The Gentleman from Pennsylvania: An Interview with William W. Scranton

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Gentleman from Pennsylvania: An Interview with William W. Scranton Bill Scranton is precisely what one expects of a diplomat and statesman. He is courtly, not supercilious. He is a good conversationalist, but not loquacious or self-aggrandizing. He is as graceful as he is gracious. His recall of the people and the places and the events in his life is phenomenal. In the best of northeastern Pennsylvania’s vernacular, he is a Class Act – and in a...
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Living for Reform

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Living for Reform For too long, Joseph A. Yablonski (1910-1969) – known to most simply as Jock – had seen things go wrong in the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), once a respected labor union. He had served in its hierarchy but with an increasingly troubled conscience. What mattered to him most was that things had to change and he had to lead the charge to change them. He ardently believed that...
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Letters to the Editor

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Letters to the Editor Class in Camelot The early 1960s may have seen America’s “Camelot” of President and Mrs. John F. Kennedy, but we had our own magical kingdom here in Pennsylvania as well with the administration of Governor William W. Scranton. I enjoyed the recent article on Governor Scranton [“The Gentle­man from Pennsylvania: An Interview with William W. Scranton” by Michael J....
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David L. Lawrence, the Deft Hand Behind Pittsburgh’s – and Pennsylvania’s – Politics

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on David L. Lawrence, the Deft Hand Behind Pittsburgh’s – and Pennsylvania’s – Politics David Leo Lawrence (1889-1966), governor of Pennsylvania from 1959 to 1963, and mayor of Pittsburgh from 1946 to 1959, during the city’s first heralded renaissance, was a professional politician to the very core. Ranked as one of America’s great chief executives among big cities, Lawrence immersed himself in politics, beginning at the age of fourteen when he became a city Democratic...
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Born a Leader for Pennsylvania

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Born a Leader for Pennsylvania The essence of life is unconditional, non-judgmental love,” explains George Michael Leader when asked to sum-up his philosophy. He writes poetry, models and advocates wellness, leads community humanitarian projects, reads extensively, and oversees a family corpora­tion he founded that includes nursing facili­ties and retirement communities. In his ninth decade he is, as he has always been,...
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Documents for Freedom and Equality of African Americans

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Documents for Freedom and Equality of African Americans One of the primary responsibilities of the Pennsylvania State Archives is to maintain and make available records that document and safeguard the civic and property rights of Pennsylvanians. Many records document the struggle for freedom and equality of the Commonwealth’s African Americans. As early as the seventeenth century, some Pennsylvanians were concerned with the manner in which...
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Maurice K. Goddard: The Commonwealth’s Conservation Czar

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Maurice K. Goddard: The Commonwealth’s Conservation Czar There is a point in crossing the top of the Allegheny Mountains between Pittsburgh and Harris­burg at which a traveler sees, at every turn, only trees. It is one of the most spectacular views on the North American Continent. The scene lacks the frenetic energy of Niagara Falls, or the awe-filling majesty of the Grand Canyon, but this several­-hundred-square-mile panorama of second-growth forest...
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Keeping the Torch of Justice Burning Brightly: William P. Young

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Keeping the Torch of Justice Burning Brightly: William P. Young He faced criticism at his appointment, confronted adversity in his duties, and battled poor health in his later years, but he kept the torch of justice burning brightly for all to see, maintaining his dignity and poise at every turn. He was William Pennington Young (1895-1968), the Keystone State’s fifteenth secretary of labor and industry, from 1963 to 1967, during the administration of...
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Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf Devastation and Renewal: An Environmental History of Pittsburgh and its Region Edited by Joel A. Tarr University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004 (281 pages, cloth, $32.00) Visitors to Pittsburgh in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were invariably shocked by the ways in which industrial development dominated the landscape. Steel mills sprawled across hundreds of acres along the rivers. Land and...
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Remembering a Twentieth-Century Public Servant

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Remembering a Twentieth-Century Public Servant They gathered at their Lake Ariel cottage in rural Wayne County on a warm summer weekend in 1985. For Bob and Ellen Casey, the house on the Jake was their favorite retreat, filled with many happy memories. Casey treasured being with family, as he later would reflect, “The overarching memory of the time when our children were young was the sheer fun we all had together.” While cooking...
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