Trailheads

Posted by on Dec 1, 2021 in | Comments Off on Trailheads When we rang in 2021, Pennsylvania’s Trails of History sites had been closed to the public for nine months because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Maintenance and security staff had continued to report to sites to perform their duties, while others of us had adapted to telework. The new year dawned with hope of spring reopenings, and on April 30 sites implemented new public schedules designed to ease...
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The Stetson Company and Benevolent Feudalism

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Stetson Company and Benevolent Feudalism Philadelphia, during the first three decades of the twentieth century, was known for its great industrial enterprise. The city called itself the World’s Greatest Workshop and was a leader in the manufacture of more than 200 different items. It ranked first in the nation in the pro­duction of hosiery and knit goods, carpets and rugs, locomotives, street railway cars, saws, surgical...
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Clearfield County: Land of Natural Resources

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Clearfield County: Land of Natural Resources Clearfield County, believed named for the cleared fields found by early settlers in the area, belies its name; 83 percent of the county’s 1,143.5 square miles is still forested today. Its present timber, however, is second and third growth. Although its forest lands support some lumbering, the county’s economic life depends mostly upon coal and clay in­dustries and the manufacture of...
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Clinton County: Still Part of Penn’s Woods

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Clinton County: Still Part of Penn’s Woods Clinton County, one of the sixth-class counties of Pennsyl­vania, occupies 900 square miles of river valley and mountain land near the geographical center of the state. Nearly two-thirds of the area re­mains forested, al though most of the trees are second growth after a near denuding of the land by a booming lumber industry in the second half of the last century. It was in the wood­lands of...
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A Culture of Sharing: Family and Community in Pennsylvania’s Anthracite Region, 1900-1940

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on A Culture of Sharing: Family and Community in Pennsylvania’s Anthracite Region, 1900-1940 Prior to the establishment of widespread governmental assis­tance programs such as social se­curity and various other forms of social services, the working people of industri­al America devised their own means of survival and support. Drawing on the resources of family members and neigh­bors, ordinary individuals created tight­ly-knit communities in which limited in­comes, food and emotions were...
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“Little Doc”: Architect Of Modern Nursing

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on “Little Doc”: Architect Of Modern Nursing Lavinia Lloyd Dock (1858-1956) labored long and hard as educator, settlement worker, historian, author, editor, columnist, pacifist and radical suffragist. Beyond this, she strove to internationalize the public health movement while continually elevating the status of women. But her contributions to the field of nursing­ – which helped transform what was then a despised trade into a...
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The Last Frontier: Venango County Indians, Oil, Ghost Towns

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Last Frontier: Venango County Indians, Oil, Ghost Towns Venango County. Its name is derivation of a the Seneca Indian word earliest for explorers “French and Creek.” Its earliest explorers and settlers were the French, shortly followed by the English. At one time, the territory was claimed simultaneously by France, and the colonies of Virginia and Pennsyl­vania. But Venango County’s rich history bespeaks vigorous pioneering a spirit...
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Preserving Pieces of Pennsylvania’s Past: An Inside Look at the Building of the Commonwealth’s Collections

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Preserving Pieces of Pennsylvania’s Past: An Inside Look at the Building of the Commonwealth’s Collections Associations between butterflies and buttons, Conestoga wagons and cannon, sculpture and arrowheads, or fossils and founder William Penn’s original Charter may seem tenuous, even obscure and, perhaps, nonsensical. But a relationship does exist: they are among the one and a half million objects and thirty thousand cubic feet of manuscripts, records, maps and photographs in the custody and...
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The Great Escape: Camping in the 19th Century

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Great Escape: Camping in the 19th Century During the turbulent nineteenth century, Americans were as mobile as wheels, waterways and ambition could make them. The population was preoccupied with carving out a new nation, emigrating, pioneering, surveying, sod busting, prospecting for gold and, fundamentally, attempt­ing to preserve body and soul. With the surge westward and the consuming desire to push on to the frontiers, there was a...
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Women Go to Work!

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Women Go to Work! The illusion of the Victorian woman – a creature accustomed to leisure and com­fort- was alive and well in Indiana County at the turn of the century. Newspaper columns reported a variety of social activities in which women participated, including temperance and missionary societies, social and reading clubs. Advertisements for medicines appealed to women who considered themselves delicate,...
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