After graduating from Antioch College in 1968, Michael Schreiber moved to San Francisco, where he participated in the local theatre scene (as an actor, director, and playwright) and as an independent filmmaker. Simultaneously, he was active in progressive politics — such as in the protest movement against the war in Vietnam — working primarily as a journalist and editor. He covered many of the major political courtroom battles of the 1970s (such as the Angela Davis case), interviewed key anti-apartheid leaders in South Africa, and wrote from Eastern Europe around the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

After retiring from his 29-year job as a streetcar operator in San Francisco, in 2009, Michael Schreiber moved to Philadelphia’s Queen Village district, where he set about to investigate the history of the houses on his street. During his research, he encountered a much earlier neighbor, Thomas Cave, who lived there over two centuries ago. Six years of writing and searching through numerous archives resulted in the publication in 2016 of the 737-page book “Unsinkable Patriot: The Life and Times of Thomas Cave in Revolutionary America.”

At the present time, in 2019, Schreiber is working on two books: One is a novel that takes place in Spain during the Civil War of the 1930s, and later in the early 1950s. The other, written in conjunction with Amy Grant, is a digest of the lives of many of the people who are buried in the church yard of Gloria Dei (Old Swedes Church), Philadelphia. Essays from the latter book will be published on this website from time to time.

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