The Lattimer Tragedy of 1897

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Lattimer Tragedy of 1897 Sheriff James Martin of Luzerne County in Pennsylvania was vacationing in Atlantic City, New Jersey, when he received an important telegram on Saturday, September 4, 1897, from George Wall, his deputy. The message indicated that Superintendent Lathrop of the Lehigh Valley Coal Company requested the sheriff’s presence at Hazleton to deal with a deteriorating strike situation that was...
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Historical Sketch of Luzerne County

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Historical Sketch of Luzerne County The Proclamation Line of 1763 was a stopgap devised to give England a chance to gather her forces and to adopt a policy for further expansion of the American colonies along the Atlantic seaboard. The Treaty at Fort Stanwix in 1768 resulted in a pre-revolutionary division of Indian land to establish a boundary between the Indian hunting grounds and the white settlements. The treaty was the last...
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One Should Not Overlook Union County

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on One Should Not Overlook Union County Union County on the West Branch of the Susquehanna River is one of Pennsylvania’s smaller counties, encompassing a bare 258 square miles, with a population of 30,000, including 3000 college stu­dents and 1900 inmates of two federal prisons. Few of its residents have held high political office and fewer of its names have appeared in Who’s Who in America. Yet the historical...
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Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf Crossroads of Commerce: The Pennsylvania Railroad Calendar Art of Grif Teller by Dan CupperGreat Eastern Publishing, 1992 (184 pages, cloth, $69.95) From its infancy as a mere sixty-one mile track running through central Pennsylvania’s deep forests and river valleys, the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) eventually emerged as a giant of the railroading industry, known throughout the world for...
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A Jewel in the Crown of Old King Coal: Eckley Miners’ Village

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on A Jewel in the Crown of Old King Coal: Eckley Miners’ Village It survives – somewhat miraculously – as a vestige of Pennsylvania’s coal mining heritage, a link in what was once a chain of little coal communities, or patch towns, that dotted the anthracite region. “Eckley is part of the puzzle, but not a unique part. There were numerous, almost identical, mining patch towns like Eckley,” explains Vance Packard, site...
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Massacre at Lattimer, An American Rite of Passage: An Interview with Michael Novak

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Massacre at Lattimer, An American Rite of Passage: An Interview with Michael Novak Why do so many kids from Pennsylvania make great quarterbacks?” Michael Novak, writer, teacher, theologian, and social philosopher leaned forward as he posed the question and then offered an answer. “Because they’re hard realists. You’re down by fourteen points with seven minutes to play. So, what’s new? That’s the way life has always been in this part of the...
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Executive Director’s Message

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Executive Director’s Message Travel Diary – Autumn 1997 A busy week of commem­orative events in September calls attention to important themes in our history. I cannot help but notice the growing number of historical figures – known to many as living historians, reenactors, first-person interpreters, impersonators, or character actors – participating in these occasions. Apparently an appropriately costumed...
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Executive Director’s Message

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Executive Director’s Message Remembering the twentieth century has become a preoccupation bordering on obsession. As the lists of greatest moments and most important people grows daily, I am equally intrigued not only by what we choose to recall but the way in which we decide to commemorate the past. Over the past one hundred years Pennsylvanians have remembered their history by constructing a stunning array of statues,...
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Martin Ritt Takes on The Molly Maguires

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Martin Ritt Takes on The Molly Maguires Far from the glitter and glamour of Hollywood, in a remote mountain range of Pennsylvania, the film industry’s best and brightest gathered in the late 1960s to make a film that has been described as a dismal financial failure and, ironically, an extraordinary critical suc­cess. Before cameras whirred in and around the communities of Hazleton, Luzerne County, Jim Thorpe, Carbon County,...
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St. Gabriel’s Catholic Parish Complex

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on St. Gabriel’s Catholic Parish Complex St. Gabriel’s Catholic Parish Complex in Hazleton, Luzerne County, is more than a collection of imposing ecclesiastical edifices. The complex is significant because it reflects the parish’s status as the city’s first Catholic parish, and is integrally associated with the growth of its Catholic population stimulated by the development of the anthracite industry. Hazleton grew...
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