American War. His presentation sword and two medals are on display in the Cincinnati Room of the Hill - Physick - Keith House, along with a fine portrait. 

ABC:LHS #073-2   Isaac Hull...
...was a lifelong sailor from a family of sailors. He is best remembered today for being commander of the USS Constitution when it captured HMS Guerriere during the War of 1812. Fellow tour guide Russell Dodge wrote this script about the life of this great seaman. 

ABC:LHS #073-1   The United States...
...tried very hard to not have a Navy. It wasn't until the early 19th century that congress realized the need for a fighting force on the water. Capture of American merchant ships by the Barbary pirates and corsairs with letters of marque forced congress to release funds to fortify the Navy. Eventually the United States Navy was second only to the Royal Navy of England.

ABC:LHS #073   Philadelphia has always been a Navy town...
Isaac Hull led USS Constitution to victory against HMS Guerriere in the early days of the War of 1812. Fellow tour guide Russ Dodge wrote this script but declined the opportunity to narrate it.
David Conner worked with Winfield Scott to arrange the largest amphibious assault of the 19th century at Vera Cruz during the Mexican American War.
While serving in the African Squadron, Sylvanus Godon captured the slave ship Erie, which led to the return of nearly 900 Africans to their home continent, and the hanging of “Lucky Nat” Gordon, the only man to be executed by the Government for buying and selling human beings.
George W. Melville was a genius engineer and Arctic explorer who was among the survivors of the doomed USS Jeannette Polar mission in 1879-1881.

BBB:LHWS #042-5   Dorothy Burr Thompson ("DBT")...
...was acknowledged as one of the best archeologists of her day. Her work of Hellenistic terra cottas has never been surpassed.
Her younger sister Pamela Burr wrote a play while at Bryn Mawr that featured her classmate, Katharine Hepburn. 

BBB:LHWS #042-4   Anna Robeson Burr Brown...
...was an American writer of novels, poetry, stories, essays, and biographies. Her The Autobiography: A Critical and Comparative Study (1909), was the first book on the subject.

BBB:LHWS #042-3   Henry Armitt Brown...
...became the finest orator of his generation, frequently compared to Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. His life was cut short only weeks after his greatest triumph. You can read his words today at the Valley Forge Memorial Arch.  

BBB:LHWS #042-2   Frederick Brown...
...was a very successful druggist and a founder of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy. When his friend John Jay Smith invited him to be a founder at Laurel Hill Cemetery, he accepted the offer. 

BBB:LHWS #042-1   Charles Brockden Brown...
...is regarded by scholars as the most important American novelist before James Fenimore Cooper.  His best-known works include Wieland and Edgar Huntly, both of which display his characteristic interest in Gothic themes. His works heavily influenced both Mary Bysshe Shelley and Edgar Allen Poe. 

ABC:LHWS #042   Five Generations of the Brown family...
...are interred at Laurel Hill
Charles Brockden Brown was American’s first successful novelist. his influence on Edgar Allen Poe was immeasurable. He has a cenotaph in the South section of Laurel Hill East.
Charles' nephew Frederick Brown was a successful druggist because of his ginger root-based nostrums. He was also one of four co-founders of Laurel Hill Cemetery.
Frederick's son Henry Armitt Brown was considered the best orator of his generation and often compared to Henry Clay and Daniel Webster.
Henry's daughter Anna Robeson Brown Burr was a highly successful author with more than two dozen books to her name, both fiction and nonfiction.
Anna's daughter Dorothy Burr Thompson got her PhD from Bryn Mawr and was one of the best-known archeologists in the country. Pamela Burr, younger by 5 years, wrote a play which featured her Bryn Mawr classmate Katharine Hepburn.
Frederick and Henry are buried at Laurel Hill East, while Anna, Dorothy, and Pamela are at Laurel Hill West.