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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Pennsylvania’s Forgotten Roseland: George Cochran Lambdin and Rose Culture in Germantown

Posted by on Aug 23, 2021 in | Comments Off on Pennsylvania’s Forgotten Roseland: George Cochran Lambdin and Rose Culture in Germantown Hugh Scott (1900–94), a Pennsylvania lawmaker and Republican who served in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1947–59, and the U.S. Senate, 1959–77, was an avid rosarian who actively worked to have the rose proclaimed as the official flower of the United States — a feat he accomplished when President Ronald Reagan signed appropriate legislation in 1986. A resident of Philadelphia, Scott came...
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Editor’s Letter

Posted by on Aug 13, 2021 in | Comments Off on Editor’s Letter The cover of this edition features a poignant watercolor portrait, Woman in Blue, Waiting, by a Philadelphia artist whose work has been regrettably overlooked in the past but is now being rediscovered as new studies and exhibitions, as well as a preservation effort to save his home, have emerged in recent years. Printmaker and painter Dox Thrash sought to document the African American experience...
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Indomitable: Ora Washington, Philadelphia’s Ultimate Sports Trailblazer

Posted by on Jun 8, 2020 in | Comments Off on Indomitable: Ora Washington, Philadelphia’s Ultimate Sports Trailblazer On June 5, 1971, the African American newspaper Philadelphia Tribune published an obituary for an individual it called “Superwoman.” Although it was a fitting homage, few who read the Tribune that day would have appreciated the level of deference granted to the individual at the center of that tribute. Her name was Ora Mae Washington (1898–1971). Another African American paper, the Pittsburgh...
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Monster Bones: Charles Willson Peale and the Mysterious Nondescript Animal

Posted by on Oct 28, 2019 in | Comments Off on Monster Bones: Charles Willson Peale and the Mysterious Nondescript Animal On October 14, 1800, a New York City newspaper called Mercantile Advertiser published a rather lengthy news/opinion piece on some large and very curious bones that had been unearthed on a farm belonging to John Masten, located about 14 miles from the New York state village of Newburgh. The unidentified author observed that “these huge bones irresistibly force upon us by the power of associating...
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The Formidable Chews of Cliveden Preserve a National Landmark

Posted by on Jun 6, 2016 in | Comments Off on The Formidable Chews of Cliveden Preserve a National Landmark Fifty years ago on October 15, 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), the federal government’s first official and all-encompassing policy designed to preserve and protect the nation’s irreplaceable historic, cultural, architectural and archaeological sites. The act spurred citizens throughout the country to actively embrace historic...
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Good Road Followed … From Metro Philly to Rock Hall: An Interview with John Oates

Posted by on Jun 6, 2016 in | Comments Off on Good Road Followed … From Metro Philly to Rock Hall: An Interview with John Oates John Oates is one half of the best-selling rock duo Hall & Oates, as well as an accomplished solo artist. Singing from the time he could talk and playing the guitar since the age of 5, John Oates was destined to be a musician. He was born in 1948 in New York City, but his family relocated to North Wales, Montgomery County, in the early 1950s, a move that would change the course of his life....
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Battle of Germantown

Posted by on Jun 6, 2016 in | Comments Off on Battle of Germantown During the American Revolution, the fight for independence reached its most dire moment in 1777 when the British embarked on a campaign to capture the seat of American government in Philadelphia. After defeating the Continental forces of Gen. George Washington (1732–99) at the Battle of Brandywine in September 1777, Gen. William Howe (1729–1814) and his British army outmaneuvered Washington and...
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Old Economy Village: The Centennial of the First Site on the Pennsylvania Trails of History

Posted by on Apr 19, 2016 in | Comments Off on Old Economy Village: The Centennial of the First Site on the Pennsylvania Trails of History One hundred years ago, on February 3, 1916, the Beaver County Court of Common Pleas, in an escheat case, awarded the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania 6 acres of land that had been part of the town of Economy. World War I was raging in Europe, and with the United States’ entrance in the war the following year, the state had little time or money to deal with a newly acquired historic site. In 1919 the...
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Historian of Pennsylvania Exceptionalism: Samuel W. Pennypacker

Posted by on Dec 2, 2013 in | Comments Off on Historian of Pennsylvania Exceptionalism: Samuel W. Pennypacker Reflecting on “the play of forces” that propelled him to Pennsylvania’s governor’s office in 1903, Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker (1843–1916) confidently declared, “there is no such thing as an accident” (a notion popularized by Sigmund Freud, the founding father of psychoanalysis). This was not to say chance plays no part in history because he pronounced with equal certitude: “To every man certain...
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