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All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #085, part 5   Samuel Perkins was the driving force behind getting the job done at City Hall. He established a close relationship with architect John McArthur, Jr., and sculptor Alexander Milne Calder, who honored him with a series of playful cats tucked away in the south entrance vestibule. 

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #085-4   John Christian Bullitt was a native Kentuckian who was pro-slavery, but who made his career as a Philadelphia lawyer. His constitutional knowledge and skills led to him rewriting the City's Charter, which immediately became known as The Bullitt Bill. He also helped clear Fitz John Porter of his court martial charges 15 years after the fact. His statue has stood at the northwest corner of City Hall for more than a century. 

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #085, Part 3 for April 4   Like sculptor Alexander Milne Calder, Architect John McArthur, Jr., was a Scottish immigrant. He specialized in huge buildings that were meant to last a long time, which explains his selection as architect for Philadelphia's city hall, which when finished was the largest building in the Western Hemisphere. Calder honored him by having him model for the visage of "science" in the eastern portico. He is naked. 

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #085, part 2 for April 3, 2026 Matthias Baldwin was always good with his hands. He started as a jeweler, but progressed to bookbinding before he built one of the first steam engines in the nation. When the Age of Steam emerged, Baldwin became the foremost manufacturer of reliable locomotives that were also works of art. 

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #085, part 1 for April 2, 2026   I have already talked about the 250 statues inside Philadelphia's City Hall back in ABC:LHS #018, part 1. But including Billy Penn on top, eight named statues also grace the building's outside, including two Civil War generals, a martyred US president, a civil rights hero, a merchant king, and two others. Industrialist / capitalist / philanthropist Matthias Baldwin and John Christian Bullitt, the lawyer who rewrote the city's charter are at Laurel Hill East. Hear their stories, plus two other fascinating character studies, in this month's episode. 

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #085 for April 2026   Philadelphia's City Hall doubles as an art gallery and sculpture garden. More than 250 of Alexander Milne Calder's statues grace the massive walls of the building. But at ground level on the plaza outside the building there are seven more statues, two of them equestrian.  Matthias William Baldwin was a precision jeweler turned locomotive manufacturer who gave away most of his wealth. His factory manufactured 75,000 railroad engines before it closed down. John McArthur, Jr., was a Scottish architect who specialized in massive buildings. City Hall in its time was the largest building in the Western Hemisphere.  William Bullitt was a transplanted southern lawyer who believed in both slavery and secession, yet he was chosen to rewrite the city's constitution in the 1870s.  Samuel Perkins was the Director of the Public Buildings who ruled over the proceedings with an iron fist and was rewarded with a private joke in the south entry portico. 

Biographical Bytes from Bala: Laurel Hill West Stories #054 for mid-March, 2026   Sophie Hutchinson Drinker (1888-1967) came from one Philadelphia blueblood family and married into another. She and her husband Harry led musical singing parties in their Merion home for 30 years. When Sophie started a woman's choir, she was frustrated in her search for music by, for, and about women. She made it her life's work to discover how woman had been shut out from their early roles in religion, medicine, and music. Her 1948 book Music & Women is a feminist classic. The Sophie Drinker Institute of Bremen Germany carries on women's music studies in her name and tradition. 

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #084, part 4 Emmy Lou "Clare" Linford Wofford was present at the creation of the United States Peace Corps, along with her husband Harris Wofford, one of John Kennedy's "Best and Brightest." While Harris served as college president and United States Senator, Clare served in the background at three Philadelphia Universities. 

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #084, part 3   Florence Cowanova (born Cowan in 1901) was the daughter of dancers Edward and Mary Cowan. On the suggestion of dancer Anna Pavlova, she adopted the surname Cowanova. Florence grew up immersed in dance, with her father specializing in kinesiology and her mother in dance instruction and publicity. By her teens, Florence was recognized as a versatile dancer and teacher, running a popular studio that staged large recitals at Philadelphia’s Academy of Music, featuring hundreds of students. Thousands of Philadelphia girls fondly remember their sessions with Mme Cowanova, who made them all feel like princesses.   

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #084, part 2   Matilda "Tillie May" Forney, raised in a prominent Philadelphia family with journalistic roots, gained experience as her father’s secretary and became a columnist known for her “Fashionable Luncheon and Tea Toilets” column, which focused on high society fashion and etiquette. Her column catered to an affluent audience, discussing topics like French fabrics and social customs.  Tillie never married or left her family home on Washington Square. She was buried in her father’s plot at Laurel Hill West. Her life and career reflect both the opportunities and constraints faced by women journalists of her era.

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #084, part 1   Emily Elizabeth “Lillie” Smith Edwards Holman (1854–1925), aka "E.E. Holman," emerged as a trailblazer in architecture. After starting as a clerk in an architect’s office, she quickly demonstrated design talent and transitioned into practicing architecture independently. Holman designed numerous homes, theaters, and institutional buildings over a career spanning about twenty years. Holman encountered gender bias from clients but often overcame it by delivering quality work. She believed successful women architects must master all aspects of the profession, including technical knowledge, supervision, and business acumen, while disregarding gender stereotypes.

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #084   Emily Elizabeth Holman was an accomplished architect who preferred using her initials so as not to disclose her gender.   Matilda “Tillie May” Forney followed in the steps of her newspaper publisher father John Forney. She made newspaper work her career at a time when women were barely tolerated in the newsroom.   Florence Cowanova was the ballet teacher all the little girls loved. Among her famed students: Zelda Fitzgerald, Imogene Coca, and Princess Grace.   Emmy Lou Lindgren married Harris Wofford in 1948 before going to live in India for 9 months. While Harris became one of JFK’s “Best and Brightest,” under her married name Clare Wofford became a lynchpin in the successful formation of the Peace Corps.

Biographical Bytes from Bala: Laurel Hill West Stories #053 Architecture expanded during the 19th century period of European colonialization, ignoring influences from Asia and Africa. Although not buried at Laurel Hill, African American architect Julian Abele is thought to have designed mausoleums at both properties. Walter R. Livingston, Jr., interred at Laurel Hill West, is considered Philadelphia's top Black post-War architect; his masterwork is the Zion Baptist Church on North Broad Street. 

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #083, part 4   Mpozi Mshale Tolbert was a West Philadelphia native who became a beloved photojournalist and DJ in Indianapolis. Despite his 6'6" frame and waist-length dreadlocks, he was described by all who knew him as a gentle giant. Two murals of Mpozi exist in Indianapolis’s Broad Ripple and Fountain Square neighborhoods, celebrating his life and work.

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #083, part 3 Reverend John Komai, son of a Krahn chief, and his wife Julia Komai were prominent Liberians who fled their homeland during the 1989 coup, leaving behind their estate and enduring a perilous journey to Sierra Leone before resettling in the United States. John became a community leader for Liberian refugees in the U.S., working as a counselor and continuing efforts to support Liberian refugees. Julia was a political activist who had been jailed in 1979 for opposing human rights abuses and later served as Assistant Director of the African Unity Conference Center. Julia died in a car accident in 2004, and John survived but required lifelong care until his death in 2012.