Aeronauts to Aviators: Pennsylvanians and Flight, 1784-1950

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Aeronauts to Aviators: Pennsylvanians and Flight, 1784-1950 Millions of us have used the airplane to earn a living, to travel from place to place or simply to amuse ourselves. Among twentieth-century innovations, the airplane has most dramatically changed the way we think about time and distance; people now consider transcontinental or transoceanic journeys in terms of hours rather than days or weeks. The airplane is a familiar technology. Yet historians...
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The Magic of Mount Gretna: An Interview with Jack Bitner

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Magic of Mount Gretna: An Interview with Jack Bitner Set in the picturesque Conewago Hills of central Pennsyl­vania, the village of Mount Gretna is a treasure of natu­ral beauty and quaint architecture. In 1882-1883, millionaire Robert H. Coleman built the Cornwall and Lebanon Railroad through these rolling hills to connect his vast ironmaking enterprises in Colebrook and Corn­wall to the main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad in Lebanon. At the...
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Answering the Call of Honor: The Origins of the Pennsylvania State Police

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Answering the Call of Honor: The Origins of the Pennsylvania State Police CALL OF HONOR I AM A PENNSYLVANIA STATE TROOPER, A SOLIDER OF THE LAW. TO ME IS ENTRUSTED THE HONOR OF THE FORCE. I MUST SERVE HONESTLY, FAITHFULLY, AND IF NEED BE, LAY DOWN MY LIFE AS OTHERS HAVE DONE BEFORE ME, RATHER THAN SWERVE FROM THE PATH OF DUTY. IT IS MY DUTY TO OBEY THE LAW AND TO ENFORCE IT WITHOUT ANY CONSIDERATION OF CLASS, COLOR, CREED OR CONDITION. IT IS ALSO MY DUTY TO BE OF...
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Current and Coming

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Current and Coming Quilts Come Home The Keystone State’s newest attraction, the Lancaster Quilt and Textile Museum, made its debut recently, drawing national attention for its role as a leading educational facility for interpreting and exhibiting the rich and diverse cultural traditions of Lancaster County and southcentral Pennsylvania. The mu­seum was established by the Heritage Center of Lancaster County....
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Major League Governor: John Kinley Tener

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Major League Governor: John Kinley Tener The life of John Kinley Tener (1863-1946), governor of Pennsylvania from 1911 to 1915, is a remarkable success story in the annals of Pennsylvania­ – and American – history. Tener was born in County Tyrone, Ireland, on July 25, 1863, to Susan Wallis Tener and George Evans Tener. A month after his father’s death in May 1872, his family immigrated to Pittsburgh. In August, Susan...
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From the Ashes at Boyertown – Safety Legislation for All

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on From the Ashes at Boyertown – Safety Legislation for All Pennsylvania’s most disastrous fire broke out one hundred years ago, on Monday, January 13, 1908, killing 170 people in the Rhoads Opera House, a second-floor auditorium on East Philadelphia Avenue in the small Berks County community of Boyertown. The World Almanac records the disaster as one of the five worst fires in the United States of the twentieth century. No family in the community of...
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Making Peace on the Gettysburg Battlefield, Fifty Years Later

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Making Peace on the Gettysburg Battlefield, Fifty Years Later For six frenetic days in 1913, from Sunday, June 29, through Saturday, July 4, two armies – fifty-four thousand strong combined – invaded Gettysburg for a second time. They fought the first time a half century earlier, July 1-3, 1863, and were looking forward, admittedly many anxiously, to facing each other again. It wasn’t a fight they anticipated at the second meeting,...
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