Repressing Disease in Cattle: The Career of Pennsylvania Veterinarian Leonard Pearson

Posted by on Sep 12, 2022 in | Comments Off on Repressing Disease in Cattle: The Career of Pennsylvania Veterinarian Leonard Pearson In 1900 there were 224,248 farms and nearly a million dairy cows in Pennsylvania. The livelihood of dairy farmers depended almost entirely on the health of their cows. Dairy cows were vulnerable to a variety of diseases, but the most feared was tuberculosis. In Pennsylvania, bovine tuberculosis killed more cows than any other infectious disease, and it often destroyed entire herds. Bovine...
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Searching for Mountain Mary: The Life and Legend of an Early Pennsylvania Saint

Posted by on Nov 30, 2021 in | Comments Off on Searching for Mountain Mary: The Life and Legend of an Early Pennsylvania Saint “There, underneath this mountain stone, Lies Mary Young, who lived alone, High on the lofty mountainside, Beloved and honored till she died.” —Ralph Bigony, 1846   Enshrined in works of art and immortalized in poetry, the life and deeds of Mountain Mary, or Anna Maria Jung (1744–1819), has become one of the preeminent legends of early southeastern Pennsylvania, embodying the spirit of the...
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Butter v. Margarine

Posted by on Oct 8, 2020 in | Comments Off on Butter v. Margarine Butter and margarine have been at war since the latter was invented in France in 1869. Made from beef tallow, “oleomargarine,” as it was originally called, arrived in the United States in the 1870s. It was marketed as a cheaper and less perishable alternative to butter. This threat to butter sales led many American dairy farmers to wage campaigns against the new product in legislatures and...
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Women Made the Breadbasket of Democracy

Posted by on Jun 8, 2020 in | Comments Off on Women Made the Breadbasket of Democracy Picturing the Pennsylvania home front during World War II might call to mind images of women working in munitions plants or shipyards. Rosie the Riveter, immortalized in a 1942 war work-incentive poster, was said to be inspired by women employed in the Westinghouse East Pittsburgh Works. Outside the factories, however, women also sustained and transformed agriculture, feeding the war effort....
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Juniata’s Hills: “Rolling Over Crags to Woodlands”

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Juniata’s Hills: “Rolling Over Crags to Woodlands” Oh, the hills of Juniata, Oh, her stony wooded hills, and her flower-scented valleys and her crystal streams and rills, Rolling over crags to woodlands, ‘Tis a sight worth far to go, Sun-kissed hills of Juniata, Oh, they thrill and still me so. The above lines are taken from the county poem (officially accepted as such during the 1981 Tercentenary celebration), written by the late Dr....
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Bradford County: Sanctuary in the Meadows

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bradford County: Sanctuary in the Meadows It seemed as implausible as it was urgent: that French aristo­crats, the select inner circle closest to King Louis XVI, and perhaps even Marie Antionette herself, would flee the conti­nent and take refuge in the immense and isolated wilderness of what is now Bradford County. Implausible or not, a band of brave French exiles – the crown’s endangered courtiers and office­holders,...
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Bedford County: From Indian Trails to Tourist Resorts

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bedford County: From Indian Trails to Tourist Resorts In the summer of 1728, thirteen brave pioneers made their way north through the wilderness from Virginia. The trail brought these Virginians into the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains, where they set­tled, only returning to Virginia to bring their families north. The area was rich with game and several trapped along the streams. One built a gristmill and another a trading post. These members...
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Wyoming County: A Portrait of the Picturesque

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Wyoming County: A Portrait of the Picturesque The Endless Mountains region of northeastern Pennsylvania contains the rurally unspoiled and uncrowded Wyoming County, attracting both visitor and sports enthusiast with its picturesque valleys and charm­ing villages. Fed by the waters of the North Branch of the Susquehanna River, which diagonally bisects the three hundred and ninety-six square mile county, this county lies at the northern end...
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Crawford County: Welcoming the 21st Century

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Crawford County: Welcoming the 21st Century We passed over some good land since we eft Venango, and through several extensive and very rich meadows, one of which, I believe, was nearly four miles in length, and consid­erably wide in some places. Twenty-one year old George Washington, who would in time become a major landholder and land specula­tor, described Crawford County in 1753 as he carried a dispatch demanding the com­mander of the...
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Stewards of the Land

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Stewards of the Land Penn’s Woods possesses a rich agrarian heritage and its inhabitants have long borne an abiding stewardship for the land, a time-honored conviction that remains deeply embedded in the more than sixty-three thousand farming families that call Pennsylvania home. From the fertile landscape sprouts a $57 billion economic endeavor that supports one in seven jobs, making agriculture the...
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