Pennsylvania Stories – Well Told by William Ecenbarger

Posted by on Aug 22, 2017 in | 0 comments Pennsylvania Stories – Well Told by William Ecenbarger Temple University Press, 244 pp., cloth $25 Ecenbarger has earned well-deserved praise and admiration for his work as a newspaper staff writer and freelance writer over the course of a Pennsylvania-based career of nearly 50 years. His previous book, Kids for Cash (New Press, 2012), detailed the corrupt juvenile justice system in northeastern...
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Editor’s Letter

Posted by on Jun 13, 2017 in | Comments Off on Editor’s Letter Historical research is often motivated by a personal connection to a subject. Two articles in this issue of Pennsylvania Heritage come from authors who have investigated individuals significant to their own lives and found links to broader themes in Pennsylvania history. David D. Hursh became intrigued by his maternal great-grandfather, Rudolph M. Hunter, after years of hearing family lore about...
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Jackie Ormes, African American Woman Cartoonist

Posted by on Jun 13, 2017 in | Comments Off on Jackie Ormes, African American Woman Cartoonist Born Zelda Mavin Jackson in Pittsburgh in 1911 and raised in Monongahela, Washington County, Jackie Ormes was the first African American woman cartoonist. At the height of her career, her cartoons and comics reached more than a million readers across the nation through the black press. When the Jim Crow era was in full swing and racial stereotypes were prevalent, Ormes broke down barriers of...
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Tough and Determined: Pioneering Newspaper Editor Rebecca F. Gross

Posted by on Jun 13, 2017 in | Comments Off on Tough and Determined: Pioneering Newspaper Editor Rebecca F. Gross On a night in the winter of 1947-48, Rebecca F. Gross, 42 years old and the editor of a 10,000-circulation daily newspaper in the small town of Lock Haven, Clinton County, was scheduled to have dinner with two luminaries of the time: Robert Capa, the internationally famous war photographer, and John Steinbeck, the novelist and future Nobel laureate. The dinner was an event set up for members of...
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The Road to Resorts: Transportation and Tourism in Monroe County

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Road to Resorts: Transportation and Tourism in Monroe County Monroe County flourishes today as a lush, verdant resort and popular recreational area on the periphery of metropolitan centers. Tourism is sup­plemented by light industry which has left the largely rural setting relatively intact. Essentially, the county offers open countryside through which travelers make good time on interstate highways on their way to or from major cities and in which they...
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The President Meets the Press

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on The President Meets the Press The road to glory traveled by Abraham Lincoln on his way to his inauguration took him in and out of Pennsylvania three times: first to Pittsburgh, then through Erie County along the southern shore of the lake, to Philadelphia, and finally through Harrisburg where he spoke to the state legislature. Throughout the trip he was well received by great crowds who thronged to the train depots and,...
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Crawford County: Welcoming the 21st Century

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Crawford County: Welcoming the 21st Century We passed over some good land since we eft Venango, and through several extensive and very rich meadows, one of which, I believe, was nearly four miles in length, and consid­erably wide in some places. Twenty-one year old George Washington, who would in time become a major landholder and land specula­tor, described Crawford County in 1753 as he carried a dispatch demanding the com­mander of the...
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Pennsylvania Woman as Journalist: The Ida Tarbell Nobody Knew

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Pennsylvania Woman as Journalist: The Ida Tarbell Nobody Knew In the summer of 1905, as Ida M. Tarbell’s muckraking History of the Standard Oil Company had completed its long serial run in McClure’s Magazine and been published as a book, Miss Tarbell received an envelope addressed to: Miss Ida M. Tarbell Rockefeller Station Hades Inside was a caustic letter from a reader who was furious with her attack on Standard Oil, but since such...
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The Black Press in Pennsylvania

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Black Press in Pennsylvania I The Black press in Pennsylvania played a leading role in the struggle for Afro-American freedom in the pre-Civil War period. After the war, Afro-American tabloids in the Commonwealth were among the first newspapers to call for the civil rights and enfranchise­ment of Afro-Americans in the South and North. Fre­quently, editors of these newspapers became elected politicians and they used their...
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The African-American Clan

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on The African-American Clan Recent publications and media presentations have spurred an unusual interest in genealogical research. This enthusiasm extends from the academic community to large numbers of lay people who are attempting to retrace their roots. As is well known, genealogical research in its simplest form results in the ability to construct a blood-line tree that presents the kinship relationships between people...
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