Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf Louis I. Kahn: In the Realm of Architec­ture by David Bruce Brownlee and David G. De Long Museum of Contemporary Art and Rizzoli International Publications, 1991 (448 pages, paper, $34.95) Louis I. Kahn (1901-1974) had strong ties to Philadelphia during his internationally acclaimed architectural career. He arrived in Philadelphia in 1906, and was encouraged by the Graphic Sketch Club, Central...
read more

Currents

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Currents Journey in Time Prom the first interior scenes of Pennsbury Manor, in which light seems to caress each object-pewter bowl, chair, blanket chest-viewers of “Historic Pennsylvania: A Journey to America’s Past” will know this is masterful cinematography. As the camera moves a short distance from the mansion’s front door to the lush banks of the Delaware River, a dazzling...
read more

Sparking a Rock ‘n’ Roll Revolution: An Interview with Dick Clark

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Sparking a Rock ‘n’ Roll Revolution: An Interview with Dick Clark For many baby boomers – members of that much-touted generation who came of age in the fifties and sixties – rock ‘n’ roll provided a defining point in their adolescent lives. Few will ever forget the first time they jitterbugged to Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley and the Comets, or took to the dance floor with The Twist by Chubby Checker. Many cherish the memory of...
read more

Trainloads of Goodwill and Gratitude

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Trainloads of Goodwill and Gratitude Pittsburghers, on the evening of Saturday, November 15, 1947, witnessed a ceremony at the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) Station that marked the beginning of an extraordinary occurrence: the journey of a Friendship Train across the Keystone State. By the time it reached Philadelphia, three days and seven stops later, the train hauled an additional fifty-one cavernous boxcars packed to capacity with...
read more

Making a Future for the Past: New Dating Meets New Deal Archaeology

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Making a Future for the Past: New Dating Meets New Deal Archaeology Imagine a scene set about nine hundred years ago. It is early autumn in a small farming village in the rugged Appalachian mountains of southwestern Pennsylvania. A harried mother stands in front of her small, beehive-shaped house and watches two young men playing chunkey – a lacrosse-type game – in the central plaza of her village. She gazes wistfully across the plaza, which is...
read more

The Barrymores of Philadelphia: America’s Royal Family of the Theatre

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Barrymores of Philadelphia: America’s Royal Family of the Theatre America’s fabled royal family of the theatre, the Barrymores — a name recognized throughout the world by generations of audiences — began its meteoric rise in mid-nineteenth- century Philadelphia. The twentieth-century scions of entertainment — Lionel, Ethel, and John Barrymore — were born in Philadelphia, children of the rapscallion English charmer, Maurice Barrymore (1847–1905) and his equally...
read more

Laughing with Philadelphia Stooge Larry Fine

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Laughing with Philadelphia Stooge Larry Fine During the 1938 Independence Day weekend, hundreds of Philadelphians flocked to Atlantic City, lured by the sparkling beach and the frenetic boardwalk with its extravaganza of amusement rides, theaters, arcades, and Steel Pier, the showplace of the New Jersey shore. Many stood in line at Steel Pier waiting to see three men who had captured their hearts and imaginations — The Three Stooges. The...
read more

“Atoms for Peace” in Pennsylvania

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on “Atoms for Peace” in Pennsylvania In 1957, Shippingport, along the Ohio River in far western Pennsylvania, became home to America’s first commercial nuclear power plant under President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” program. Just two decades later, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) converted the Beaver County plant to a light water breeder reactor that successfully demonstrated the feasibility...
read more

The Mills Brothers Trace Roots to Bellefonte

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Mills Brothers Trace Roots to Bellefonte Most musicologists agree: The internationally renowned Mills Brothers was the greatest vocal group of the twentieth century, a conclusion supported by mounds of evidence and unprecedented “firsts” in the world of entertainment. These family singers were the pacesetters, style blazers, and patternmakers in their field, and the first African American performing artists to attract a...
read more