His Eye Was On the Positive

Ask a well-informed Philadelphian who it is that photo­graphs local society, and the answer will probably be a resounding “Fabian Bach­rach.” Few people know that for more than thirty years – from 1936 to 1967 – a Black photographer, John W. Mosley, was the photographer for mid­dle and professional class Black Philadelphians, and that virtually every significant social...
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Currents

Famous Faces John W. Mosley (1907-1969), characterized by an admirer as “our most magnificent and beloved photographer,” was Philadelphia’s leading black photographer, whose images appeared in nearly every African American newspaper on the East Coast (see “His Eye Was On The Positive” by Richard D. Beards in the winter 1990 edition of Pennsylvania Heritage)....
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Wanted: Women to Meet the Wartime Challenge! A Pictorial Essay

A woman’s place is in the home. That time-honored maxim certainly held true until the out­break of World War II. This selection of photographs and posters – some startling, some engaging – tells the story of a world turned topsy-turvy. Drawn from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission’s Bureau of Archives and History, the Charles L. Blockson Afro­-American...
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Celebrating Fifty Years of State Historical Markers

On a September day in 1946, three men stood alongside U.S. Route 22, fourteen miles east of Harrisburg, inspecting a distinctive blue and gold sign that had just been erected. They were James H. Duff, chairman of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (who in four months would be inaugurated the Commonwealth’s thirty­-fourth governor), and Commission members Charles G. Webb and...
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Executive Director’s Message

State historical markers, one of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission’s oldest and most popular programs, are in the spotlight again this year with two exciting initiatives. First, the Commission just published the sixth edition of our perennially popular Guide to the State Historical Markers of Pennsylvania. The guidebook, totaling four hundred and fifty pages, locates more...
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