Currents

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Currents Chester County Centennial The Chester County Historical Society, West Chester, has marked its one hundredth anniversary by mounting an exhibition entitled “Presenting Your Past: A Centennial Celebration.” The exhibit highlights the extraordinary collections acquired by the historical society during its first century. Objects on view include significant pieces selected from the...
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Currents

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Currents Hello, History! The former Chautauqua Lake Ice Company warehouse in Pittsburgh’s historic Strip District will come to life on Sunday, April 28 [1996], when it officially opens to the public as the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center. Renovated by the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania, which has been protecting, preserving, and interpreting the history of the...
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Executive Director’s Message

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Executive Director’s Message Travel Notes – April 1996, Pittsburgh A series of conferences, meetings, and special events brings me to Pittsburgh for eight days this month and reconfirms the rich historical legacy of this city and region. Despite the enormous changes that have occurred in recent decades, there remains an abundance of physical reminders of the past. I begin my visit, as I always do, at the Forks of the...
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Currents

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Currents Wrecks and Rescues In the early nineteenth century, the shore posed great danger to sailing ships seeking to reach port. The long and lonely approaches to coastal cities, such as Philadelphia, were poorly marked stretches of sand dunes and salt marshes with a few isolated settlements. Unexpected storms with winds blowing from the northeast could suddenly force a ship onto perilous sandbars...
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Trolley Freight Motor Number 07

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Trolley Freight Motor Number 07 In an unusual swap, the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum in Washington, south of Pittsburgh, recently added a rare piece of rolling stock to its extensive holdings. The museum acquired Trolley Freight Motor Number 07 from the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA), Philadelphia, in exchange for a snow sweeper originally used by the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company (and last...
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Currents

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Currents Doctor! Doctor! During the eighteenth century, and throughout much of the nineteenth cen­tury, most Americans attempted to heal themselves, as their ancestors had for centuries. Professional medical assis­tance was either too far away, too expensive, or both, and even affluent and urban families usually engaged in some sort of home health care before the doctor was summoned. Such care was...
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Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf The Red Rose Girls: An Uncommon Story of Art and Love By Alice A. Carter Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2000 (216 pages, cloth, $39.95) Highly successful and immensely unconventional Philadelphia artists Jessie Wilcox Smith (1863-1935), Eliza­beth Shippen Green (1871-1954), and Violet Oakley (1874-1961) captivated early twentieth-century society with their brilliant careers and uncommon lifestyle. At a...
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Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf African Americans in Pennsylvania­ – Above Ground and Under­ground: An Illustrated Guide By Charles L. Blockson RB Books, 2001 (320 pages, cloth, $29.95) For thirty years, Charles L. Blockson, noted bibliophile and author, traveled throughout Pennsylvania’s sixty-seven counties “with an unquenchable desire to research and record the neglected history of the African-Americans of...
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September 2001 Meeting of Historic Preservation Board

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on September 2001 Meeting of Historic Preservation Board In the dizzying aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans realized that their lives would be forever changed. Terrorism even impacted the routine – and frequently mundane – ways in which business had been conducted. For its September 2001 meeting-held, incidentally, on Tuesday, September 11 – the Commonwealth’s Historic...
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King Pearl L. Bergoff Invades McKees Rocks!

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on King Pearl L. Bergoff Invades McKees Rocks! On Monday, July 12, 1909, one of the bloodiest labor disputes of the early twentieth century broke out at the sprawling works of the Pressed Steel Car Company in McKees Rocks, Allegheny County. Located on the Ohio River several miles northwest of center-city Pittsburgh, the company employed hundreds of skilled workers, all of American-born descent, and thousands of unskilled first-and...
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