“Scenes of War Are Not Forgotten” The Civil War Drawings of Anthony Goldsmith

Posted by on Jan 14, 2026 in | Comments Off on “Scenes of War Are Not Forgotten” The Civil War Drawings of Anthony Goldsmith “The scenes of war have long since past and the Ex Soldiers have long since settled down to peaceful vocations of life yet the scenes of war are not forgotten,” a Civil War veteran wrote in an 1889 letter to his former comrade-in-arms Anthony Goldsmith (1839–99). “The picket[,] the Skirmish line[,] the Battles[,] the Raids and night marches are all fresh in our memories, yet there are many...
read more

A Quarter-Millennium of Charcoal Burning at Hopewell Furnace

Posted by on Jun 11, 2025 in | Comments Off on A Quarter-Millennium of Charcoal Burning at Hopewell Furnace Twice a year, in May and August, volunteer colliers, or charcoal makers, burn a charcoal pit at Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site as part of a living history demonstration that can be traced back to 1936. In 19th-century parlance, the colliers would be called “charcoal burners.” Charcoal burning at Hopewell Furnace itself can be traced back to 1771, the year ironmaster Mark Bird’s Hopewell...
read more

A Gem in Bucks County: Pearl S. Buck International at 60

Posted by on Mar 29, 2024 in | Comments Off on A Gem in Bucks County: Pearl S. Buck International at 60   To many Pennsylvanians, the name Pearl S. Buck is familiar as a famous past resident. Some know her as the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Good Earth and a Nobel laureate in literature. Others are aware of her as the founder of a child adoption agency, a civil rights activist, and a humanitarian. All these attributes in and of themselves are accurate descriptions of this notable...
read more

Projecting History: Lantern Slides at the Pennsylvania State Archives

Posted by on May 13, 2022 in | Comments Off on Projecting History: Lantern Slides at the Pennsylvania State Archives   Before digital projectors and PowerPoint, before the carousel slide or 35mm film strips, and before the overhead, there was the lantern slide. A simple method of projecting images onto a large space, lantern slides were a technological marvel that revolutionized home entertainment, education and photography in Pennsylvania and beyond. Lantern slides, often called “magic lantern slides,”...
read more

Archaeology at Joanna Furnace

Posted by on Mar 14, 2022 in | Comments Off on Archaeology at Joanna Furnace When did you first know what you wanted to do when you grew up? My plans varied in childhood, but by my early teens I knew that I loved past cultures and old items. By high school, I was considering Egyptology or Romanology and longed to visit ancient cities with thousands of years of history that I was reading about in Archaeology magazine, books and my Latin class. A visit to one of the fall...
read more

Preservation Success in All Shapes and Sizes

Posted by on Dec 1, 2021 in | Comments Off on Preservation Success in All Shapes and Sizes In May 2021 the Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office (PA SHPO) asked Pennsylvanians to send in their preservation success stories to celebrate National Historic Preservation Month. Now, PA SHPO is welcoming success stories all year long — not just in May. A preservation success story can be an activity, event, person, organization or place that shines a spotlight on efforts across the...
read more

A Gathering at the Crossroads: Memorializing African American Trailblazers and a Lost Neighborhood in Harrisburg

Posted by on Mar 25, 2021 in | Comments Off on A Gathering at the Crossroads: Memorializing African American Trailblazers and a Lost Neighborhood in Harrisburg Twice during the second half of 2020, people gathered at Harrisburg’s Capitol Park to witness the dedication of A Gathering at the Crossroads, a monument commemorating four statewide civil rights crusaders and the African American residents of a now-vanished neighborhood in Harrisburg who contributed to the commonwealth’s entrenched legacy of freedom. The monument, sculpted by Becky Ault,...
read more

Delivery, Ritual and Discretion: Discovering the Past in an Early Pennsylvania Midwife’s Register

Posted by on Feb 10, 2021 in | Comments Off on Delivery, Ritual and Discretion: Discovering the Past in an Early Pennsylvania Midwife’s Register Hoofbeats on the dirt path announced the arrival of the midwife, who traveled on horseback from her home at Lower Salford in Pennsylvania’s Montgomery County to attend a birth at the residence of the Haag family in nearby Franconia Township on August 1, 1770. Johannes Haag was the first delivery attended by Rosina (Krauss) Heydrich (1737–1828) when she began her Hebamme Büchlein, or midwife’s...
read more

House on a Hill: Connecting with the Past in Western Pennsylvania

Posted by on Dec 3, 2020 in | Comments Off on House on a Hill: Connecting with the Past in Western Pennsylvania “It is our family and local histories that are our most precious parts of culture, in my estimation. They put ‘meat on the bones’ of the artifacts we find. Of course, all family history is myth until we have the documentation that backs it up.” — Lynne Humphries-Russ   The narrow access road was hidden, and I almost missed the turnoff. I was anxious to see the...
read more

Finding Truth in the Frame: Leah Frances’ Discovery of Pennsylvania’s Historic Places

Posted by on Oct 15, 2020 in | Comments Off on Finding Truth in the Frame: Leah Frances’ Discovery of Pennsylvania’s Historic Places The National Park Service describes historic preservation as “a conversation with our past about our future.” Historic places are vital to this conversation, revealing the stories about the events, people and developments of a community’s past and representing its identity. In 1935 Verne E. Chatelain, a pioneer of public history and the first National Park Service historian, wrote the paper...
read more