The Midtown Scholar Bookstore is pleased to welcome author Todd Mealy to Harrisburg as he presents his new book, Glenn Killinger, All-American: Penn State's World War I Era Sports Hero. This event is free and open to the public. Book signing to follow discussion. 

About the Book:

This first biography of W. Glenn Killinger highlights his tenure as a nine-time varsity letterman at Penn State, where he emerged as one of the best football, basketball and baseball players in the U.S. Situating Killinger in his time and place, the author explores the ways in which home-front culture during World War I -- focused on heroism, masculinity and sporting culture -- created the demand for sports and sports icons and drove the ascent college athletics in the first quarter of the 20th century.

About the Author:

Todd Mealy is the author of Glenn Killinger, All American: Penn State's World War I Era Sports Hero; This Is the Rat Speaking: Black Power and the Promise of Racial Consciousness at Franklin and Marshall College in the Age of the Takeover (2017); Legendary Locals of Harrisburg (2014), Aliened American: A Biography of William Howard Day, 1825-1900, Vols. I and II (2010); and Biography of an Antislavery City: Antislavery Activists, Abolitionists, and Underground Railroad Operatives in Harrisburg, Pa (2007). In addition to writing the text for two Dauphin County Historical Markers in Harrisburg, PA, Todd has published in Pennsylvania Heritage and American Heritage. He coauthored From the Pews: The Story of the Bethel AME Church in Harrisburg (2015).

Mealy holds a Ph.D. from Penn State University. He also attained a Master's degree from the same institution, where he was the 2014 recipient of the John S. Patterson Award for academic and creative achievement. In 2018, received the university's Sue Samuelson Award for his doctoral dissertation.