Chin Up, Smile, Keep ‘Em Happy!

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Chin Up, Smile, Keep ‘Em Happy! With the construc­tion of movie palaces through­out Pennsylvania in the years immediately fol­lowing World War I, ushering – quite ordinary employment in the days of the nickelodeon – became a much-sought-after vocation. For it was then that movie house showmen first pronounced that service was the “personality” of show business, and that ushers were an individual...
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Letters to the Editor

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Letters to the Editor Back to Barnes The summer 1992 issue featured a salute to Frankford historian Howard L. Barnes (“Profile: Howard L. Barnes, Dean of Philadelphia’s Amateur Historians” by William C. Kashatus III), in which I noted as especially curious his claim of Swedish settlers occupying the Frankford area in the 1660s. Darby, in Delaware County, also boasts continuous permanent settlement...
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Letters to the Editor

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Letters to the Editor It’s a Small World I am a maker of miniature furniture and tremendously enjoyed “Finding the Fabulous Furniture of the Mahantongo Valley” by Henry M. Reed in the fall 1995 edition. Needless to write, this particular issue is a real inspiration. My interest in pieces made in the Mahantongo Valley of Pennsylvania stems from my love for painted furniture and for historical...
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Letters to the Editor

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Letters to the Editor New World Plaudits! I was captivated by the detailed article entitled “New Sweden and the New World – History Lessons from the Morton Homestead” by Sharon Hernes Silverman in the Winter 1999 edition. It treated one of my primary subjects of interest, John Morton (1725-1777). I have an observation about this founding father. Morton is among several signers of the Declaration of...
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Letters to the Editor

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Letters to the Editor Flight Right A friend has passed along a copy of the Summer 2001 issue of your excellent magazine. It is thus a little late to be commenting on the article by Neal Carl­son [“Taking Flight! Pittsburgh’s Gate­way to the Skies”] on Pennsylvania Central Airlines, which became Capital Air­lines in 1948. I write as one who has researched and written about that airline in several...
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Violence and Vigilantes: The KKK in Pennsylvania

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Violence and Vigilantes: The KKK in Pennsylvania It was a warm, muggy day in early August 1921 in Philadelphia when F. W. Atkins of Jacksonville, Florida, and W. J. Bellamy of Cincinnati, Ohio, rented an office in the Bellevue Court Building to quietly recruit members for “a great and patriotic crusade to save the nation.” Their goal was to organize a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Posing as a prospective KKK initiate, a...
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