Gerald G. Eggert (b. 1926) returned from service in the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps (1946-48) to complete his undergraduate degree at Western Michigan University in 1949. He taught in the public schools of Battle Creek, Michigan, for four years and then entered the University of Michigan where he earned his doctorate in 1960. He taught at the University of Maryland, Bowling Green University, and the University of Michigan before joining the faculty of The Pennsylvania State University in 1965; he became professor emeritus upon his retirement in 1991. He is the author of Railroad Labor Disputes: The Beginnings of Federal Strike Policy (1967), Richard Olney: Evolution of a Statesman (1974), Steelmasters and Labor Reform, 1886-1923 (1981), Harrisburg Industrializes: The Coming of Factories to an American Community (1992), and The Iron Industry in Pennsylvania (Pennsylvania Historical Association,1994). His article on African-Americans in nineteenth-century Harrisburg won the 1993 Philip S. Klein Pennsylvania History Prize. From 1985 to 1993, he was PHA’s business secretary.