Daniel T. Kirsch

Daniel T. Kirsch completed his doctoral degree at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2014 and is now an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Valley Forge Military College in Wayne, Pennsylvania. Active in the American Association of University Professors and the Caucus for a New Political Science, his recent research projects include “Southie versus Roxbury: Crime, Welfare, and the Racialization of Massachusetts Gubernatorial Elections in the Post-Civil Rights Era” and “Sixteen Tons or, The Academy as the Company Store: Personal Stories and Popular Perceptions of the Student Loan Debt Crisis.”

Political Conventions

Philadelphia has hosted national political conventions from the time of the Revolution to the modern era. The Pennsylvania State House, later known as Independence Hall, was the site of both the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the Constitutional Convention in 1787. In the mid-nineteenth century, as national party conventions became the norm, politicians often returned to ...