Currents

Posted by PA Heritage Staff on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Currents Great Greek Following six years of extensive gallery and storage area renovations, The Univer­sity Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadel­phia, has recently reopened its exhibition space devoted to ancient Greek civilization. This new exhibit, entitled “The Ancient Greek World,” offers visitors a broad overview of the history and culture of ancient Greece and its colonial...
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Currents

Posted by PA Heritage Staff on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Currents Amish Arts A comprehensive-and colorful-sur­vey of the distinctive decorative arts cre­ated by and for the Amish of Lancaster County is on view at the Heritage Center Museum of Lancaster County. About two hundred objects made during a period of two hundred years, from 1790 to 1990, are showcased in “Amish Arts of Lancaster County,” on view through Saturday, Janu­ary 2, 1999. Included...
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Joseph Priestley, Catalyst of the Enlightenment

Posted by Sharon Silverman on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Joseph Priestley, Catalyst of the Enlightenment When Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) is remembered today, it’s usually for his 1774 discovery, in England, of oxygen. Few know he was a noted theologian, political progressive, and prolific author whose scientific contributions include the development of the carbonation process, the identification of carbon monoxide, and early experiments in electricity. He counted Benjamin Franklin, Thomas...
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Bookshelf

Posted by PA Heritage Staff on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf Benjamin Rush: Patriot and Physician By Alan Brodsky St. Martin’s Press, 2004 (404 pages, cloth, $35.00) When Benjamin Rush (1746-1813) died, Thomas Jefferson wrote to John Adams that “a better man than Rush could not have left us, more benevolent, more learned, of finer genius, or more honest,” to which Adams replied that he knew “of no Character living or dead, who had...
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Catherine Drinker Bowen (1897-1973)

Posted by PA Heritage Staff on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Catherine Drinker Bowen (1897-1973) Writers seldom choose as friends those self-contained characters who are never in trouble, never unhappy or ill, never make mistakes and always count their change when it is handed to them” wrote one of twentieth-century Amer­ica’s best-known historians and biographers, Catherine Drinker Bowen (1897-1973). Born in Haverford, Mont­gomery County, she is best known for her narratives of...
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Slaves at the President’s House

Posted by William Kashatus on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Slaves at the President’s House President George Washington arrived in Philadelphia on the morning of Sunday, November 21, 1790, exhausted and depressed. The journey north from Mount Vernon, his beloved Virginia plantation, had not been pleasant. Heavy rain made the roads impassable at various points along the route, extending the journey from two to three days. A drunken coachman overturned the president’s baggage wagon...
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Bookshelf

Posted by PA Heritage Staff on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf The WPA His­tory of the Negro in Pittsburgh Edited by Lawrence A. Glasco University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004 (cloth, 422 pages, $39.95) The story of Pitts­burgh’s African Americans is deeply in­tertwined with that of other ethnic groups, yet in many ways it is unique. Before the Civil War, Pittsburgh’s rivers and proximity to the Mason­-Dixon Line made it a critical junction on the...
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Old World Influences on Pennsylvania Gardens

Posted by Myra Jacobsohn on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Old World Influences on Pennsylvania Gardens Quaker merchants who followed founder William Penn (1644-1718) to his beloved colony planted formal, English-style gardens amidst the native forest landscape. An ornamental garden suitable for a family of means in Great Britain in the seventeenth century consisted of a residence with a series of three terraces descending from the rear elevation. The upper terrace, often used as an extension of...
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Library of the Founding Fathers

Posted by Susan Solarczyk on Nov 24, 2013 in | Comments Off on Library of the Founding Fathers Three centuries after the birth of Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), the world continues to be amazed by his overwhelming contributions, from the proprietary period in the early years of Pennsylvania through the birth of the United States of America. Of his many accomplishments, Franklin’s love of the printed word seems most obvious. In 1731, he and several friends founded the first...
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A Conversation about Citizenship

Posted by Barbara Franco on Nov 24, 2013 in | Comments Off on A Conversation about Citizenship Barbara Franco, executive director of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC), recently discussed the importance of citizen training with Pennsylvania’s First Lady, Judge Marjorie O.Rendell, and Richard Stengel, president and chief executive officer of the National Constitution Center, in Philadelphia. Judge Rendell is active in promoting citizenship education through the...
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