Lemon, James T. The Best Poor Man's Country: A Geographical Study of Early Southeastern Pennsylvania. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1972.
As suggested in the title, Lemon's primary focus is on the impact of geography upon the early settlement of southeastern Pennsylvania. Rather than center on tradition or environment in a deterministic manner, however, the author seeks to focus on ideology and practices of the different groups who moved to the area. He also stresses that most of his work deals with those who he felt represented the largest number of settlers, the liberal middle classes, defined as those who placed individual freedom and material gain over that of public interest. In the first section of the book, Lemon studies the factors that determined where early European immigrants settled; existing settlements, land quality, accessible water, and others. The factors that most clearly determined a settler's choice of land were date of arrival and the location of the nearest available unoccupied land. The latter part of the book focuses on the application of two geographical theories--central place and von Thunen's model of concentric agricultural zones--to settlement in southeastern Pennsylvania. Regarding the first, Lemon concludes that county seats established in the backcountry prospered because they served as nodal central places relative to Philadelphia, while those located within thirty miles of the city failed. [S. Trail]