The Early Days of the William Penn Highway: How Present-Day U.S. Route 22 Got its Start

At the dawn of the automobile age, the major roadways crossing Pennsylvania were rutted, dusty, farm-to-market thoroughfares traveled mainly by horses and wagons. Many of these were still privately owned turnpikes, some with wooden-plank road surfaces. Most towns had improved streets, but the paving, if any, usually ended at the city line. Stagecoach lines still operated here and there, but...
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Pennsylvania State Archives Multiyear Freezer Negative Project

The Pennsylvania State Archives is home to many photographic collections. Recently, a project was initiated to remove unstable nitrate and acetate negatives in the archives’ walk-in freezer to clear storage space and prepare for the future move to a new State Archives building, planned to open in 2022. The negatives have been stored for years in the freezer to slow down their deterioration and...
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History Cast in Iron: Rediscovering Keystone Markers

From Airville to Blooming Valley, from Camptown to Dornsife, and all the way to Wysox, York Haven and Zion View, Pennsylvania literally claims unusual – as well as unique – place names from A to Z. Most of the Commonwealth’s cities, towns and villages were once marked with cast iron name signs, painted in the rich blue and gold colors associated with Pennsylvania. Manufactured in an elongated...
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Celebrating Fifty Years of State Historical Markers

On a September day in 1946, three men stood alongside U.S. Route 22, fourteen miles east of Harrisburg, inspecting a distinctive blue and gold sign that had just been erected. They were James H. Duff, chairman of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (who in four months would be inaugurated the Commonwealth’s thirty­-fourth governor), and Commission members Charles G. Webb and...
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Muckraking the Governor: Samuel W. Pennypacker Battles Philadelphia’s Press

“… the country press endeavors to ascertain and further the interests of the people around them. In the large cities, what is popularly called ‘Yellow Journalism,’ with its gross headlines, its vulgar and perverted art, it’s relish for salacious events and horrible crimes, and all the other symptoms of newspaper disease, is gaining foothold.” – Governor...
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