Commemorating a Centennial by Revising a Vision

The American museum was and is an idea. The European museum was a fact. Almost without exception the European museum was first a collection. With few exceptions most American museums were first an ideal,” Philadelphian Nathaniel Burt wrote in his 1977 history of the American museum, Palaces for People. Unlike their European counterparts, which were usually created to house the great...
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The Forgotten Revolution: Women and Telegraphy in Pennsylvania

Today, few would even begin to doubt that society is in the midst of a global telecommunications revolution, brought about by the introduction of new technologies such as the Internet and wireless communications. This revolution, however, has deep historical roots, dating to the 1840s with the building of the world’s first wired network of digital communication – the telegraph...
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