Editor’s Letter

Posted by on Mar 13, 2017 in | Comments Off on Editor’s Letter This issue of Pennsylvania Heritage marks the 100th anniversary of America’s entry into the First World War in April 1917. The focus comes as part of PHMC’s Pennsylvania at War initiative, a multiyear commemoration of the centennial of World War I and the 75th anniversary of World War II. The Keystone State contributed significantly to the Allied effort in World War I, with more than...
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Into the Dark World of Catching Crooks, Culprits and Convicts: An Interview with Robert K. Wittman

Posted by on Mar 13, 2017 in | Comments Off on Into the Dark World of Catching Crooks, Culprits and Convicts: An Interview with Robert K. Wittman by Michael J. O’Malley III Robert King “Bob” Wittman in no way resembles the highly romanticized portrayals of FBI agents made famous over the decades by movie studios and television series. He is not the heavy-hitting, gang-busting, chain-smoking G-man, replete with fedora rakishly angled atop his head. Instead, he embodies the old-school preppy style – looking as though...
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Life in an Industrial Boom Town: Monessen, 1898-1923

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Life in an Industrial Boom Town: Monessen, 1898-1923 In reading about our nation’s past, we often forget how different life was for our ancestors. We read about historical figures and movements, but rarely – except in excellent historical novels – do we gain a glimpse into the living environment. We also tend to for­get that there are many past environ­ments, each producing its own style and pace of living. During the late...
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“Punishment, Penitence, and Reform”: Eastern State Penitentiary and the Controversy Over Solitary Confinement

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on “Punishment, Penitence, and Reform”: Eastern State Penitentiary and the Controversy Over Solitary Confinement In 1842, popular British novelist Charles Dickens traveled to Philadelphia to visit the mam­moth Eastern State Penitentiary. What he found caused him to lament the “picture of forlorn affliction and distress of mind.” Surrounded by an imposing thirty foot high stone wall joined by castle-like towers at rising at each corner and dominated by a grim, turreted entrance, the prison...
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Born to Organize

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Born to Organize For nearly two decades, from 1944 to 1963, in northeastern Pennsylvania’s Wyoming Valley, a center of anthracite mining, Min L. Matheson (1909-1992) and the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU) were synonymous with notions of “community.” A charitable event? Count on the ILGWU to provide volunteers and raise money. Patients at an area veterans’...
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Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World’s Stolen Treasures by Robert K. Wittman, with John Shiffman published by Broadway Paperbacks, 2011; 324 pages, paper, $15.00 While employed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Philadelphia, Robert King Wittman created and was senior investigator of the bureau’s Art Crime Team. He arrived in 1988 in Philadelphia, “home to two of the...
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