Thom Nickels Books

Religious cults have marked every society since the beginning of time. Some have an audacious presence, like Anton Szandor LaVey's Church of the Process, whose black-caped "missionaries" used to walk streets of Philadelphia. Other cults seem to be the very soul of respectability, like Father Divine's Peace Mission Movement, a name that does justice to the group's well intentioned beginnings and the good the Peace Mission went on to accomplish, but which nevertheless hides a history of skullduggery and intrigue. Father Divine, to his believers, was God, placing him in an already overcrowded cosmos inhabited by pop-up gurus, false shamans, "embodiment of divinity" leaders, and assorted New Age marketers like Philadelphia's own Swami Nostradamus Virato, publisher of New Frontier Magazine , once the toast of the city's New Age community. Some cults, like Scientology, began as a fringe movement that mushroomed into Hollywood-centric empires, while other cults, like Madame Blavatsky and her 19th Century Theosophical Society, swept the world before ending up as a small lecture society just off Philadelphia's Rittenhouse Square. In the post-modern era, the death of religion has transformed political and social causes into doctrinaire factions that might as well be religious cults that advocate the most severe forms of orthodoxy.

Since Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin put type to printing press, Philadelphia has been a haven and an inspiration for writers. Local essayist Agnes Repplier once shared a glass of whiskey with Walt Whitman, who frequently strolled Market Street. Gothic writers like Edgar Allan Poe and George Lippard plumbed the city's dark streets for material. In the twentieth century, Northern Liberties native John McIntyre found a backdrop for his gritty noir in the working-class neighborhoods, while novelist Pearl S. Buck discovered a creative sanctuary in Center City. From Quaker novelist Charles Brockden Brown to 1973 U.S. poet laureate Daniel Hoffman, author Thom Nickels explores Philadelphia's literary landscape.

Philadelphia is a hard mistress when it comes to honoring native talent, and the city has more than its fair share of notable figures. Consider colorful politicians like Frank Rizzo and Richardson Dilworth, international celebrities like Grace Kelly, sports legends like Connie Mack, Philadelphia Museum of Art icons like Anne d'Harnoncourt, or national radio personalities like Terry Gross. Business tycoons such as John Wanamaker and Russell Conwell, founder of Temple University, made many contributions to the city. Pearl Buck, author of The Good Earth, and Christopher Morley, America's G.K. Chesterton, created legacies of their own. Other legends like the nearly forgotten Agnes Repplier, a world-famous essayist and contemporary of Henry James, and poet Daniel Hoffman, the designated US poet laureate in 1973-1974, have helped enrich the city's literary reputation. There are Marian Anderson, Mario Lanza, and Hollywood actor Kevin Bacon, whose fame is equaled by his city planner father, Edmund. Architects like Frank Furness, Louis Kahn, and Vincent Kling helped transform the city into an international destination. And there are many notables looming outside the margins of this book, waiting for their day of discovery.

Author Thom Nickels presents the city's most iconic homes and the stories behind them. Philadelphia's grand mansions and architectural treasures reflect its iconic status in American history, for each Greek Revival home and Corinthian column tells a compelling story of the people behind it. Historic Strawberry Mansion in North Philadelphia was home to Judge William Lewis, a Patriot who defended colonists accused of treason and was Aaron Burr's defense lawyer. Socialite, millionaire and world-renowned art collector Henry McIlhenny made his home at Rittenhouse Square and left his art collection to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Famed architect Addison Mizner's Spanish Colonial Revival house La Ronda brought the stark contrast of South Florida to Philadelphia.