ABOUT AUTHOR

Norman E. “Ned” Donoghue II is a former practicing lawyer, former international charity fundraiser and now a full-time historian and author and speaker. He is a graduate of Henderson High School (West Chester, Pennsylvania), Williams College (History major, honors) and Duke University School of Law. He now resides in Philadelphia and Cecil County, Maryland. 

Ned has led a life devoted to historical milestones. He practiced law as a specialist in private client law (trusts and estates) and capped his career serving as chair of the Probate and Trust Law Section of the Philadelphia Bar Association. Thereafter he served as director of planned giving for The Philadelphia Orchestra Association for five years, raising funds in the Orchestra’s $130M Endowment Campaign. 

Ned served 1983-2023 as counsel, officer and board member of the Princess Grace Foundation-USA and presently serves as an emeritus trustee. The Foundation is well known for its recognition of excellence in emerging artists in theater, dance and film in America in tribute to H.S.H. Princess Grace of Monaco, the former Grace Kelly. The Foundation awards annual career-enhancing grants. 

Ned was a co-founder of Philadelphia Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts and its second president. He co-chaired International Visitors Council of Philadelphia and was its “Citizen-Diplomat of the Year” in 2010. He was appointed by Mayor of Philadelphia Wilson Goode as an officer and board member of We The People 200, Inc., the nonprofit charged with executing the plan for the national celebration in Philadelphia of the Bicentennial of the US Constitution (1787-1987). 

He is the author of Prisoners of Congress, Philadelphia’s Quakers in Exile, 1777-1778 (Penn State University Press, 2023), the first comprehensive scholarly monograph on the Quaker Exile from Philadelphia, a chronicle of the untold story of the men who became among the nation’s first political prisoners. He has spoken about this book at over thirty institutions, including the American Philosophical Society, the Library Company of Philadelphia, Anderson House – the headquarters of the Society of The Cincinnati, embassy row in Washington DC, The Philadelphia Club, Cosmopolitan Club, The Daughter of the American Revolution, The Society of Sons of the American Revolution, and numerous smaller historical societies and clubs.