From the Executive Director

Posted by on Nov 19, 2019 in | Comments Off on From the Executive Director With the arrival of fall, you can find festivals everywhere in Pennsylvania. Celebrations of harvest range from the National Apple Harvest Festival in Arendtsville, Adams County, and the Mushroom Festival in Kennett Square, Chester County, to old-country inspired Oktoberfests from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. Many are established traditions with local origins — Stahlstown in Westmoreland County...
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Chester County Welcomes Thee

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Chester County Welcomes Thee The history of Chester County constitutes a significant part of the history of Pennsylvania, both province and commonwealth, and of the history of the United States of America. At the beginning of our nation’s Bicentennial and on the threshold of our state’s and our county’s tricentennial celebrations, Chester County looks proudly upon its past accomplishments and with...
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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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Paradise Lost: A Poet in the Political Labyrinth

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Paradise Lost: A Poet in the Political Labyrinth During the nineteenth century, it was not unusual for promi­nent literary figures – authors, playwrights and, of course, poet laureates­ – to be awarded diplomatic posts as honors. Perhaps these appointments lent prestige to administrations or helped lessen suggestions of rank patronage. Writer Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) was one of the best examples; he held several custom house...
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Shorts

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Shorts The distinctively decorated furniture of Soap Hollow in Somerset County (see “Makers’ Marks and a Master’s Touch” by Edna V. Brendlinger and Robert B. Myers in the winter 1986 edition) is on view at the Southern Alleghenies Mu­seum of Art, Loretto, from Saturday, March 27, through Monday, May 31, 1993. Soap Hollow furniture, made during the second half of the nine­teenth...
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Letters to the Editor

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Letters to the Editor Featherweights? I enjoy your magazine and the articles you publish. However, I am not an elitist and for Pennsylvania Heritage to devote six pages to such a group as the United Bowmen of Philadelphia (see “No Feather­weight in the Annals of Archery: The United Bowmen of Philadelphia” by Joseph F. Pino in the winter 1993 issue) is uncalled for. But then maybe you are getting to the...
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Shorts

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Shorts The Johnstown Area Heritage Association will host “Johnstown FolkFest ’95” from Friday through Sunday, September 1-3 [1995], in the community’s historic district of Cambria City. The Labor Day weekend event will fea­ture ethnic entertainment, tours of historic buildings, and cultural crafts. For more information, write: Johnstown Area Heritage Association, P. O. Box 1889,...
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Shorts

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Shorts “Making History,” a major exhibit illustrating how evidence from the past is discovered in documents, books, artifacts, objects, and photographs at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, will remain on view through Saturday, May 27 [1995]. The exhibit will also examine the ways in which selections drawn from the society’s extensive holdings have been used to...
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Currents

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Currents Beaux’s Art Pennsylvania native Cecilia Beaux (1855-1942) was one of the most important and successful portrait painters of her time (see “Artistic Ambitions: Cecilia Beaux in Philadelphia” by Tara Leigh Tappert in the winter 1996 edition). Among the significant commissions she completed in the early twentieth century was a portrait of President Theodore Roosevelt’s...
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Shorts

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Shorts “A Portrait of an American City: 200 Years of New Castle History,” chronicling the founding and settlement of the first community laid out in present-day Lawrence County, is on exhibit at the Lawrence County Historical Society through May 1999. Laid out by John Carlysle Stewart in 1798, New Castle was incorporated as a borough in 1825 and recognized as a city in 1869. “A...
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