industry Archives - Pennsylvania Heritage Magazine

Gasping for Air: The Donora Smog Disaster

Posted by Peter Durantine on Sep 18, 2023 in | Comments Off They couldn’t breathe. During five days in autumn of 1948, the industrial town of Donora, Pennsylvania, became an environmental and public health nightmare when what the national media called a “killer smog” took the lives of nearly two dozen people who died struggling to breathe. “We have had the worst fog in the last four days in [the] history of Donora. About 18 persons have died...
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Making Industrial Pittsburgh Modern by Edward K. Muller and Joel A. Tarr

Posted by Curtis Miner on Feb 17, 2021 in | Comments Off Making Industrial Pittsburgh Modern Environment, Landscape, Transportation, Energy, and Planning by Edward K. Muller and Joel A. Tarr University of Pittsburgh Press, 504 pp., hardcover $40 Discussions of “modern” Pittsburgh often begin and end with the Renaissance, the rightfully lauded postwar effort to spruce up the city’s tarnished image and clear its smoky skies. But there is so much more to...
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Waynesboro Historic District

Posted by Elizabeth Rairigh on Dec 30, 2020 in | Comments Off Three miles from the Pennsylvania–Maryland border is the Keystone State’s most recent listing in the National Register of Historic Places: the Waynesboro Historic District, located along Main Street and Clayton Avenue in the borough of Waynesboro, Franklin County. The district’s period of historic significance dates from 1780 through 1965, beginning with the construction of a log building...
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Remembering Lattimer by Paul A. Shackel

Posted by Bode Morin on Mar 6, 2020 in | Comments Off Remembering Lattimer Labor, Migration, and Race in Pennsylvania Anthracite Country by Paul A. Shackel University of Illinois Press, 176 pp., paper $28 Amid significant industrial growth in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the United States actively pursued workers outside the country. From the 1850s to the 1920s people from across the world flooded American industrial areas, redefining...
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Stockings, Cap Braids and Bomber Turrets: Wyomissing Industries Mobilizes for World War II

Posted by Robert Hill on Dec 1, 2019 in | Comments Off “Textile Machine Works suspends production of knitting machines for the duration.” – The Yarn Carrier, October 1942 The Textile Machine Works was one of a handful of companies with common ownership that became known as Wyomissing Industries, located just west of Reading in Berks County, Pennsylvania. The 13,430th and last knitting machine, a “Reading” model, was the embodiment of 40 years...
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Lackawanna Mills and Scranton Button Historic District

Posted by Dave Maher on Jun 13, 2017 in | Comments Off At the crossing of Cedar Avenue over Stafford Meadow Brook in southern Scranton, Lackawanna County, lies a roughly 5-acre city block of industrial buildings that contains a history just as dense and layered as the location itself. In 1887 Scranton industrialist William Connell (1827-1909) founded two separate businesses at the site: Lackawanna Mills, a major manufacturer of wool and cotton...
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Lebanon County: Small in Size – Rich in Heritage

Posted by John Foster on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off Lebanon County is located in the southeastern portion of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the center of the beautiful Lebanon Valley, which is formed by the Blue Ridge of the Kittatinny range of mountains to the north and the South Mountains, or Furnace Hills, to the south. Covering an area of 363 square miles, the county is inhabited by approximately 100,000 people. Between the shale...
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The Ethnic Factor: Backbone of the Commonwealth

Posted by Richard Juliani on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off “… that those of our own, or other nations, that are inclined to transport themselves or families beyond the seas, may find another country …” – William Penn The story of Pennsylvania cannot be adequately told without great emphasis upon its ethnic diversity. More than simply an incidental feature, from the first contacts between Europeans and Indians to...
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Columbia County is Diversity

Posted by Craig Newton on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off From the time of the earliest settlements during the Revolutionary War era to the present day, Columbia County has been three separate neighborhoods-the southern region (Catawissa and Centralia); the northern area (Benton and Millville) and the north bank of the Susquehanna River (Bloomsburg and Berwick). They are distinguishable by varied physical environments, ethnic origins and social...
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The Road to Resorts: Transportation and Tourism in Monroe County

Posted by Frederick Beaver on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off Monroe County flourishes today as a lush, verdant resort and popular recreational area on the periphery of metropolitan centers. Tourism is supplemented by light industry which has left the largely rural setting relatively intact. Essentially, the county offers open countryside through which travelers make good time on interstate highways on their way to or from major cities and in which they...
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