First City: Philadelphia and the Forging of Historical Memory

Early American Studies

by Gary B. Nash

With its rich foundation stories, Philadelphia may be the most important city in America's collective memory. By the middle of the eighteenth century William Penn's "greene countrie town" was, after London, the largest city in the British Empire. The two most important documents in the history of the United States, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, were drafted and signed in Philadelphia. The city served off and on as the official capital of the young country until 1800, and was also the site of the first American university, hospital, medical college, bank, paper mill, zoo, sugar refinery, public school, and government mint.In First City, acclaimed historian Gary B. Nash examines the complex process of memory making in this most historic of American cities. Though history is necessarily written from the evidence we have of the past, as Nash shows, rarely is that evidence preserved without intent, nor is it equally representative. Full of surprising anecdotes, First City reveals how Philadelphians—from members of elite cultural institutions, such as historical societies and museums, to relatively anonymous groups, such as women, racial and religious minorities, and laboring people—have participated in the very partisan activity of transmitting historical memory from one generation to the next.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Cities

392 pages, Paperback

First published November 21, 2001

About the author

Gary B. Nash was a distinguished American historian known for his scholarship on the American Revolutionary era, slavery, and the experiences of marginalized communities in shaping early U.S. history. A graduate of Princeton University, where he earned both his undergraduate and doctoral degrees, Nash also served in the U.S. Navy before embarking on an academic career. He taught at Princeton and then at UCLA, where he became a full professor and later held key administrative roles focused on educational development.
Nash's work highlighted the roles of working-class individuals, African Americans, Native Americans, and women in the nation's founding, challenging traditional narratives centered solely on elite figures. His inclusive approach often sparked debate, notably with historian Edmund Morgan, who questioned the broader impact of the grassroots movements Nash emphasized.
Beyond academia, Nash was instrumental in shaping history education in the United States. He co-directed the development of the National History Standards and led the National Center for History in the Schools. A past president of the Organization of American Historians, he was also a member of numerous esteemed scholarly societies. Throughout his career, Nash authored or contributed to dozens of influential books, articles, and essays that left a lasting mark on the field.

Reviews

[Timothy Riley · Rating 2 out of 5]

For the most part I hated this book. It was exactly not what I was looking for in a history of Philadelphia. I was hoping this, because of its all encompassing title, was a social history of the city, its development and of the lives of its inhabitants. It was anything but that. 90% of this book is the history of the Historical Society and other city "societies" and what they chose to collect and why. It is about their board members, familial relationships with local politicians and rich donors. There were some interesting tidbits about the anti-catholic riots in the early and mid 19th century. It has a few pages on anti-black riots of around about the same time period and on the all-black regiments who fought bravely in the Civil War and then were written out of the history of the city. Yes, Philadelphia was a segregationist city for much of its history and the history of burning black churches and white mobs keeping blacks out of city public spaces is terrifying but given short shrift in this book by this author. He would rather spend his page space on how Independence Hall has been decorated over the years. Heads up: I couldn't care any less about the furniture and drapes in the city buildings. I was reminded some about Thomas Paine's ignored role as radical during the independence movement. Nash believes he may be the only victim in Philadelphia's long history or maybe he couldn't dig up anything better that may have existed outside of the PA Historical Society's Archives (which he himself criticized for being pretty exclusionary). The irony.

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

This textbook about the history of Philadelphia was interesting in places and contains dozens of historical illustrations which paint a realistic picture of Philadelphia's struggles in the 18th and 19th centuries. Most revealing to me were the sentiments regarding the Civil War before, during, and after the conflict. Ending slavery was only the first step towards creating a true "City of Brotherly Love". That title was not deserved since the wealthy, white, and protestant upper and middle class of Philadelphia in the 1800's had a very hard time with the concept of diversity and inclusion. The sad and sometimes shocking plight of black and immigrant peoples who flooded into the city in the 19th century was truly a blueprint of American life during those times.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

A concise history of Philadelphia that begins with the foundation of its first collecting institutions, the Library Company of Philadelphia (1731) and the American Philosophical Society (1743), and continues into the twenty-first century, relating each step of the way how current events shaped the memory of events past. Basically a lot of mythologizing of Great White Men of the Lost Golden Age that pretended the early colonial era wasn't as diverse and complicated as later ages. This paradigm went unchallenged on a large scale until the new social history of the 1960s, and attempts to revive it persist today with the likes of PraegerU and legislative assaults on ethnic studies. A good introduction to historiography that's accessible to the lay reader.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Focus on historical memory in the context of the city interesting.