The Hidden History of the Main Line:: From Philadelphia to Malvern

by Mark E. Dixon, Randall Miller (Foreword by)

Overview

Beyond the grand facades and trappings of the Main Line cream-and-crystal crowd are hidden tales and scintillating stories.

Author Mark Dixon's collection of articles from Main Line Today explores the region's offbeat and oft-forgotten history. With a keen eye and a touch of humor, Dixon delves into the Welsh origins of nearly unpronounceable towns and the journey of the Sound of Music's Trapp family to Merion. From anecdotes of the socialite who divorced her husband when he had the gall to survive the sinking of the Titanic to the Wayne native who turned from the convent to a career as an internationally renowned opera star, Dixon brings to light the lost pages of Main Line history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781609490645
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	09/08/2010
Series:	Hidden History
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Mark E. Dixon has lived in the Delaware Valley since 1987, when he moved from Texas to a Drexel Hill apartment complex where American Bandstand's Dick Clark once lived. Though not himself a native, he grew up hearing about the beautiful city of Philadelphia"? from his mother, who moved here in 1945 to do social work and ended up marrying a Hahnemann University medical student from Michigan. And the roots go deeper: Dixon's mother chose Philadelphia based on stories told by her grandmother. In 1886, Dixon's great-grandmother, a descendant of some of the region's earliest settlers, was a shopgirl at Wanamaker's Grand Court, opposite city hall in Philadelphia. And there, though it was surely against John Wanamaker's rules, great-grandmother let herself be romanced by, and later married, a midwestern Quaker who was in town on business but needing a pair of gloves. Those tales provided a window into the area's history, later supplemented by Dixon's joining the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), which, he observes, is practically a historical society itself. The public relations job that drew Dixon to the area vanished in a spectacular corporate bankruptcy three years later. Eventually, he returned to work as a writer, this time, freelance, building on earlier experience as a reporter for newspapers and trade publications. The stories in this book are columns that he began writing for Main Line Today magazine in 2003. Dixon and his family live in Wayne."

Table of Contents

Foreword Randall M. Miller 7

Acknowledgements 11

1740: Forgetting "Cymraeg" 13

1800: Phillis's Story 19

1884: Liberals at War 26

1885: Eakins (Sort of) Comes Out 31

1898: Carey and Madame X 36

1901: The Work of the Lord 41

1902: Cogs in a Wheel 46

1902: A Trail to Nowhere 52

1910: Good and Faithful Servant 58

1912: Scene from a Marriage 63

1921: Love of Learning 68

1928: Shopping the Generations 73

1938: Rufus Talks with Creeps 79

1939: Extreme NIMBY 85

1939: The Sound of Drinker 91

1940: An Acceptable Corpse 96

1950: Doctors, Generals and Politicians 101

1953: Blaming the Messenger 106

1955: The Singer and the Senator 112

1969: Giving Good Meeting 118

1971: Joining "Arnie's Army" 123

1972: Giving Football the Boot 128

1991: Lenny's Monument 133

Bibliography 139

About the Author 143