Keystone Born, Hollywood Bred: “Movie Buff” David Mallery Reviews the Acting Careers of James Stewart and Grace Kelly

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Keystone Born, Hollywood Bred: “Movie Buff” David Mallery Reviews the Acting Careers of James Stewart and Grace Kelly There is magic in the movies. They draw viewers away – even if but for a few hours – from mere ordinary, everyday life to see their own experience and the experience of others in a detached but powerful way. Some induce laughter, others bring tears. But audiences seem grateful for the opportunity to know the richness, the complex­ity, and the irony of events without their having to...
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Shorts

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Shorts “From Ft. Wagner to Verdun: African Americans in the U.S. Military, 1863-1918,” is on view at the Civil War Library and Museum in Philadelphia. The exhibition, continuing through August 30, 1998, showcases artifacts, objects, and documents chronicling the experience of African Americans in mili­tary service from the Civil War through World War I. The Civil War Library and Museum is...
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Letters to the Editor

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Letters to the Editor A Little Math In case no one else noticed, in “Letters to the Editor” appearing in the Winter 1999 edition, letter writer Jack Bitner of Mt. Gretna states that $68,000 in 1880 would be worth three to four million dollars today. The editorial response to Eric G. Blumenthal’s question about Asa Packer’s worth in the same column states it was valued at twenty million dollars...
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Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf The Red Rose Girls: An Uncommon Story of Art and Love By Alice A. Carter Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2000 (216 pages, cloth, $39.95) Highly successful and immensely unconventional Philadelphia artists Jessie Wilcox Smith (1863-1935), Eliza­beth Shippen Green (1871-1954), and Violet Oakley (1874-1961) captivated early twentieth-century society with their brilliant careers and uncommon lifestyle. At a...
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Letters to the Editor

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Letters to the Editor Member of the Crew I found the piece about the SS United States quite interesting [see “Lost & Found,” Spring 2003]. I am privileged to have sailed on her as a member of the crew in 1962. In my Coast Guard Mer­chant Seaman’s papers, I was designated an “ordinary seaman.” This voyage was from New York to Newport News, Virginia, and back. The ship went into dry...
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Current and Coming

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Current and Coming Jimmy Stewart Upon his death at the age of eighty-­nine, James Maitland Stewart (1908-1997) – Jimmy Stewart to adoring fans throughout the world – was described by Washington Post staff writer Bart Barnes as “a motion picture Olympian with an all-American image and a universal appeal whose roles as a movie actor helped define a national culture.” During his career, he...
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PHMC Highlights

Posted by on Nov 24, 2013 in | Comments Off on PHMC Highlights A popular exhibit at the ninetieth annual Pennsylvania Farm Show, “An Agricultural Tradition for Generations,” held in Harrisburg in January, was the PHMC’s display featuring a dugout canoe – most likely the earliest form of constructed watercraft in the world. While children are encouraged to explore the dugout – essentially a hollowed-out log – ­historic...
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