Irwin Richman

Irwin Richman (born 1937) is a Professor Emeritus of American Studies and History, an American historian, and prolific author.
Biography
Early Years
Richman was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Alexander Richman, a pharmacist, and Bertha Schwebel Richman. His family was Jewish and his grandparents were Yiddish-and German-speaking immigrants. As a child, Richman’s paternal grandfather, Abraham, built a bungalow colony in the Catskill Mountains, Woodbourne, New York. Like so many other New York Jews, the Richmans spent their summers in the Catskills to escape the sweltering heat of New York City.
Education
Richman attended Public Schools 167, 144, 178, and finished at James Madison High School. After graduation, he matriculated at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. at the age of 16 where he earned a B.A. in History in 1957. Richman went on to pursue a and Ph.D. in History at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was trained as a medical historian.
Career
Before finishing his Ph.D. Richman became a historian with the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC) in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, at which time was under the leadership of S.K. Stevens—the eminent historian and historical administrator. As Richard Harrison Shryock last doctoral student, Richman completed his Ph.D. in 1965, writing his dissertation on Nathaniel Chapman, M.D.—the first President of the American Medical Association.
Also in 1965, the PHMC opened its new William Penn Memorial Museum (now the state museum of Pennsylvania) where Richman served as its first Curator of Science History, Industry, and Technology. He continued to worked for the PHMC until 1968.
Richman left the PHMC to take a position at the Pennsylvania State University’s newly established Capitol Campus. He was a founding professor in the American Studies Program, where he taught from 1968 to 2003. In 1970, Richman married M. Susan Steigerwalt, a mathematician and fellow educator at Penn State. Together they had two sons.
Richman became greatly interested in American Architectural History, Art History, American Decorative Arts, as well as Pennsylvania German Culture as a professor of American Studies. In addition to these interests, Richman holds a Certificate in Ornamental Plants from the Longwood Gardens Program, 1988.
Publications
He began researching and writing on various subjects related to these topics early on and has since published a number of books:
*Historical Manuscript Depositories in Pennsylvania (1965).
*Penn Pictures (1966).
*The Brightest Ornament (1967).
*Pennsylvania's Architecture (1968). Revised edition (1997).
*Pennsylvania's Decorative Arts in the Age of Handcraft (1978). Reprinted (1995).
*Pennsylvania's Painters (1983).
*Borscht Belt Bungalows: Memories of Catskill Summers (1998).
*The Catskills in Vintage Postcards (1999).
*Pennsylvania German Arts: More Than Hearts, Parrots, and Tulips (2001).
*Sullivan County’s Borscht Belt (2001).
*The Hudson River in Vintage Postcards (2002).
*German Architecture in America: Folk House, Your House, Bauhaus and More (2003).
*The Pennsylvania Dutch Country (2004)
*Pennsylvania German Farms, Gardens and Seeds (2007)
*Seed Art: The Package Made Me Buy It (2008)
*Lancaster County Pennsylvania Postcards (2008)
*The Landis Family: A Pennsylvania German Family Album (2008)
*Holidays and Other Weird Events (2009)
*Yesterday’s Farm Tools (2010)
Retirement
Richman retired from the Pennsylvania State University at Harrisburg as a Professor Emeritus in 2003. He continues to teach summer courses, give tours and lectures, is a Commonwealth Speaker for the Pennsylvania Humanities Council, works as Director of the Landis Valley Heirloom Seed Project, and is continually publishing books and articles on various subjects.

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