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Urban Village

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Stevie Wolf's Urban Village is the best single resource on Philadelphia and the German Township.
In 1694, William Penn welcomed thirteen German Quaker families, granting them land which became the German Township. In 1800, in a movement driven by expatriate Philadelphians who had moved to Germantown and Chesnut Hill to escape the yellow fever epidemics, the German Township became part of Philadelphia. This is the history of the independent German Township.
Ms Wolf gives us fascinating details of day-to-day life, garnered from primary sources like original census records and analysis of garbage middens. The census records present puzzles: why, for instance, would families name their children "crazy" and "pecky?" Ms. Wolf figures it out. In their new country, German families were giving their daughters "English" names, like "Gracie" and "Becky," but pronouncing the names in a way which sounded to English-speaking census takers like "crazy" and "pecky." Details like this are integrated into a compelling story of social change.
From the point of view of sociological history, Ms. Wolf contrasts this "urban village," sitting along the ridgeline where ran the "great road" from Philadelphia, with the isolated New England towns which are thought of as typical of early America. Germantown is an urban village even today, and this book provides an invaluable depth and dimension to today's experience.