From the Executive Director

Posted by on Jun 13, 2017 in | Comments Off on From the Executive Director For almost six years it has been my privilege and honor to serve as the executive director of the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission (PHMC). This July I will complete my 50th year of public service as an educator, historian, museum director and preservationist. I can think of no better way to spend a life than in promoting and protecting America’s history and culture. It is very...
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Lebanon County: Small in Size – Rich in Heritage

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Lebanon County: Small in Size – Rich in Heritage 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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York County: A Most Treasured Land

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on York County: A Most Treasured Land Planted squarely above the Maryland border, the gigantic horse’s hoof, which is the out­ line of York County, covers an area of 914 square miles, supporting a popula­tion of 300,000. Its eastern contour is delineated by the “long, crooked” Sus­quehanna, its pastern cleanly cut off by Cumberland County on the north, its outer edge defined by Adams Coun­ty on the west. This...
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Lancaster County: Diversity of People, Ideas and Economy

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Lancaster County: Diversity of People, Ideas and Economy When Lancaster County was established on May 10, 1729, it became the proto­type for the sixty-three counties to follow. The original three counties­Philadelphia, Bucks and Chester – were created as copies of typical English shires. The frontier conditions of Ches­ter County’s backwoods, from which Lancaster was formed, presented knot­ty problems to the civilized English­men....
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The Jefferis Collection: A Pennsylvania Treasure

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Jefferis Collection: A Pennsylvania Treasure In February 1905, four men entered a small brick building on Miner Street in West Chester and began a month of careful labor. Using cotton and fine wood shavings, they individually wrapped 35,000 mineral speci­mens with their handwritten labels, carefully placed them into boxes, nailed the boxes shut and hauled box after box to the West Chester railroad station. Newspaper reporters kept the...
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The Anthracite Iron Furnaces of Alburtis

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Anthracite Iron Furnaces of Alburtis As it stands today, the ruin of Lock Ridge Furnace at Alburtis, in Lehigh County, looks more akin to a misplaced Norman fortress than a nine­teenth century anthracite iron furnace. The partially re­stored walls, reinforced by heavy metal bolts, give the venerable Pennsylvania structure a false touch of the medieval. The productive history of the anthracite iron furnaces began in December 1866...
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The All-Too-Youthful Proletarians: Breaker Boys of the Anthracite Coal Region in the Early 1900s

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on The All-Too-Youthful Proletarians: Breaker Boys of the Anthracite Coal Region in the Early 1900s   Many Pennsylvanians have long forgotten one of the state’s major claims to national prominence in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries – the anthra­cite coal industry. In those years, clean-burning anthracite heated more homes in the northeastern United States than any other fuel, and a 1,700 square-mile area in northeast Pennsyl­vania produced almost all of the...
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Geography and Resources: The Story of Adaptation

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Geography and Resources: The Story of Adaptation The country itself, in its soil, air, water, seasons, and produce, both natural and artificial, is not to be despised. – William Penn Man is a creative and inventive creature capable of either adapt­ing to the environment, when need be, or adapting the environment to suit his particular needs. In the words of Max Savelle, “the history of the Anglo­American colonies is . . . a history...
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The Pennsylvania Germans: A Celebration of their Arts, 1683-1850, An Exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Pennsylvania Germans: A Celebration of their Arts, 1683-1850, An Exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art The art of the Pennsylvania Germans is showy and elusive, reflective and new, easy and difficult; showy because it is boldly colorful; elusive because there is more to it than decoration; reflective because one can see the Old World in details; new because Pennsylvania Germans add­ed to the European vocabulary of designs and form; easy because it is familiar; and difficult because marks, like...
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Joanna Furnace Women: 1881-1925, The Study of Women’s Roles in Industrial Society

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Joanna Furnace Women: 1881-1925, The Study of Women’s Roles in Industrial Society The world of iron production was a rough-and-tumble af­fair, a great contrast to the passive, sheltered world which historians and others often associate with Ameri­can women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Yet women were a part of Joanna Furnace since its beginnings in 1792, when ironmasters Samuel Potts and Thomas Rutter paid Katy Cryley wages of seven shillings,...
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