Editor’s Letter

Seventy-five years ago, unbridled industrial enterprise took its toll on the mill town of Donora in southwestern Pennsylvania when a low-lying smog of chemical toxins from the local steel and zinc plants enveloped the community. The Donora Smog of October 1948 claimed the lives of 20 people during the five-day crisis, later about 50 others, and caused long-term respiratory problems for nearly half of the town’s population. For this edition’s cover story, “Gasping for Air,” journalist Peter Durantine traveled to Donora to explore the topography of the disaster and interview Donora Smog Museum historians Brian Charlton and Mark Pawelec for their present-day perspectives on the event. Following a brief history of Donora’s origins and a discussion of the smog’s causes, Durantine presents vivid episodes of the townspeople and their experiences, emphasizing the human element of the catastrophe that would become the catalyst for subsequent federal and state laws to improve air quality and protect the environment.

The National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the most extensive legislation enacted by the federal government to preserve the nation’s historic properties, was still in its infancy when the administration at West Chester University razed its original 1871 green serpentine stone–faced main building to make way for a new modernist structure, despite protest from students, alumni, faculty and historians. More than 50 years later, West Chester professor of history Anne E. Krulikowski revives the university’s “Old Main” here in “Victorian Modern vs. Midcentury Modern.” The article adroitly illustrates how a building can represent more than its function and how its demolition can obscure this meaning — in this case, the loss of an architectural treasure from the early days of teacher training institutions, carrying a century of history, tradition and identity, from a time when it served as the sole structure for the school to its place in the center of a growing university, where generations of students lived and learned.

On an upbeat note, two additional articles in this issue commemorate football history in the Keystone State. In a special minifeature, sports historian Bob Fulton tells the amusing story of football’s first night game in “Let There Be Light,” about the 1892 match between Mansfield Normal School and Wyoming Seminary at Mansfield’s Smythe Park under dim illumination from a pole mounted directly in the center of the field.

And, in “Late Bloomer to Soaring Eagle,” longtime Pennsylvania Heritage contributor William C. Kashatus delivers yet another compelling interview with a sports legend: football Hall of Famer Harold Carmichael, wide receiver with the Philadelphia Eagles for 13 seasons — from 1971 to 1983. The conversation follows the trajectory of Carmichael’s career — from his high school and college years to his seventh-round selection by the Eagles, his breakout year of 1973 to his long streak of consecutive games with at least one reception, and his essential role on the team that took the Eagles to the Super Bowl in January 1981. It’s an engaging discussion with a player considered by many sports analysts and Eagles fans to be among the team’s all-time greatest.

Kyle R. Weaver
Editor