The Hunt for Pennsylvania’s Timber Rattlesnakes

Posted by on Jan 14, 2020 in | Comments Off on The Hunt for Pennsylvania’s Timber Rattlesnakes In the early 19th century, pioneer adventurer Philip Tome recalled that it was common to see 30 or 40 timber rattlesnakes at a time near his home along the Susquehanna River. “The snakes were so numerous that we used to clear the yard and build fires to keep them away,” he recalled in his 1854 memoir, Pioneer Life; or, Thirty Years a Hunter. “On leaving the house we always put on a pair of...
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A Century of Conservation: The Story of Pennsylvania’s State Parks

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on A Century of Conservation: The Story of Pennsylvania’s State Parks Pennsylvania’s state park system is celebrating its centennial as one of the country’s largest and most popular recreational attractions. Each year, thirty-six million people visit one (or more) of the Keystone State’s one hundred and fourteen parks to picnic, hike, swim, boat, camp, ski, snowmobile, fish, hunt, or raft white water rapids. This sprawling collec­tion of open...
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Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf Our Priceless Heritage: Pennsylvania State Parks, 1893-1993 by Dan Cupper Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1993 (70 pages, paper, $12.95) “Priceless” is a word that best defines the Keystone State’s natural history, and Our Priceless Heritage: Pennsylvania State Parks, 1893-1993, is a copiously...
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A Wooded Watershed (1926) by Daniel Garber

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on A Wooded Watershed (1926) by Daniel Garber Its whereabouts unknown to art historians and enthusiasts for nearly seventy years, a spectacular mural by acclaimed American artist Daniel Garber (1880-1958), one of the most famous members of the New Hope School, was recently rediscovered and returned to Bucks County, where it had been painted in 1926. Garber’s masterpiece, A Wooded Watershed, was originally commissioned by the...
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Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf Big Steel: The First Century of the United States Steel Corporation By Kenneth Warren University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001 (405 pages, cloth, $32.00) At its formation a century ago, in 1901, the United States Steel Corporation was the world’s largest industrial organization. Within its first year, the company was producing two-thirds of America’s raw steel, and soon supported the...
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Maurice K. Goddard: The Commonwealth’s Conservation Czar

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Maurice K. Goddard: The Commonwealth’s Conservation Czar There is a point in crossing the top of the Allegheny Mountains between Pittsburgh and Harris­burg at which a traveler sees, at every turn, only trees. It is one of the most spectacular views on the North American Continent. The scene lacks the frenetic energy of Niagara Falls, or the awe-filling majesty of the Grand Canyon, but this several­-hundred-square-mile panorama of second-growth forest...
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To Forge History for the Future

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on To Forge History for the Future Not infrequently, the history of how an object, artifact, or even building or structure has been preserved for the future is every bit at least as interesting as the reasons for which it was saved. Historical organizations and cultural institutions – from large city museums to county historical societies – brim with compelling “behind-the-scenes” stories that provide...
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CCC Camp Building at Pennsylvania Lumber Museum

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on CCC Camp Building at Pennsylvania Lumber Museum As part of his New Deal, an ambitious agenda of relief initiatives to revive the nation’s economy during the Great Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt created the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) on March 21, 1933. The CCC gave work to young men from unemployed families and became one of the New Deal’s most popular programs. In Pennsylvania alone, the CCC enrolled nearly two hundred...
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Photograph of Holtwood Hydroelectric Power Plant

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Photograph of Holtwood Hydroelectric Power Plant Early twentieth-century proponents of hydroelectricity favored this type of power for a number of reasons: its cost is relatively low, water is a renewable resource, and it does not cause pollution since it does not use fossil fuels. In addition, hydroelectric plants are in operation longer than fossil fuel facilities, require fewer workers, and have lower maintenance costs. A photograph of the...
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