Trailheads

Posted by on Aug 23, 2021 in | Comments Off on Trailheads After a long year of closure due to COVID-19, Pennsylvania Trails of History sites reopened to the public late this spring. Most sites operated on reduced schedules to allow staff extra time for cleaning and to help everyone get back into a routine. Visitors seemed eager to return, and they adapted to online reservations, timed tickets and mask requirements. By late June, the Wolf administration...
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Dox Thrash and the “Poetry of the Artist’s Own People”

Posted by on Aug 23, 2021 in | Comments Off on Dox Thrash and the “Poetry of the Artist’s Own People” A son of sharecroppers, Dox Thrash was born in 1893 and raised in a cabin outside the town of Griffin in rural Georgia. The second of four children, he was raised primarily, perhaps solely, by his beloved mother, Ophelia. Throughout her adult life, Ophelia Thrash worked six to seven days a week as a housekeeper and cook for a white family named Taylor while providing materially and spiritually...
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Editor’s Letter

Posted by on Aug 13, 2021 in | Comments Off on Editor’s Letter The cover of this edition features a poignant watercolor portrait, Woman in Blue, Waiting, by a Philadelphia artist whose work has been regrettably overlooked in the past but is now being rediscovered as new studies and exhibitions, as well as a preservation effort to save his home, have emerged in recent years. Printmaker and painter Dox Thrash sought to document the African American experience...
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Ephrata’s Comet Book

Posted by on Jun 6, 2016 in | Comments Off on Ephrata’s Comet Book   In the late winter of 1744 a bright comet with six tails that spread out like a fan was visible in the sky. It was so brilliant at its perihelion – its point closest to the sun – that it could be seen even in the daytime. Known as the Great Comet of 1744, the astronomical object mystified the world and led to speculation about its meaning in both scientific and religious...
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Pushing William Penn’s “Holy Experiment” to Its Limits: Ephrata Cloister

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Pushing William Penn’s “Holy Experiment” to Its Limits: Ephrata Cloister On the banks of the Cocalico Creek in northern Lancaster County a group of remarkable individuals established Ephrata, one of colonial Pennsylvania’s most unusual communities. A place of intense spirituality, unconventional way of life, literary and artistic brilliance, and medieval-style architecture, Ephrata was the center of a religious society whose principles gave William Penn’s...
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