“The Not So Good Old Days”: Disease and the Struggle for Public Health in Pennsylvania

Posted by Tyler Stump on Oct 15, 2020 in | Comments Off on “The Not So Good Old Days”: Disease and the Struggle for Public Health in Pennsylvania In 1930 A. J. Bohl was proud to work in the Pennsylvania Department of Health (DOH). After 25 years there, he wrote an article in Pennsylvania’s Health in which he recalled growing up in the 1880s, when disease and illness ravaged the state. “There wasn’t much attention paid to the communicable diseases. Everybody, as a matter of course, had measles, chicken pox, whooping cough and mumps, and...
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Editor’s Letter

Posted by Kyle Weaver on Oct 8, 2020 in | Comments Off on Editor’s Letter As part of our mission “to introduce readers to Pennsylvania’s rich culture and historic legacy,” we at Pennsylvania Heritage seek to connect the commonwealth’s past with what Pennsylvania is today or what it is anticipated to become in the future. In this effort, we strive to publish stories on a variety of subjects, some of which have been overlooked or underrepresented in history, that relate...
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Documents from the Three Mile Island Crisis

Posted by PA Heritage Staff on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Documents from the Three Mile Island Crisis In late March 1979, the nation ex­perienced its worst commercial nuclear accident as a result of techni­cal malfunctions and operator error at the Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear generating station near Harrisburg. The crisis, which began on Wednes­day, March 28, lasted for several days and prompted the evacuation of thousands of residents. The accident and reaction to it are well docu­mented in...
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The 1948 Donora Smog

Posted by PA Heritage Staff on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on The 1948 Donora Smog As early as 1881, the cities of Chicago, Illinois, and Cincinnati, Ohio, had passed laws in attempts to control several types of pollution. Air pollution, however, remained an uncontrolled, unrecognized health hazard until tragedies in the twentieth century demonstrated its lethal effects. In 1930, smog covering the Meuse River Valley in Belgium sent sixty people to their graves, and in 1952...
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