Radio Station KDKA

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Radio Station KDKA On Tuesday evening, November 2, 1920, about one thousand people in the Pittsburgh area listened to the results of the presidential election of candidates Warren G. Harding and James M. Cox on “wireless” receivers. Transmitted by a one hundred-watt station that would become KDKA, this was something new-radio broadcasting. And radio would revolutionize communication just as the...
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Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf Pennsylvania: A History of the Commonwealth By Randall M. Miller and William Pencak, editors Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission and The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002 (688 pages; cloth, $49.95; paper, $24.95) Pennsylvania: A History of the Commonwealth is the first comprehensive history of the Keystone State in thirty years. Nearly a decade in the making, this weighty tome...
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Trainloads of Goodwill and Gratitude

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Trainloads of Goodwill and Gratitude Pittsburghers, on the evening of Saturday, November 15, 1947, witnessed a ceremony at the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) Station that marked the beginning of an extraordinary occurrence: the journey of a Friendship Train across the Keystone State. By the time it reached Philadelphia, three days and seven stops later, the train hauled an additional fifty-one cavernous boxcars packed to capacity with...
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Abraham Lincoln Mask (1860) by Leonard W. Volk

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Abraham Lincoln Mask (1860) by Leonard W. Volk One of the most famous likenesses of President Abraham Lincoln is an unusu­al life-mask made in March 1860 by sculptor Leonard W. Volk (1828-1895) in his Chicago studio. Volk measured Lin­coln’s head and upper torso and made a plaster impression of his face, on which he based his exquisite bust of the beard­less future president. Lincoln’s life-mask lay neglected for twenty years,...
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Minersville V. Gobitis

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Minersville V. Gobitis People all over the world consider America to be a great country, partly because of the many free­doms and rights it offers to its citizens. With these rights, as with any rights, come responsibilities. Some, such as obedience to laws and payment of taxes, are very clear, but oth­ers are more complicated and sometimes even controversial. Such responsibilities include those involving patriotism...
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Philadelphia’s Settlement Music School Celebrates 100 Years of Magic

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Philadelphia’s Settlement Music School Celebrates 100 Years of Magic One hundred years ago, in 1908, two community-minded, socially-conscious single young women, Philadelphians Jeanette Selig (1886–1965) and Blanche Wolf (1886–1983), unwittingly created a school that’s become recognized as the largest community arts school in the United States, serving more than fifteen thousand students. In 1982, as the Settlement Music School observed its seventy-fifth...
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Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf Sweet William: The Life of Billy Conn by Andrew O’Toole published by the University of Illinois Press, 2008; 253 pages, cloth, $32.95 An Irish working-class hero of Pittsburgh, William David “Billy” Conn (1917–1993) captured the hearts of his contemporaries with his stellar boxing record, ebullient personality, and good looks. A lightweight boxing champion, Conn had defeated nine current or...
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Museum and Visitor Center at Gettysburg National Military Park

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Museum and Visitor Center at Gettysburg National Military Park The newly opened, $103 million Museum and Visitor Center at Gettysburg National Military Park, the result of a cooperative project between the National Park Service and the Gettysburg Foundation, places the American Civil War’s turning point in perspective, using exhibits, sound, video, and setting to give visitors a deeper understanding of the war and its impact. A decade in the making, the...
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James A. Finnegan (1906-1958)

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on James A. Finnegan (1906-1958) At the 1956 Democratic Convention in Chicago, former President Harry S. Truman greeted Philadelphian James A. Finnegan (1906–1958) and asked how he was. “Very good,” replied Finnegan. “I hope it isn’t too good!” Truman quipped. Truman had endorsed New York Governor William Averell Harriman for the Democratic nomination for president. Finnegan served as campaign manager for former Illinois...
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Letters

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Letters Down Memory Lane Thanks for the fascinating article on the WPA models [“‘Art with a Purpose’: Pennsylvania’s Museum Extension Project, 1935–1943,” by Curtis Miner, Spring 2008]. When I was a kid – more than forty years ago – I helped around our grade school in a little community near Chicago. I recall seeing several architectural models in a storeroom,...
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