Honoring Valor: Pennsylvania’s Collection of Civil War Battle Flags

Posted by on Jun 19, 2015 in | Comments Off on Honoring Valor: Pennsylvania’s Collection of Civil War Battle Flags As the American Civil War Sesquicentennial of the past four years draws to a conclusion, it is appropriate to direct attention to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s vast collection of Civil War battle flags and its 1914 transfer from the Executive, Library and Museum Building to the Capitol’s main rotunda cases. This special event, which occurred on Monday, June 15, 1914 – Flag Day...
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Commemorating a Centennial by Revising a Vision

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Commemorating a Centennial by Revising a Vision The American museum was and is an idea. The European museum was a fact. Almost without exception the European museum was first a collection. With few exceptions most American museums were first an ideal,” Philadelphian Nathaniel Burt wrote in his 1977 history of the American museum, Palaces for People. Unlike their European counterparts, which were usually created to house the great...
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History and Community: Pennsylvania’s First Lady Makes The Connection, An Interview with Michele M. Ridge

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on History and Community: Pennsylvania’s First Lady Makes The Connection, An Interview with Michele M. Ridge When flood waters threatened the Governor’s Residence in Harrisburg in January 1996, Michele M. Ridge quickly transformed herself from First Lady to First Curator of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Within hours, she assembled a team of National Guardsmen, weekend staff at the resi­dence, and specialists of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission to move endangered works of art,...
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Lost and Found

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Lost and Found Lost Since its erection, first in iron in 1882 and then in steel in 1900, the Kinzua Viaduct, one of the most popular attractions along Route 6, has been hailed as “The Eighth Wonder of the World,” des­ignated a national landmark, and treasured as the centerpiece of the Kinzua Bridge State Park in McKean County. The bridge, tow­ering three hundred feet in height and spanning more...
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Mountain House, Cresson, Pa.

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Mountain House, Cresson, Pa. Leading a ‘Simple Life’ among the farmers,” wrote EBG on the reverse of a penny postcard depicting the Mountain House at Cresson, Cambria County, one hundred years ago, on August 10, 1908. The writer’s sentiments were obviously facetious — the Mountain House, built in 1880–1881, had been a grand hotel financed by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company (PRR) that drew scores of affluent guests to the...
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The State Museum Commemorates the Civil War

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on The State Museum Commemorates the Civil War Commemorations of the American Civil War are nearly as old as the conflict itself. Little more than six years after the war ended General George Gordon Meade of Philadelphia spoke to Union army veterans at a reunion in Boston. “Comrades of the Army of the Potomac,” he began, “the first thing I shall do, which we ought to do . . . is to return our thanks to the Great Being who,...
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Letters

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Letters Has It All! The recent issue of Pennsylvania Heritage has it all! The story on Larry Fine [“Laughing with Philadelphia Stooge Larry Fine” by William C. Kashatus, Fall 2008], architecture of the New Deal [“Built by the New Deal” by Michael J. O’Malley III], and the gorgeous cover picture make your magazine one of the best I’ve ever read. I also enjoyed the postcard...
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A Forgotten Hero of the Civil War

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on A Forgotten Hero of the Civil War At seven o’clock on Thursday evening, April 18, 1861, approximately 475 Pennsylvania citizens-turned-soldiers, comprising the ranks of five volunteer militia companies, arrived in Washington D.C., to protect the nation’s capital. The first shots of the American Civil War were fired less than a week earlier at Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, and it had been just...
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General Meade’s Press Warfare!

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on General Meade’s Press Warfare! Not all the skirmishes and engagements of the American Civil War were fought on the battlefield. Many were waged in popular publications of the day, pitting war correspondents against high-ranking officers in a war of words. One Union commander who waged his own intensely bitter war with the established press and held the Fourth Estate in contempt throughout the entire rebellion was Major...
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