music Archives - Pennsylvania Heritage Magazine

Back to the Cloister Fund

Posted by Bradley Smith on Jan 14, 2026 in | Comments Off In 1925, Rev. Samuel Zerfass faced a quandary. He needed a new suit, but he lacked the funds for such a substantial purchase. Zerfass was a minister with the Society of German Seventh Day Baptists, a last vestige of the Ephrata Cloister religious community. With a dwindling membership and an entire campus of historic structures in disrepair, financial resources were limited. Undaunted, Zerfass...
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Allan Jaffe, the Man Who Saved New Orleans Jazz

Posted by Alli Davis on Feb 24, 2025 in | Comments Off Allan P. Jaffe (1935–1987) was a pivotal figure in preserving and popularizing New Orleans jazz. Born and raised in Pottsville in Pennsylvania’s Schuylkill County, he was influenced by his father, Harry Jaffe, who played mandolin and taught music before running a wallpaper and paint store. “Pottsville was home to many immigrants who came to work in the anthracite mines, resulting in an...
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Songs of the Saron: Ephrata Cloister’s Women Composers

Posted by Elizabeth Bertheaud on May 13, 2022 in | Comments Off In the mid-18th century, a small religious community thrived at what is known today as Ephrata Cloister on the banks of the Cocalico Creek in Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County. Founded in 1732 by German immigrant Conrad Beissel (1691–1768), the group was composed of celibate Brothers and Sisters who lived lives of religious devotion and self-denial, supported in part by the married members...
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Editor’s Letter

Posted by Kyle Weaver on May 13, 2022 in | Comments Off With this edition of Pennsylvania Heritage, we mark the anniversaries of two events that not only sent shock waves across Pennsylvania but also awakened communities to concerns about public and worker safety. Fifty years ago, in June 1972, a tropical cyclone made its way from the Yucatán Peninsula, up the Atlantic Seaboard of the U.S., shifting its strength as it advanced over land and sea....
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High on a Mountain: Pennsylvania’s Legacy of Country Music

Posted by Joe Baker on Jun 4, 2020 in | Comments Off In 1607 Great Britain commenced the establishment of two colonial plantations. One of these was Jamestown in Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in North America. The other was much closer to home. The Ulster plantation was formed in the nine northern counties of Ireland. The goal of the colony was, in part, to extend British and Anglican hegemony over the Catholic and...
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World War I Centennial Trails

Posted by Amy Fox on Mar 13, 2017 in | Comments Off As part of PHMC’s Pennsylvania at War initiative, sites on the Pennsylvania Trails of History have planned programs and events to commemorate the centennial of America’s entry into World War I. Check the websites listed below or the weekly Trailheads blog and its monthly program pages for updates and additions to events and activities. Erie Maritime Museum On April 6, 1917,...
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Pennsylvania Heritage Recommends

Posted by PA Heritage Staff on May 8, 2015 in | Comments Off Gettysburg Religion Refinement, Diversity, and Race in the Antebellum and Civil War Border North In the borderland between slavery and freedom, Gettysburg remains among the most legendary landmarks of the American Civil War, asserts Steve Longenecker, author of Gettysburg Religion: Refinement, Diversity, and Race in the Antebellum and Civil War Border North (Fordham University Press, 2014,...
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Lebanon County: Small in Size – Rich in Heritage

Posted by John Foster on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off 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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Stability and Change: Culture During Three Periods

Posted by Carl Oblinger on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off “Religion, … the best bond of human society, provided man did not err in the meaning of that excellent word.” – William Penn Culture, broadly defined, is the way of life of a group of people; it includes all their behavioral patterns, beliefs and artistic expressions. Culture is not static; it varies over time and place. Culture does not arise in a vacuum; it...
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The Erie Warner: From Movie Palace to Movie House to Civic Center

Posted by John Marsh on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off Once upon a time, brightly lit marquees of movie palaces of Pennsylvania’s streets dazzled the eyes of pleasure seekers. Today, the genre, described as possibly “the most distinctly American contribution to architectural history,” is all but extinct. And when a survivor is found, as on Erie’s State Street, the structure is a reminder of the gaudy and the phony, the...
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