University Press Week: Local Voices

Celebrating University Press Week, and the theme, #RaiseUP, we spotlight local voices and our Pennsylvania History series. The books in this series are designed to make high-quality scholarship accessible for students, advancing the mission of the Pennsylvania Historical Association by engaging with key social, political, and cultural issues in the history of the state and region. Series editors Beverly C. Tomek and Allen Dieterich-Ward explain more in this blog entry.

Temple University Press is a leading publisher of regional titles, helping authors of a variety of works on Philadelphia and Pennsylvania share their work with other scholars and general readers throughout the region and the world. As such, they were a natural partner for the Pennsylvania Historical Association (PHA).

The PHA has long published a number of titles, including a “History Studies” pamphlet series that began in 1948. The series was originally envisioned as an adjunct to the association’s journal, but it took on a life of its own as the earlier pamphlet-style publications gradually expanded to modest booklets. These works told the story of various ethnic groups, industries, and workers throughout the Keystone State. Books in the series also discussed Pennsylvania sports, various reform movements throughout the state’s history, and the role of women in Pennsylvania history. As they grew in variety, the booklets gained the attention of educators in classrooms and museums and were increasingly used as textbooks for courses throughout the state.

As the association neared the seventieth anniversary of the founding of the study series, the PHA rebranded it the Pennsylvania History series and decided to partner with a university press to take the booklets to the next level. They wanted the series to benefit from the expertise, resources, and support of a respected academic publisher and to produce high-quality yet inexpensive books in place of the booklets. After investigating multiple publishers, the PHA chose Temple University Press and began an exciting partnership that has seen a significant improvement in the quality of the publications.

In its initial form, the Pennsylvania History series included pamphlets that were stapled at the spine. Written by experts in the field and heavily illustrated, these pamphlets offered introductory overviews of a number of important topics in Pennsylvania history.

The second iteration of the History series included booklets that maintained the PHA’s mission. They remained short in length and continued to include a number of illustrations.

Now, published in partnership with Temple University Press, the Pennsylvania History series features professionally produced and marketed books introducing readers to key topics in the state’s history.

As part of the PHA’s mission to advocate for and advance knowledge of the history and culture of Pennsylvania and the mid-Atlantic region, the series remains committed to providing timely, relevant, and high-quality scholarship in a compact and accessible form. Volumes in the series are written by scholars engaged in the teaching of Pennsylvania history for use in the classroom and broader public history settings. Temple has worked with the PHA to ensure that the books remain affordable while expanding the series’ reach. Since the partnership began, the Pennsylvania History series has released an updated edition on the history of Philadelphia, a new volume on the Scots-Irish in early Pennsylvania, and the first book-length survey on the history of public health and medicine in the state.

Plans for 2021/2022 include a new history of Pennsylvania slavery and abolition by Beverly Tomek and an updated edition of Terry Madonna’s Pivotal Pennsylvania on presidential politics in the Keystone State.