Episodes

EPISODE 16: THE LIVE AID CONCERT. At dual press conferences in London and New York City on Monday, June 10, 1985, it was announced that in just one month’s time there would be a 17-hour, two-stadium, benefit concert for famine relief in Ethiopia. The bicontinental event, to be called Live Aid, was organized by Irish musician Bob Geldof of the Boomtown Rats. It would feature a “global jukebox” of over 40 of the top stars in British and American music, from Mick Jagger, Elton John, Queen, David Bo...

EPISODE 15: HESS'S OF ALLENTOWN. This is the story of the Pennsylvania department store that for several decades was more well known and more glamorous than the city in which it was located – Hess’s of Allentown. The brothers Hess founded their dry goods store in Center City Allentown in 1897. By 1929, it had grown to become a large department store at the same location. By this time, both Hess brothers had died, leaving Max Hess, Jr., their 18-year-old heir. Max, Jr, would turn out to be one of...

EPISODE 14: REVOLUTION ON $33,000 A DAY, PART 3. This is the concluding episode in our three-part series on the financing and supply logistics of the American Revolution. It begins with financial and monetary crises having hit both the Continental Congress and the Pennsylvania Assembly. The Continental Congress has created the new role of Superintendent of Finance, and named Robert Morris to the position. Morris and his aides made several major reforms. They solved the army’s supply problems thr...

EPISODE 13: THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. On May 31, 1889, after torrential rains worse than any in recorded history, the South Fork Dam on the western side of the Allegheny Mountains broke, and 20 million tons of water poured downstream. Towns in its wake were leveled: South Fork, Mineral Point, Woodvale, East Conemaugh and, most notably, Johnstown. Prior to the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center, it was the deadliest man-made disaster in U.S. history. 2,209 people were killed. Johnstown an...

EPISODE 12: REVOLUTION ON $33,000 A DAY, PART 2. This is the second episode in our three-part series on the financing and supply logistics of the American Revolution. In the first episode, we asked, “Who paid for all this stuff, and how did it get to where it was needed?” We described how the Continental Congress funded the war at the start, which it did well enough to enable the military and diplomatic successes of 1777 and 1778. We introduced Philadelphia financier and merchant Robert Morris, ...

EPISODE 11: REVOLUTION ON $33,000 A DAY, PART 1. The financing and logistics of the American Revolution. In order to get a full picture of the American Revolution, one has to study more than the battles fought by the soldiers and the political ideals of the Founding Fathers. You have to ask, “Who paid for all this stuff and how did it get to where it was needed?” This episode covers the first three years of the War, from 1775 to 1778, when America was a scrappy start-up venture. It illuminates t...

EPISODE 10: OCCUPIED PHILADELPHIA. What was life like in the nation’s capital under British control? From September of 1777 to June of 1778, the British Army occupied the City of Philadelphia. During this time, the Congress was in exile in York, and the Pennsylvania Assembly was in exile in Lancaster. This episode explains life and events in Philadelphia under British occupation. About a third of Philadelphians fled the approaching British, leaving behind a population of mostly loyalists and the...

EPISODE 9: THE VALLEY FORGE WINTER. July 1777 to June of 1778 was the pivotal year of the American Revolution. With the exception of the Battles of Saratoga, the most crucial events either happened in Pennsylvania (like the Battles of Brandywine and Germantown, the occupation of Philadelphia by the British, and the York Congress), or Pennsylvanians were at the heart of it (like Benjamin Franklin negotiating with the French in Paris). It was the Year of Pennsylvania. On the last episode we descri...

EPISODE 8: THE YORK CONGRESS. The Second Continental Congress – the one that declared independence from Great Britain in 1776 at the Philadelphia State House and served as representative government during the American Revolutionary War – spent nine months in session at the county courthouse in York, Pennsylvania. During this period, some of the most consequential decisions of the American Revolution were made. These include agreement on America's first national charter, the Articles of Confedera...

