Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania 50

Posted by on Jun 11, 2025 in | Comments Off on Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania 50 Rising from the rolling hills and lush farmlands of Lancaster County is a sprawling complex of exhibit buildings, train tracks, and historic railroad equipment. Together, they tell the story of how railroads changed the lives of people for more than two centuries. For 50 years now, the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania has preserved and interpreted the commonwealth’s rich railroad history. It has...
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Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation Newsletter – Fall 2023

Posted by on Sep 18, 2023 in | Comments Off on Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation Newsletter – Fall 2023 Topics in the Summer 2023 Newsletter: PHF Marks 40 Years (Part 2) Railroad Museum Archives Manager Highlights Photo in Collections Lauren Radkiewicz on Photograph of PRR Paoli Car Shop Workers PHF Announces New Board Member PHF-Newsletter  ...
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Editor’s Letter

Posted by on Jul 24, 2023 in | Comments Off on Editor’s Letter For years Pennsylvania has been recognized as a seedbed for first-class professional athletes, not the least of whom are the baseball players who have hailed from the state. The names have become legendary — Honus Wagner and Christy Mathewson, Stan Musial and Roy Campanella, Reggie Jackson and Mike Piazza. Among this cream of Pennsylvania’s substantial baseball crop is Dick Allen, who began his...
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The Paoli Local and the Birth of Pennsylvania’s Main Line

Posted by on Mar 11, 2022 in | Comments Off on The Paoli Local and the Birth of Pennsylvania’s Main Line “In the year 1857, when the Columbia Railroad passed into the possession of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company . . . the local travel was very light, very few of the business men of the city having residences out of town,” wrote William Hasell Wilson (1811–1902) in his memoir of life as a railroad engineer. During the rest of the 19th and 20th centuries, Wilson, his family and the Pennsylvania...
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The Early Days of the William Penn Highway: How Present-Day U.S. Route 22 Got its Start

Posted by on Nov 30, 2021 in | Comments Off on 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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The Giant That Stumbled: Baldwin Locomotive Works Dominated Its Field for a Century, Then Vanished

Posted by on Mar 24, 2021 in | Comments Off on The Giant That Stumbled: Baldwin Locomotive Works Dominated Its Field for a Century, Then Vanished How could a Philadelphia-based global giant with 20,000 employees and a history of 120 years of operation disappear, leaving little trace? It happened to the Baldwin Locomotive Works (BLW), which perfected the art and science of building steam locomotives for domestic and worldwide markets. Baldwin was so dominant that in 1901, eight smaller builders that were scattered around the East banded...
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Gallantly Saving Railroad History: The Adventures of George M. Hart, Founding Director of the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania

Posted by on Dec 30, 2020 in | Comments Off on Gallantly Saving Railroad History: The Adventures of George M. Hart, Founding Director of the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania Four months before his retirement in 1983 as founding director of the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, George Michener Hart (1919–2008) received high praise as the state’s premier railroad historian from the Smithsonian Institution’s curator of transportation, John H. White Jr. Addressed to Hart’s boss, Peter C. Welsh, director of the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission’s Bureau of...
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Marketing Patriotism: Pennsylvania Railroad Advertising During World War II

Posted by on Nov 30, 2020 in | Comments Off on Marketing Patriotism: Pennsylvania Railroad Advertising During World War II During World War II, the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) spent lavishly on patriotic magazine advertising. No other railroad put so much effort, money or creative talent into a campaign to boost the war and create favorable public opinion for itself. As the single largest railroad in the United States, the Philadelphia-based “Pennsy” carried 10 percent of all freight in America and 20 percent of all...
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Editor’s Letter

Posted by on Nov 23, 2020 in | Comments Off on Editor’s Letter This edition of Pennsylvania Heritage was produced mostly through teleworking, as all of us in the Keystone State — and the world — have been in the midst of what already has become one of the most momentous episodes in contemporary history. In the devastating weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, every realm of human existence has been profoundly affected. As we continue through the crisis, history...
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Pittsburgh’s Wood-Paved Roslyn Place

Posted by on Jun 8, 2020 in | Comments Off on Pittsburgh’s Wood-Paved Roslyn Place It’s not often that architectural historians look down — we usually leave that to the archaeologists — but on Roslyn Place, one of Pennsylvania’s newest National Register–listed historic districts, we turned our heads to the ground to consider something that is rare in America: a wood-paved street. Roughly 26,000 oak blocks make up the 250-foot-long cul-de-sac surrounded by 18 houses in...
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