Schell, David A.

To start from the beginning, like many good histories, I was born and raised in Allentown, PA. I graduated from William Allen High School. While growing up I always wanted to be a teacher, except for a brief period in elementary school when I thought it would be neat to be a locomotive engineer (that is, drive a train).

When I graduated from Allen I went to Clarion University, where I majored in Secondary Education, Social Studies. I had not been active in many clubs at Allen, but made up for it at Clarion by being on the newspaper staff (eventually as Editor-in-Chief), the campus radio station, Student Senate, the debate team, and Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity.

After graduating I started looking for a high school teaching job and did some substitute teaching. I substitute taught for over six years but was unable to find a full-time job. So, I finally gave up (at least for a while) my dream of teaching and ended up back here in the Lehigh Valley where I worked in a factory for over twenty years.

While working there I was a student at Northampton myself, earning an A.A.S. in Electronics Technology. When I went here it was called NCACC, and the buildings looked a lot different--mostly white concrete and there wasn’t a red brick in sight! I did this while working full-time, so if you are in that situation I know what you’re going through.

Eventually I decided to try to get back into teaching. I commuted from Allentown to West Chester University and earned an M.A. in History. After that I completed a Ph.D. in History at Temple University. My dissertation title was “Keeping Control: Gifford Pinchot and the Establishment of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board.” It explored the political and social factors that combined to produce the liquor control system that started at the end of National Prohibition in 1933, and that we still have today.

Besides teaching online at Northampton, I also teach both in the classroom and online at Montgomery County Community College and at Lehigh Carbon Community College. I am a volunteer with my fraternity and the secretary of my neighborhood association in Allentown.