EPISODE 7: WILLIAM PENN, PART 2. This episode, the second of a two-part series on the life and legacy of William Penn, focuses on his founding of the English colony of Pennsylvania. Penn came to the project with some direct experience in colonial rule. His father was a landholder in Ireland with Catholic tenant farmers, and Penn himself had mediated a dispute in the American colony of West Jersey. Penn successfully receives a colonial charter in 1681, but has to navigate many hostile parties – c...

EPISODE 6: WILLIAM PENN, PART 1. The life and legacy of William Penn, the founder of the English colony of Pennsylvania. This episode, the first of a two-part series, focuses on his family history and upbringing, his embrace of Quaker belief, and how he became a key figure in the struggle for religious freedom in England. He became what today would be considered a keyboard warrior and social influencer in support of Quakerism and the right of conscience – in defiance of his father, an English ad...

EPISODE 5: THE ERIE TRIANGLE. Why does Pennsylvania (and not New York) have that little wedge of land atop its Northwest corner? And why has it had such a consequential place in our state’s history, perhaps most notably in the War of 1812? This episode starts with a discussion of colonial borders as they appear in the Kings’ charters, and then reviews how Pennsylvania’s borders were settled. The Erie Triangle itself was created in 1784, and then sold by the federal government to the Commonwealth...

EPISODE 4: THE ALLEGHENY PORTAGE RAILROAD. The successful opening of the Erie Canal in New York State in 1825 gives the rest of the country a case of “canal fever,” and nowhere more so than in Pennsylvania. Desperate to catch up with the surging economy of New York City, economic elites from Philadelphia and elsewhere in the Commonwealth hatch a plan to link Philadelphia to Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh to Erie. What eventually developed – the Main Line of Public Works – is a system of canals and ra...

EPISODE 3: WELCOME TO PITHOLE. What happens when the wickedest man in the world arrives in the wickedest place in the world? It’s February of 1866, and the oil boom of Northwestern Pennsylvania is in high gear.  Ben Hogan, welcome to Pithole, Pennsylvania.  The discovery of oil and the birth of the oil industry created several Pennsylvania boom towns, some of which later went bust and disappeared.  The most notorious of what is now a Pennsylvania oil ghost town was Pithole, populated by many a scoundrel and "fallen woman." In this episode, we meet some of them, including the most infamous of all – Ben Hogan and French Kate. This is the third episode in the three-part series on the Discovery of Oil and the History of the Oil Regions of Pennsylvania. In this episode, we will again have appearances by Ida Tarbell and her father, Frank Tarbell, whom we met in the first two episodes.

EPISODE 2: THE TITUSVILLE GUSHER, PART TWO -- IDA TARBELL. Part One ended in about 1880, with John D. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Company crushing the independent oil producers of Northwest Pennsylvania, where oil was first discovered in 1859 and the industry was born. In Part Two, we learn how journalist Ida Tarbell first wrote her History of Standard Oil, which originally appeared in McClure’s magazine in 19 installments. She tells a detailed story of how one business came to dominate an industry through the greedy and ethics-defying actions of those who ran it, and the counter-efforts of the oil producers and others to stop them. Hers was the most impactful work of investigative journalism in America before the Watergate scandal.

EPISODE 1: THE TITUSVILLE GUSHER, PART ONE. Titusville, Pennsylvania, was where the first oil well was drilled in 1859. Thus began a new industry, which birthed a new economic boom that created several oil boom towns. Some of them still exist today, like Titusville and Oil City, and some became ghost towns and disappeared, like Pithole and Petroleum Center. This episode focuses on that first discovery of oil by Edwin Drake, the resulting economic boom, and the rise of the Standard Oil Company, helmed by John D. Rockefeller. The episode tracks how Standard Oil became overwhelmingly dominant in oil refining, transportation and marketing. This is the first of a three-part series on the Oil Regions of Northwest Pennsylvania.

TRAILER:  Mark Smith introduces his new podcast on the history of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.  The first episode launched on Tuesday, January 6th, 2026, with new episodes posted every two weeks or so.