Shorts

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Shorts On Thursday, October 17 [2002], Robert Pow­ell, president of the Historical Society of Carbondale, will present a talk entitled “The Delaware and Hudson Canal Com­pany’s Gravity Railroad” at the National Canal Museum in Easton. His lecture explores the construction, operation, and development of one of the country’s pioneer railroads – a major artery for the...
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Current and Coming

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Current and Coming Steel Poetry Inspired by the various aspects of the steel industry in Bethlehem, Mildred T. Johnstone (1900-1988) created unusual canvas embroideries in the late 1940s and early 1950s. As the wife of Bethlehem Steel Corporation executive William H. Johnstone, she had the singular honor of being the first woman to tour the compa­ny’s steel mills. Although the mills have grown silent,...
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Current and Coming

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Current and Coming Constitution Center Drawn up by nearly five dozen dele­gates to the Constitutional Convention held in Philadelphia during the swelter­ing summer of 1787, the Constitution of the United States is a system of the nation’s fundamental laws, defining distinct powers for the Congress, the president, and the federal courts. Ratified by the states the following year, the Constitution offers a...
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Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf Fountains of Philadelphia: A Guide By Jim McClelland Stackpole Books, 2005 (80 pages, paper, $14.95) Fountains of Philadelphia: A Guide, replete with eighty color photographs, several maps, and a bibliography, celebrates the artistry of the city’s famous – and not-so-famous – fountains, from the monumental Washington Monument on Eakins Oval in front of the Philadelphia Museum...
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Out and About

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Out and About Shooting Modernism Luke Swank (1890-1944) was one of the pioneers of Modernism in photography. He was born in Johnstown, Cambria County, just eight months after the Flood of 1889 roared down South Creek Fork to the Little Cone­maugh River. The thundering wall of water, which reached a height of forty feet, destroyed everything in its path, including the Swank family’s hardware store. The...
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Out and About

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Out and About Lincoln in Lehigh More than one thousand objects relating to the nation’s sixteenth president are on view in a landmark exhibition, “Abraham Lincoln and the Promise of America,” currently on view at the Lehigh Valley Heritage Center and Museum in Allentown. The exhibit highlights a number of unique and rare objects, among them the ballot box in which Lincoln cast his vote in the election of 1860...
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Out and About

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Out and About On a Grand Scale For a century, the Carnegie Museum of Art’s Hall of Architecture has captivated both Pittsburghers and visitors as a portal to a magical, ancient world of architecture and as a muse for generations of aspiring artists, artisans, and architects. Today, the Hall of Architecture is recognized as a national treasure, as well as distinguished as the largest architectural cast...
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Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf Pivotal Pennsylvania: Presidential Politics from FDR to the Twenty-First Century by G. Terry Madonna published by the Pennsylvania Historical Association, 2008; 126 pages, paper, $14.95 Pivotal Pennsylvania: Presidential Politics from FDR to the Twenty-First Century by G. Terry Madonna, one of Pennsylvania’s foremost political analysts, opens with an explanation of how the Democratic Party...
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The World Through the Eyes of Charles “Teenie” Harris

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on The World Through the Eyes of Charles “Teenie” Harris Editor’s Note: Charles “Teenie” Harris photographed the events and daily life of African Americans for the Pittsburgh Courier, one of the nation’s most influential Black newspapers. One of the paper’s principal photographers from 1938 to 1975, Harris documented nearly all of the notable events in the city at that time, as well as a wide range of activities in daily...
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Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf Mrs. Goodfellow: The Story of America’s First Cooking School by Becky Libourel Diamond published by Westholme Publishing, 2012; 288 pages, cloth, $26.00 Married and widowed three times, Elizabeth Baker Pearson Coane Goodfellow (1768–1851) owned a popular bakery and sweet shop in Philadelphia during the first decades of the nineteenth century. In addition to catering to the city’s wealthy...
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