Second Saturday Lecture Series: Frontier Country: The War between Pennsylvania and Maryland

Dr. Patrick Spero, the Librarian and Director of the American Philosophical Society Library in Philadelphia will discuss the little-known war between Maryland and Pennsylvania in the 1730s over the border between the two colonies and how this conflict encouraged settlement in the area that is now York County. This episode in American history, as highlighted in Spero’s recent book Frontier Country: The Politics of War in Early Pennsylvania, proved formative not only for the history of York County but for the development of Pennsylvania in the years preceding the American Revolution.

Patrick Spero is the Librarian and Director of the American Philosophical Society Library in Philadelphia. As a scholar of early American history, Dr. Spero specializes in the era of the American Revolution. He has published over a dozen essays and reviews on the topic. His is the author of Frontier Country: The Politics of War in Early Pennsylvania and the edited anthology The American Revolution Reborn: New Perspectives for the Twenty-First Century, both published by the University of Pennsylvania Press. Prior to his appointment at the American Philosophical Society, Dr. Spero taught at Williams College where he served as an assistant professor of History and Leadership Studies and received recognition for his integration of new technology in the classroom. Dr. Spero has also held the position of Historian at the David Library of the Revolution and served on their Board of Trustees. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 2009 and has held long-term fellowships from the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, the Society of the Cincinnati, the Doris Quinn Foundation, the David Library of the American Revolution, and the American Philosophical Society.