In honor of America 250, Pennsylvania Postcards will focus on the people, places, and events that best commemorate this U.S. milestone and our Commonwealth's crucial role in it.
Dr. Benjamin Rush was born in the Philadelphia area, educated overseas, then came back to the U.S. He served in the field as Physician General for the Continental Army, but he resigned because he thought General George Washington was mismanaging military hospitals and told him so. Dr. Rush, by many accounts, can be described in a number of ways.
A signer of the Declaration of Independence, a civic leader in Philadelphia, widely considered to be the father of American psychiatry, fluent in several languages, the founder of Dickinson College, an outspoken supporter of the American Revolution, and later in his life, up until his death, the treasurer of the U.S. Mint.