Natural History Trails

Posted by on Oct 30, 2019 in | Comments Off on Natural History Trails Charles Willson Peale’s Philadelphia Museum, although relatively short-lived, influenced the development of similar projects elsewhere. In 1827, the year Peale died, the Harmony Society at Economy in Pennsylvania opened one of the first natural history museums west of the Alleghenies. Like Peale’s museum, the Harmonist effort was largely exhausted by the middle of the 19th century, and its...
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From the PHMC Chair

Posted by on Aug 22, 2017 in | 0 comments “There’s a new term in today’s newspaper,” my husband said. “The term is ‘fabricated lies.’” My husband, an especially avid news consumer, is our inhouse pundit. He regularly reports out on such things. The “fabricated lies” to which he is referring is only the latest in a string of confusing terms that have become so common we hardly notice them. False news. Fake science. It’s become...
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Second Growth at the Pennsylvania Lumber Museum

Posted by on Jun 19, 2015 in | Comments Off on Second Growth at the Pennsylvania Lumber Museum Charlie Fox appreciates the eye-catching curves and retro craftsmanship in the designs of most vintage automobiles, but his connection to a particular 1917 Ford Model T pickup truck is more about historical significance and less about aesthetics. The fully restored truck, a new addition to the remodeled Pennsylvania Lumber Museum’s visitor center, is similar to the vehicles that carried...
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Curating a New Home for History: A Conversation with W. Fred Kinsey and Irwin Richman

Posted by on Jun 19, 2015 in | Comments Off on Curating a New Home for History: A Conversation with W. Fred Kinsey and Irwin Richman Established institutions rarely get the opportunity to hit the reset button. But that’s what happened with The State Museum of Pennsylvania in the early 1960s, after the long-anticipated William Penn Memorial Museum and Archives Building cleared its last bureaucratic hurdle. Ground was broken north of the State Capitol in Harrisburg, Dauphin County, in January 1962, and by summer Pennsylvania’s...
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Washington County: From Ice Age to Space Age

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Washington County: From Ice Age to Space Age Southwestern Pennsylvania was for centuries a happy hunt­ing ground for Indians who were living there as long as two thousand years ago. In fact, as the result of archaeological discoveries made at the Meadowcroft Rock Shelter near Avella between 1973 and 1975, University of Pittsburgh anthropologists have proven conclusively that Ice Age people roamed the forests of Washington County even...
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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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Restless Soul: A Portrait of Bayard Taylor

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Restless Soul: A Portrait of Bayard Taylor A century ago the name of Bayard Taylor was familiar in most American households and in many homes in other parts of the world. Every cultured person in the United States at that time had read Bayard Taylor’s writings, or had heard him lecture. Old and young alike were enthralled by the tales he told, and no wonder, for Bayard Taylor had been everywhere and had done everything. When he...
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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 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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The Brandywine River Museum and Conservancy: Keeping the Brandywine Heritage Alive

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Brandywine River Museum and Conservancy: Keeping the Brandywine Heritage Alive One of the most treasured aspects of the artistic heritage of the Commonwealth is the Brandywine Tradition of representational paint­ing, a legacy around which much activity is centered. For years the beauty of southeastern Pennsylvania’s Brandy­wine River Valley has captivated artists and provided them with a natural studio. It seems appropriate, then, that this beautiful river valley...
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