Read on Twitter
Why is Pennsylvania so important to American history? 3 main reasons:
1) Philly as Quaker/Mid-Atlantic Seaport
2) Large-scale non-Anglo immigration and migration point to the West
3) Energy resource production and distribution
1) Philly as Quaker/Mid-Atlantic Seaport
2) Large-scale non-Anglo immigration and migration point to the West
3) Energy resource production and distribution
Philly was surpassed by NYC as commercial seaport (and faced growth of Baltimore) but maintained vitality. Located perfectly to link northeast to south - a "keystone" geographically.
But also Penn Quaker foundation plus deep democratic tradition (embodied by Franklin's 1776 PA state constitution) meant foundation for popular democracy and rights. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/pa08.asp
Anti-slavery movement took root there, both among Quakers and free African Americans like Richard Allen, founder of the AME Church. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/mother-bethel-african-methodist-episcopal-ame-church-1794/
Anti-slavery tradition led to 1780 gradual abolition law and later abolitionists, including Thaddeus Stevens.
Economically, Philadelphia developed as the "Workshop of the World." Small-scale manufacturing of furniture, textiles, food, transportation (inc. Baldwin locomotives), machine tools. The city remained vital through the 19th and 20th centuries. https://www.workshopoftheworld.com/overview/overview.html
2) Pennsylvania was the most important entrance point for non-Anglo European immigrants from the beginning. NYC was too, but Philly's ethnic mix immediately populated the state interior. First group were Welsh Quakers.
Then the ever-complicated Germans, who arrived as early as 1683 but really started arriving after 1715, esp. after 1732. Mix of Anabaptists mostly in Lancaster County and Lutheran+Reformed in Lehigh Valley, esp. after Conrad Weiser encouraged Germans to settle in northern Berks.
Then came the Ulster-Scots, encouraged to immigrate after 1717 but especially beginning in the 1740s. Settled primarily in the Paxtang area (Harrisburg) but also northern Lehigh Valley. Presbyterian foundations include future Princeton University, founded as "Log College" in PA.
Migrants filled up SE PA and encountered natural barriers; French-allied Native Americans resisted further encroachment. European settlers moved southwest into the Great Valley of Virginia.
These were German, Scots-Irish, French Huguenot, Welsh (Daniel Boone's background), English, African American (free and enslaved) and others, settling SW Virginia, Yadkin Valley of NC and East TN.
Even more important was the Wilderness Road that connected the Wagon Road through Cumberland Gap and into Kentucky. These migrants then populated the lower Midwest.
After 1811, the steamboat began to replace this foot-traffic and helped Pittsburgh grow along with the Ohio Valley.
Canals and railroads linked Pittsburgh with Philadelphia, solidifying the migration and trade routes intact. The Horseshoe Curve in Altoona was an engineering marvel to cross the mountains.
3) The third major factor was energy resources and distribution. (Best book on the following is Routes of Power by Christopher F. Jones). PA provided the energy behind the industrial revolution and massive growth of Eastern Seaboard cities. https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674970922&content=reviews
More important than steel production was home heating. For that, PA offered anthracite coal, the purest and hardest coal around. Took special kind of stove and furnace to manage airflow and ignite anthracite. But once lit, they could heat homes without felling entire forests.
Carbon energy from "forests" 400 million years, trapped in anthracite fields, made the growth of NYC, Boston, Philly and Baltimore possible in the 19th century. Blue crescents in NE PA are anthracite.
But how do you get anthracite to NYC or Philly? Canals. Lehigh Canal, Morris Canal, Schuylkill Canal brought anthracite to big cities. It also stimulated growth of canal towns in northern NJ and across SE PA.
To get anthracite from coal fields to the canal required another marvel - the gravity switchback railroad. Second RR in the US. At Mauch Chunk, PA (now Jim Thorpe) the coal was transported to the Lehigh canal and railroad network.
In 1859, the Drake Oil Well in Titusville stimulated a new wave of energy production and distribution - this by pipeline. Early oil industry (think "Penn"zoil) grew in PA. Later natural gas, including hydrofracking in the 21st c.
So much of PA is within the Appalachian Basin, where "Pennsylvanian Age" sedimentation fossilized ancient marsh lands to produce oil, gas and coal.
The result was the growth of mining, industry and transportation. Other industries nearby like glass also produced new markets. Heinz Ketchup was made possible not by vinegar and tomato, but by marketing with glass bottles.
There are other reasons the Keystone State is so important to the course of American history, but these are, in my estimation, the essential ones.
