Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf Guide to the State Historical Markers of Pennsylvania By George R. Beyer Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 2000 (456 pages, paper, $15.95) It is generally well known that the Commonwealth’s state historical marker program is among the most popular public history initiatives ever mounted by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC). The program, also one of the...
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The 1948 Donora Smog

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on The 1948 Donora Smog As early as 1881, the cities of Chicago, Illinois, and Cincinnati, Ohio, had passed laws in attempts to control several types of pollution. Air pollution, however, remained an uncontrolled, unrecognized health hazard until tragedies in the twentieth century demonstrated its lethal effects. In 1930, smog covering the Meuse River Valley in Belgium sent sixty people to their graves, and in 1952...
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The Value of Pennsylvania History

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Value of Pennsylvania History George W. Bush won the presidential election of 2000 because the fifty states cast more electoral votes for him, even though more people actually voted for his opponent, Albert A. Gore Jr. The election reminded Americans about a curious institution called the Electoral College, and an equally peculiar system known as federalism in which each state conducts elections according to distinct laws...
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Letters

Posted by on Nov 24, 2013 in | Comments Off on Letters Worthy of Note The Summer 2006 edition of Pennsylvania Heritage was warmly received in no small measure due to the well-written articles about Edwin Austin Abbey [“Edwin Austin Abbey, A Capital Artist” by Nancy Mendes] and Joseph Leidy [“Joseph Leidy, A Natural Observer” by Tom Huntington]. The article on the now vanished silk indus- try in Pennsylvania was also worthy of...
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