“Keeping with the Dignity of the Commonwealth”: 50 Years of the Pennsylvania Governor’s Residence

Posted by on Dec 1, 2019 in | Comments Off on “Keeping with the Dignity of the Commonwealth”: 50 Years of the Pennsylvania Governor’s Residence The stately Pennsylvania Governor’s Residence overlooking the Susquehanna River at 2035 North Front Street in the Uptown neighborhood of Harrisburg, Dauphin County, reaches its half-century mark in 2018, a milestone that is being observed with a variety of events and programs throughout the year. The Georgian Revival mansion was completed in 1968, during the term of Gov. Raymond P. Shafer, its...
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Wrench in the Machine: The Shapp Gubernatorial Campaign’s Media Blitz of 1966

Posted by on Nov 11, 2019 in | Comments Off on Wrench in the Machine: The Shapp Gubernatorial Campaign’s Media Blitz of 1966 Pennsylvania and machine politics were synonymous for years, even into the 1960s when reformers and direct primaries thwarted old-style machine politics in other states. Political machines with their control over patronage and nominations had dominated Pennsylvania’s politics since the Civil War, but even the direct primary failed to usher in a new, more open system. That changed suddenly when...
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The Pennsylvania Turnpike, From Tollbooths to Tunnels: Rediscovering America’s First Superhighway at 75

Posted by on Apr 12, 2016 in | Comments Off on The Pennsylvania Turnpike, From Tollbooths to Tunnels: Rediscovering America’s First Superhighway at 75 Few Pennsylvania-born celebrities have made the kind of splash that the Pennsylvania Turnpike did when it first arrived on the scene in October 1940. Its 160 miles of limited-access, four-lane paved highway across the Alleghenies were hailed as America’s answer to the Autobahn, Germany’s highly regarded network of high-speed “super roads.” After the war, as the United States’ population expanded...
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Okie Speaks for Pennsbury, Part I

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Okie Speaks for Pennsbury, Part I It is no secret that restoring an old house presents a number of headaches, not the least being the question of authenticity. But imagine what it is like to virtually re-create a structure that has been missing for over a century. Most architects would claim that it is impossible, even with good drawings and the best intentions. Never­theless, with a streak of optimism and the blessing of...
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America’s Dream Highway

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on America’s Dream Highway Almost no one could have foreseen, fifty years ago, that an experiment in trans­portation engineering mean­dering across the rugged southern Alleghenies could profoundly affect the way tens of millions of Americans tra­vel. But from the very day it opened on October 1, 1940, the Pennsylvania Turnpike did just that – despite the fact that its first section ran from nowhere to nowhere. The...
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Currents

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Currents Feathered Friends An exhibition entitled “Fine Feathered Friends: Rare Ornithological Books from the Francis R. Cope, Jr., Collec­tion” will open at the Library Company of Philadelphia on Monday, April 25 [1994]. The collection contains major works by the most important ornithologists of the nine­teenth century, including John James Audubon, John Gould, Daniel Giraud Elliot, and R....
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Mailbox

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Mailbox For its fall conference, the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society (CHBTS) of the Hagley Museum and Library is issuing a call for papers. The theme of this year’s conference is “Significant Locales: Business, Labor, and Industry in the Mid-Atlantic Region.” Proposals are being sought for papers dealing with aspects of business, labor, and industrial...
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New Sweden and The New World – History Lessons From the Morton Homestead

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on New Sweden and The New World – History Lessons From the Morton Homestead Years before William Penn and his Quaker followers set foot on America’s shores, Swedish settlers had established a settlement along the Delaware River and Bay. On this land, now part of both Pennsylvania and Delaware, stands the Morton Homestead, an emissary from a past, an emissary that tells the story of a powerful Swedish king, a white, sandy shore and primeval forest, peaceful fur...
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Banned In Pennsylvania!

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Banned In Pennsylvania! During the nearly half century of its powerful reign, no one exemplified the Keystone State’s film censorship board more dramatically than Philadelphian Edna Rothwell Carroll (1894-1981), its chairman from 1939 to 1955. Determined, self-possessed, and intensely devoted to her mission – to protect the public from movies deemed immoral – she had been active in Republican Party...
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Slaying the Republican Giant: John B. Kelly and the Rise of Philadelphia’s Democratic Party

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Slaying the Republican Giant: John B. Kelly and the Rise of Philadelphia’s Democratic Party Philadelphia’s mayoral election of 1935 promised to be a contest of epic proportions. For nearly three-quarters of a century, since the end of the Civil War, Republicans had virtually controlled nearly every phase of city government. Their success had rested on their historical legacy as “the Party of Lincoln, the Great Emancipator.” By the early 1930s, however, Philadelphians...
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