An advocate for Philly's overshadowed 19th century

If Jim Mundy had it his way, we'd toss the Liberty Bell into the Delaware, and dig up Ben Franklin and send him back to Boston.

"Ben Franklin is this black hole," Mundy said while standing in the soft light of the Union League's Lincoln Room. "It just worked out that way. He sucked up all the rest of Philadelphia history.

"If it doesn't have to do with Ben Franklin and the Liberty Bell, it doesn't matter."

Mundy is the director of education and programming at the Union League, a preeminent authority on Philadelphia history, and an exceedingly gracious man. He is not actually advocating for the exhumation of our most beloved founding father. I don't think so, anyway.

But he's got a point.

Considering the deep and rightful pride we bear for our city's illustrious Revolutionary history - and for how it monopolizes how we sell our city - you could be forgiven for thinking that nothing notable has happened in Philadelphia since 1800. Most especially, we give short shrift to our Civil War history. Big time.

I mean, how many George Meade impersonators have you seen ambling around Old City?

Gen. George "Old Snapping Turtle" Meade? Proud Philly son and victor at Gettysburg? Rider of that brave battle horse, Old Baldy?

Come on, Philly.

Franklin and his ilk tend to eclipse the whole 19th century, really, or Philly's "greatest century," as Mundy calls it. Turbulent, tumultuous times, when Philadelphia was transformed from the Athens of America to the Workshop of the World.

A time when Philadelphia, the center of Union manufacturing and a supplier of endless troops, played, perhaps, as Mundy argues, a more important role in the Civil War than any other Northern city.

This kind of devoted boosterism makes Mundy the perfect choice to talk some Civil War at the Association of Philadelphia Tour Guides' annual lecture series, to be held this weekend at the Independence Visitor Center.

Entitled "A Guide's View to Philadelphia," the conference is aimed at tour guides and historians, but it's open to anyone willing to pony up a $125 fee for the weekend, and $75 for the day. If you're a history geek like me, it's for you.

Besides Mundy, who will give his two-hour talk Saturday on "Philadelphia in the Civil War Era," there will be presentations on everything from colonial times to modern Philly. The weekend caps off with a three-hour bus tour of Philly.

The lecture series, now in its sixth year, has become a big way of helping guides tell our story - the full story. For his part, Mundy is doing his best to make the Civil War a bigger part of the narrative. To help storytellers see 19th-century Philadelphia in all its compelling complexity.

Talk with Mundy, a mild-mannered man who favors bow ties, and the Philly of the Civil War flashes alive.

Fresh-faced troops in blue drilling on Washington Square and parading down to the old railway depot on Broad Street, where trains departed for the front.

The Confederate flags hanging, mockingly, in the nearby windows of the Southern sympathizers in Society Hill.

President Lincoln standing outside Independence Hall in 1861, pledging to crowds to defend the principles embodied in the Declaration of Independence, even if it meant his death.

The slain leader's funeral cortege solemnly clip-clopping through a stunned city four years later - from the railway on Broad to Walnut, up to 23rd then down Arch - to awaiting mourners at an Independence Hall now alight by phosphorous red, white, and blue lights and draped in black bunting.

Never actually a City of Brotherly Love ("William Penn meant well," Mundy says), Philly during the war was, more than ever, a city divided.

"A city politically, philosophically, and emotionally split over the issue of slavery," Mundy said.

All of it, he said, making for "such a great story." A story he tells in a way that makes you want to hear more. A story so great it can drive a soft-spoken historian to want to dig up founding fathers and toss bells in the river.

For details on a Guide's View of Philadelphia, visit www.phillyguides.org.

mnewall@phillynews.com215-854-2759