A Culture of Sharing: Family and Community in Pennsylvania’s Anthracite Region, 1900-1940

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on A Culture of Sharing: Family and Community in Pennsylvania’s Anthracite Region, 1900-1940 Prior to the establishment of widespread governmental assis­tance programs such as social se­curity and various other forms of social services, the working people of industri­al America devised their own means of survival and support. Drawing on the resources of family members and neigh­bors, ordinary individuals created tight­ly-knit communities in which limited in­comes, food and emotions were...
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“Little Doc”: Architect Of Modern Nursing

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on “Little Doc”: Architect Of Modern Nursing Lavinia Lloyd Dock (1858-1956) labored long and hard as educator, settlement worker, historian, author, editor, columnist, pacifist and radical suffragist. Beyond this, she strove to internationalize the public health movement while continually elevating the status of women. But her contributions to the field of nursing­ – which helped transform what was then a despised trade into a...
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The Man Who Bought Alice in Wonderland

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Man Who Bought Alice in Wonderland On April 3, 1928, a slightly tipsy world, still reeling through the heady Twen­ties, focused its attention on Sotheby’s in London, where one of history’s most famous and beloved of all books was about to be auctioned. Through Sotheby’s dark pas­sages, an excited throng tum­bled into the large auction gallery to see who would offer the winning bid for Lewis Carroll’s...
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Against All Odds: Chevalier Jackson, Physician and Painter

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Against All Odds: Chevalier Jackson, Physician and Painter After he had observed his seventieth birth­day, Dr. Chevalier Jackson described downtown Pittsburgh of 1865, his birthplace, as dark, gloomy, and dirty. His recollec­tions of 1888, the year he es­tablished a medical practice in an old tailor shop on Sixth Avenue, were particularly vivid. All winter long we lived as in a dark, cold, damp cellar. The sun was visible, on an average, four days in a...
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Presence from the Past: A Gift to the Future Through Historic Preservation

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Presence from the Past: A Gift to the Future Through Historic Preservation The United States is a nation and a people on the move. It is in an era of mobility and change … The result is a feeling of rootlessness combined with a longing for those land­marks of the past which give us a sense of stability and belonging … If the preservation movement is to be successful, it must go beyond saving bricks and mortar. It must go beyond saving occasional historic...
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The Home Kids Find a Place of Their Own

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Home Kids Find a Place of Their Own In 1912, Isador Sobel, born in New York in 1858, was an individual of considerable standing in Erie, where he had studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1888. Three years later he was elected to city council and during his second term served as president. President William McKinley appointed him Erie’s postmaster in 1898, as did President Theodore Roosevelt in 1902 and 1906, and...
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Crusader with a Camera: Lewis Hine and His Battle against Child “Slavery”

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Crusader with a Camera: Lewis Hine and His Battle against Child “Slavery” National History Day, held each year in June, caps a series of competi­tions conducted at successively higher levels during the academic year. During the year, school students engage in extensive research of primary sources in order to prepare papers, projects, performances, and media presentations based on a historical theme. National History Day is open to students in grades six through eight,...
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Meet Mister Rogers, Everybody’s Neighbor

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Meet Mister Rogers, Everybody’s Neighbor “The greatest gift that you can give anybody,” says Fred McFeely Rogers, “is the gift of your honest self. And that’s what I try to do with the Neighborhood.” Television personality, writer, composer, and beloved neighbor worldwide, Rogers speaks of his vision for Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, the longest running program on Public Broadcasting System (PBS). But...
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Preserving The Past, Protecting The Future: The State Museum Of Pennsylvania

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Preserving The Past, Protecting The Future: The State Museum Of Pennsylvania Part of a museum’s mission is to collect, safeguard, exhibit, and interpret relevant objects and artifacts, and The State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg fulfills this goal with singular distinction. Since 1905, the institution has preserved vast collections that chronicle the Commonwealth’s history and natural heritage from earth’s beginning to the present (see...
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My Day at the Bargaining Table

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on My Day at the Bargaining Table Our family consisted of seven children, my mother, who had emigrated from Italy in 1908, and my father, who was born in Carbondale, Lackawanna County. We lived in a small anthracite (or hard coal) mining town, Old Forge, also in Lackawanna County. Dad began working as a breaker boy in the coal industry when he was fifteen years old. After years of such hard labor, Dad began to try to rectify the...
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