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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Wilson Eyre: The Philadelphia Domestic Ideal

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Wilson Eyre: The Philadelphia Domestic Ideal At the turn of the twentieth century, Wilson Eyre was at the height of his architectural powers. For sixteen years he had had a successful practice in Philadelphia, one of America’s major architectural centers. The United States bad become a world power, with money to give con­crete evidence of this in the buildings of her great cities, and Philadelphia’s blend of conservative...
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Mystery of the Monongahela Culture: Archaeology at Foley Farm

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Mystery of the Monongahela Culture: Archaeology at Foley Farm In 1939, anthropologist Mary Butler identified and formally named the Monongahela Woodland Culture, a prehistoric Indian way of life centered in the Monongahela Valley of south­western Pennsylvania, west­ern Maryland and parts of northern West Virginia. Dr. Butler’s reasons for naming this prehistoric Indian culture were, in part, based on ar­chaeological investigations sponsored by the...
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Preserving Pieces of Pennsylvania’s Past: An Inside Look at the Building of the Commonwealth’s Collections

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Preserving Pieces of Pennsylvania’s Past: An Inside Look at the Building of the Commonwealth’s Collections Associations between butterflies and buttons, Conestoga wagons and cannon, sculpture and arrowheads, or fossils and founder William Penn’s original Charter may seem tenuous, even obscure and, perhaps, nonsensical. But a relationship does exist: they are among the one and a half million objects and thirty thousand cubic feet of manuscripts, records, maps and photographs in the custody and...
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Montgomery County: Cultural Microcosm of the Commonwealth

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Montgomery County: Cultural Microcosm of the Commonwealth The third most populous county in Pennsylvania, with ap­proximately 480 square miles of rolling hills criss-crossed by rivers, streams and superhighways, Montgom­ery County is a microcosm of the Com­monwealth, a reflection of its cultural development. Pan of Philadelphia County until 1784, Montgomery Coun­ty served as a sanctuary for numerous ethnic and religious groups seeking the freedom...
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Stewart Culin, “Museum Magician”

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Stewart Culin, “Museum Magician” A temple had given up its treasure – ornately carved columns infused with supernatural beliefs – to the man with an imposing air and an eye for danger. He tells the tale: “Then we found ourselves with the column in the moonlight. We knew we must get it away without loss of time. The snoring continued, and the dogs were quiet, but at any moment they might raise an alarm. I...
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Celebrating a Century and a Half: The Geologic Survey

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Celebrating a Century and a Half: The Geologic Survey The Pennsylvania Geo­logical Survey, offi­cially known today as the Bureau of Topo­graphic and Geologic Survey, and one of the bureaus of the Department of Environmental Resources, is one of only a very few of the Common­wealth’s executive branch agencies whose history can be traced to the first half of the nineteenth century. Created in 1836, the survey spawned three subsequent geologic...
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Ben Austrian: The Chick Painter of Reading

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Ben Austrian: The Chick Painter of Reading His name isn’t exactly a household word. But chances are his century old creation – a plump little chick sporting a fancy French name – has been seen by countless homemakers in Pennsylvania, as well as throughout the world. Revered in Reading, Berks County, and throughout southeastern Pennsylvania as “the chick painter,” Ben Aus­trian depicted a chick for Bon Ami...
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George H. Danner: The Retailer and His Relic Rooms

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on George H. Danner: The Retailer and His Relic Rooms In the early 1930s Milton S. Hershey established an Indian Museum in the town which he had built around his chocolate factory. Like the town’s amusement park, ornate theater and fa­mous Starlight Ballroom, the museum was provided as a source of enjoyment and recre­ation for Hershey’s workers and their families. In 1935, in a move which broadened the focus of the original Indian...
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