From the Executive Director

Posted by on Nov 29, 2021 in | Comments Off on From the Executive Director Last weekend at The State Museum of Pennsylvania, I met a member of the Delaware Tribe (the Lenape). He grew up in Oklahoma, where his tribe is located today, and this was his first visit to Pennsylvania. Prior to coming to Harrisburg, he had visited the Delaware Water Gap. I was captivated as he talked about seeing the Delaware River for the first time. The river looms large in Lenape history,...
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War and Tranquility: From Gettysburg to Glen with Robert Bruce Ricketts

Posted by on May 8, 2015 in | Comments Off on War and Tranquility: From Gettysburg to Glen with Robert Bruce Ricketts The order was clear. Capt. Robert Bruce Ricketts and his two companies of artillery were to hold the Union’s left flank on East Cemetery Hill just beyond the outskirts of Gettysburg. “In case you are charged here,” Ricketts’ commanding officer Col. C.S. Wainwright told him, “you will not limber up under any circumstances, but fight your battery as long as you can.” The reality facing Ricketts on...
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The Road to Resorts: Transportation and Tourism in Monroe County

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Road to Resorts: Transportation and Tourism in Monroe County Monroe County flourishes today as a lush, verdant resort and popular recreational area on the periphery of metropolitan centers. Tourism is sup­plemented by light industry which has left the largely rural setting relatively intact. Essentially, the county offers open countryside through which travelers make good time on interstate highways on their way to or from major cities and in which they...
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Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf Organizing Archival Records by David W. Carmicheal Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1993 (53 pages, paper, $9.95) Subtitled A Practical Method of Arrangement and Description for Small Archives, this compact book is an easy-to-use “how-to” guide for community associa­tions, fraternal organizations, church groups, and local and county historical societies. This invaluable...
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A Wooded Watershed (1926) by Daniel Garber

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on A Wooded Watershed (1926) by Daniel Garber Its whereabouts unknown to art historians and enthusiasts for nearly seventy years, a spectacular mural by acclaimed American artist Daniel Garber (1880-1958), one of the most famous members of the New Hope School, was recently rediscovered and returned to Bucks County, where it had been painted in 1926. Garber’s masterpiece, A Wooded Watershed, was originally commissioned by the...
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Letters to the Editor

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Letters to the Editor Bridge It I noticed what appears to be an error in a photo caption in the article on Pennsylva­nia’s bridges [“Bridging the Past for the Future” by Eric DeLony, Winter 2000]. On page 14, in reference to the third picture in the center of the page, the caption indicates “Sharon Bridge, Mercer County, submerged by flood waters in March 1913.” The Sharon bridge in this...
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Shorts

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Shorts The Internet Unplugged: The World-Wide Moravian Network, 1732-1858, an exhibit chronicling Moravian Church communi­cation in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, has been recently unveiled by the Moravian Historical Society in Nazareth. The exhibit, which runs through Sunday, October 21 [2001], surveys the ways in which Moravians kept abreast of developments, as well as exchanged ideas and...
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Maurice K. Goddard: The Commonwealth’s Conservation Czar

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Maurice K. Goddard: The Commonwealth’s Conservation Czar There is a point in crossing the top of the Allegheny Mountains between Pittsburgh and Harris­burg at which a traveler sees, at every turn, only trees. It is one of the most spectacular views on the North American Continent. The scene lacks the frenetic energy of Niagara Falls, or the awe-filling majesty of the Grand Canyon, but this several­-hundred-square-mile panorama of second-growth forest...
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Lorraine Apartments

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Lorraine Apartments The Lorraine Apartments was among Philadelphia’s earliest high-rise apartment houses. Designed by Philadelphia architect Willis G. Hale (1848-1907), the ten-story building, built in 1892-1893 in the heart of the burgeoning nouveau riche neighborhood of North Broad Street, exemplified the rapidly changing possibilities of urban life that swept across the country at the time. Its innovations...
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Lost and Found

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Lost and Found Lost In 1970, the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) deemed St. John Evangelist Episcopal Church, Dingmans Ferry, Pike County, to be in excellent condition and considered it noteworthy because it retained many of its original details, including Celtic crosses, stained glass windows, lancet entrance, and an open belfry. St. John’s parish was originally organized to serve not only full time...
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