Unprecedented in both the scope and depth of its research, the Biographical Dictionary of Pennsylvania Legislators Project at Temple University employs a team of professional historians to research and write individual biographies of Pennsylvania legislators from colonial times to the present day. The project's work offers an invaluable window into Pennsylvania's unique history, and, more generally, our national heritage. Founded by William Penn in 1682 as a refuge for religious dissenters, Pennsylvania early established not only toleration but also political participation for a wide variety of religious and ethnic groups. Pennsylvania became the only English colony with a unicameral legislature and the Quaker-dominated Assembly achieved a unique ascendancy in political life. The special features of Pennsylvania's colonial life--religious toleration, democratic tradition, ethnically diverse settlers, and strategic economic position--make it an ideal testing ground for studying the social and political development of the United States.

The Project's historians plumb diverse sources to provide sketches of the legislators which examine their family background, education, occupation, social status, religious affiliation, and officeholding. The sketches are written in a lively style, conveying a sense of the individual's personality and the drama of his life. The research is exhaustive, involving the extensive use of the minutes of the Assembly and Council, court dockets and papers, land records, minutes and records of religious denominations, and numerous manuscript collections. To facilitate this research, the staff has already indexed over 80,000 pages of original source material. The result of this extensive research is a collective portraiture that will prove invaluable in exploring the origins and development of representative institutions in America.

Lawmaking and Legislators in Pennsylvania: A Biographical Dictionary, Volume One, 1682-1709 and Lawmaking and Legislators in Pennsylvania: A Biographical Dictionary, Volume Two, 1710-1756 were published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 1991 and 1997, respectively.  Lawmaking and Legislators in Pennsylvania: A Biographical Dictionary, Volume Three, 1757-1775, published in 2005 by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, House of Representatives, is being distributed by Penn State Press.

The volumes received superlative reviews in historical and genealogical journals and the project's work has been endorsed by such renowned scholars as the Pulitzer Prize winning historian Bernard Bailyn and J.A.Leo LeMay, the leading authority on Benjamin Franklin.

You may want to visit our volumes section to search the name and subject indexes for all three volumes and see a list of the biographical essays to be published in the supplement to volume three.  See our links to other history and genealogy sites on the web and a gallery of signers of the Declaration of Independence who served in the Pennsylvania Assembly.

To purchase Volumes One and Two of Lawmaking and Legislators contact Boston Book Warehouse at (252)-478-6300.  Volume Three is available from Penn State Press at 1-800-326-9180. The volumes are also available at many reference libraries.