Hanauer Rosenberg Residence

Posted by on Dec 1, 2025 in | Comments Off on Hanauer Rosenberg Residence Nestled in Pittsburgh’s Deutschtown neighborhood, an unassuming rowhouse was once the home of Pauline Hanauer Rosenberg (1863–1940), a leader of Progressive Era reform movements and founding member of the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW), the first nationwide Jewish women’s organization. Rosenberg was born into a German Jewish family in Allegheny City (now part of Pittsburgh). She and her...
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Little Lithuania USA

Posted by on Aug 9, 2024 in | Comments Off on Little Lithuania USA Shenandoah is a prime example of a “coal rush” boomtown where immigrants flocked in the second half of the 19th century to find jobs and a better way of life. The first wave of immgrants in this Schuylkill County borough were mostly Welsh, Irish, Scottish and German. They were soon followed by Eastern and Southern Europeans, including a large influx of Lithuanians. The first wave of Lithuanian...
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Iron Artisans by Ronald L. Lewis

Posted by on Dec 1, 2023 in | Comments Off on Iron Artisans by Ronald L. Lewis Iron Artisans Welsh Immigrants & the American Age of Steel by Ronald L. Lewis University of Pittsburgh Press, 300 pp., hardcover $40 When the U.S. was becoming the preeminent industrial power in the world, iron, steel and tinplate manufacturing were at the forefront of that transformation. But as Ronald L. Lewis demonstrates clearly, America’s might owed a great deal to the relatively small...
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Albert Gallatin, Visionary of the Early Republic

Posted by on Dec 1, 2023 in | Comments Off on Albert Gallatin, Visionary of the Early Republic Albert Gallatin (1761–1849) came to America with a vision, not a dream. While tens of thousands of his fellow immigrants settled the New World in pursuit of personal success, he carried grander hopes. In his pursuit of shaping the young American nation, the Swiss-born Gallatin left behind an impressive legacy as a politician, a diplomat, and the longest-serving secretary of the treasury in U.S....
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We Are Anthracite and Other Industrial Heritage Trail Highlights

Posted by on Sep 20, 2023 in | Comments Off on We Are Anthracite and Other Industrial Heritage Trail Highlights Trails of History sites will be hosting harvest and Halloween-themed events this fall, with holiday programming to follow. Many visitors make these events part of their own seasonal traditions. Do you have a favorite event? For details on all sorts of activities on the Trails of History, be sure to check PHMC’s Events Calendar online at phmc.pa.gov. Of course, events and programs aren’t the only...
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Western Pennsylvania’s Earliest Chinese Communities

Posted by on Sep 12, 2022 in | Comments Off on Western Pennsylvania’s Earliest Chinese Communities Most Pennsylvanians recognize Philadelphia’s popular Chinatown, yet far fewer know of the significant presence of Chinese immigrants in western Pennsylvania. On April 16, 2022, the Pittsburgh branch of the Organization of Chinese Americans dedicated a Pennsylvania Historical Marker for Pittsburgh Chinatown in front of the Chinatown Inn at 520 Third Avenue in the city. Six months prior, a marker...
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A Gift to America: Maxo Vanka and the Millvale Murals

Posted by on Nov 29, 2021 in | Comments Off on A Gift to America: Maxo Vanka and the Millvale Murals “This is my gift to America,” declared Croatian artist Maksimilijan “Maxo” Vanka (1889–1963) in 1941, when he completed a vast mural cycle for a small Catholic church in Millvale, Pennsylvania, a working-class town just across the river from Pittsburgh. A recent émigré, Vanka had not yet been in the United States a full decade when he completed the 4,500 square feet of wall painting for St....
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Cambria City

Posted by on Nov 29, 2021 in | Comments Off on Cambria City Nestled between a bend in the Conemaugh River and a steep bluff, Cambria City is a distinctive, dense neighborhood that tells the story of hundreds of immigrants who came to work in Pennsylvania’s steel mills and coal mines in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Following the founding of the Cambria Iron Works in 1852, investors purchased land across the river from the mill, subdivided it,...
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Little Italy in the Great War by Richard N. Juliani

Posted by on Oct 15, 2020 in | Comments Off on Little Italy in the Great War by Richard N. Juliani Little Italy in the Great War Philadelphia’s Italians on the Battlefield and Home Front by Richard N. Juliani Temple University Press, 302 pp., paper $37.95 With this work Richard N. Juliani, a professor emeritus of sociology at Villanova University, provides an admirably researched microhistory that explores how Philadelphia’s Italian Americans responded to the demands of World War I, the...
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Paesano: The Struggle to Survive in Ambridge

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Paesano: The Struggle to Survive in Ambridge For nearly three-quarters of a cen­tury, Lucy Derochis, my grandmother, has struggled successfully to preserve and convey her Italian heritage while living in Ambridge, Pennsylvania. Her cultivation of familial closeness was rewarded when family members gath­ered to celebrate her eighty-ninth birthday on March 13, 1980. The dur­ability of the tight and close structure of an Italian-American...
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