18th Century Blanket Chest at Daniel Boone Homestead

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on 18th Century Blanket Chest at Daniel Boone Homestead Although its maker and country of origin have been obscured by the passage of time, one fact is clear: a decorated blanket chest, dated 1785, at the Daniel Boone Homestead, near Birdsboro, Berks County, is a highly important example of eighteenth-century rural Pennsylvania German furniture. The blanket chest was a hallmark of early Pennsylvania Germans, who used it for storage, unlike the...
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Railroads on Parade Poster at Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Railroads on Parade Poster at Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania Millions who flocked to the 1939 New York World’s Fair were awed by its Railroad Exhibit, the largest single attraction on site, which occupied seventeen acres. The exhibit’s Railroads on Parade, hailed as “a mighty stage spectacle presented on the world’s largest stage,” impressed spectators with four daily performances that featured a cast of 250, music by...
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Commonplace Book at Graeme Park

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Commonplace Book at Graeme Park Elizabeth Graeme Ferguson (1737-1801) had unwittingly earned an estimable literary reputation with her letters to friends in America while traveling abroad in the mid-1760s. Because women were barred from attending college or from joining learned societies, she organized salons, informal gatherings for the discussion of literature and the arts, for the intelligentsia of Philadelphia, often at...
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1928 Pennant at Conrad Weiser Homestead

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on 1928 Pennant at Conrad Weiser Homestead During an age of uncertainty, marked by tenuous alliances and shifting allegiances, Conrad Weiser (1696-1760) emerged to become many things to many people: frontiersman, interpreter, treaty-maker, negotiator, Indian agent, and justice. During the French and Indian War, he played a pivotal role as a provincial officer and diplomat. Nearly two hundred years after his death, the Conrad Weiser...
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Cast Iron Kitchen Stove at Eckley Miners’ Village

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Cast Iron Kitchen Stove at Eckley Miners’ Village Many immigrants working in northeastern Pennsylvania’s anthracite region in the nineteenth century lived in “patches,” small villages laid out and owned by coal companies adjacent to their mining operations. Of their possessions, immigrants prized their cast iron stoves not only for the comforts – cooking and heating – they provided, but also took great pride in...
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King Coal at Pennsylvania Anthracite Heritage Museum

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on King Coal at Pennsylvania Anthracite Heritage Museum During its centennial in 1946, the Pennsylvania Railroad Company commissioned Jerome George Rozen (1895-1987) to create King Coal which illustrated an advertisement, “More Wonders Than Aladdin’s Lamp,” in Coal Age magazine. Rozen – whose twin brother George Jerome (1895-1974) was also an illustrator – worked for a number of publishers and magazines, among them The...
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Reenactments at Bushy Run Battlefield

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Reenactments at Bushy Run Battlefield Colonel Henry Bouquet and a force of four hundred British soldiers left Carlisle in July 1763 to relieve the besieged Fort Pitt and end a series of attacks against frontier outposts. On August 5 and 6, Bouquet and his forces scored a decisive victory over the Native Americans at the Battle of Bushy Run, helping to ensure the opening of western Pennsylvania to settlement. At Bushy Run...
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Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve at Washington Crossing Historic Park

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve at Washington Crossing Historic Park As gardeners and travelers – as if to ward off winter’s chill – turn their thoughts to spring, they need look no further than Washington Crossing Historic Park in Bucks County. Although most know the saga of the general’s courageous crossing of the icy Delaware River on Christmas Day 1776, few realize that the park also encompasses Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve....
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Levan Ledger at Brandywine Battlefield

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Levan Ledger at Brandywine Battlefield From the late eighteenth through the mid-nineteenth centuries, Jacob Levan and his son Benjamin kept a ledger for a store or gristmill they operated in Maxatawney Township, Berks County. In addition to listing, in German script, the names of customers, types of goods they purchased, and the prices paid, the account book,contains, in English, the muster rolls of “Capt. Jacob Mauser’s...
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Gnagey Blanket Chest at Somerset Historical Center

Posted by on Nov 24, 2013 in | Comments Off on Gnagey Blanket Chest at Somerset Historical Center Among the most famous makers in the history of southwestern Pennsylvania furniture is Jacob Gnagey (1796-1883), a farmer and cabinetmaker who lived in Summit Township, Somerset County. In 1862,he made a blanket chest for Israel Folam, possibly as a wedding present on his marriage to Lydia Vought, township residents. With its distinctive hand-forged hinges, finely dovetailed joints, red...
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