{"title":"Thomas H Keels","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"forgotten-philadelphia-book-thomas-h-keels-9781592135066","title":"Forgotten Philadelphia","description":"How does a landmark become, after just a few generations, a landfill? In Forgotten Philadelphia, Thomas Keels takes the reader through a lavishly illustrated journey through three centuries of Philadelphia's architecture: what was built; how the public perceived the value of certain buildings; and why those buildings were eventually demolished? Keels does not simply lament the loss of buildings. Instead, he argues that in some cases there were good reasons to demolish places like the Broad Street Station; while some people today see this as a loss on par with the destruction of New York's Penn Station, at the time its demolition was to many a symbolic liberation from political corruption. In writing that celebrates Philadelphia past without ever being sentimental, Keels describes a city that was always reinventing itself, filled with people who always had a very measured view of the worth and beauty of its public architecture.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49896119763217,"sku":"CIN1592135064G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50764551389457,"sku":"CIN1592135064VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":51912714682641,"sku":"CIN1592135064A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1592135064.jpg?v=1763480205"},{"product_id":"chestnut-hill-book-thomas-h-keels-9781531606855","title":"Chestnut Hill","description":"Chestnut Hill, in northwest Philadelphia, is one of America's most beautiful urban villages thanks to the fusion of a magnificent physical setting, notable architecture, historic preservation, and careful planning. During the Colonial period, Chestnut Hill was a rough-hewn village of farmers and millers. After the railroad reached the area in 1854, Chestnut Hill's natural splendor and healthful atmosphere made it a popular spot for Philadelphia's wealthy. Soon, it was ringed by magnificent estates designed by Frank Furness, T.P. Chandler, and Horace Trumbauer. Living side-by-side with the wealthy were hardworking communities of Italian, Irish, and German immigrants. Chestnut Hill, a fascinating photographic record of Chestnut Hill's past, reveals some surprising secrets about this vibrant community. The current community center was once the site of a perpetual motion machine hoax that swindled nineteenth-century Philadelphians, and one local hotel provided liquor (and perhaps other illicit services) to Chestnut Hillers during Prohibition. The stunning photographs and riveting stories of Chestnut Hill include those of the anti-Catholic Know-Nothings, who threatened to halt the construction of Our Mother of Consolation Catholic Church in the 1850s, and of Richard Norris Williams II, who survived the sinking of the Titanic and went on to win the national tennis championship twice at the Philadelphia Cricket Club.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51034338492689,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51034341277969,"sku":"NIN9781531606855","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52614143344913,"sku":"NLS9781531606855","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1531606857.jpg?v=1750718409"},{"product_id":"philadelphia-graveyards-and-cemeteries-book-thomas-h-keels-9781531608248","title":"Philadelphia Graveyards and Cemeteries","description":"Philadelphia, the birthplace of America, is the final resting place of some of the nation's greatest citizens. The burial grounds of Christ Church hold the remains of Benjamin Franklin and six other signers of the Declaration of Independence. Philadelphia pioneered the development of the rural cemetery with the establishment of Laurel Hill, eternal home to Gettysburg hero George Gordon Meade and thirty-nine other Civil War-era generals. In Philadelphia's Jewish, Catholic, and African American burial grounds rest such notable figures as Rebecca Gratz, model for the Jewish heroine of Walter Scott's Ivanhoe; John Barry, Catholic father of the U.S. Navy; and Octavius Catto, an African American civil-rights leader of the nineteenth century. Finally, there are the vanished cemeteries, such as Monument, Lafayette, and Franklin. Transformed into playgrounds and parking lots, these cemeteries were obliterated with sometimes horrific callousness. Philadelphia Graveyards and Cemeteries tells the intriguing history of these burial grounds, whether revered or long forgotten.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51034656702737,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51034659389713,"sku":"NIN9781531608248","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52614308233489,"sku":"NLS9781531608248","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1531608248.jpg?v=1751087282"},{"product_id":"wicked-philadelphia-book-thomas-h-keels-9781540220615","title":"Wicked Philadelphia","description":"Prim and proper Philadelphia has been rocked by the clash between excessive vice and social virtue since its citizens burned the city's biggest brothel in 1800. With tales of grave robbers in South Philadelphia and harlots in Franklin Square, Wicked Philadelphia reveals the shocking underbelly of the City of Brotherly Love. In one notorious scam, a washerwoman masqueraded as the fictional Spanish countess Anita de Bettencourt for two decades, bilking millions from victims and even fooling the government of Spain. From the 1843 media frenzy that ensued after an aristocrat abducted a young girl to a churchyard transformed into a brothel (complete with a carousel), local author Thomas H. Keels unearths Philadelphia's most scintillating scandals and corrupt characters in his rollicking history.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52849657807121,"sku":"NIN9781540220615","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781540220615.jpg?v=1764874789"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-thomas-h-keels.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}