Untouched by the Conflict, edited by Jonathan W. White and Daniel Glenn

Posted by on Jun 8, 2020 in | Comments Off on Untouched by the Conflict, edited by Jonathan W. White and Daniel Glenn Untouched by the Conflict: The Civil War Letters of  Singleton Ashenfelter, Dickinson College edited by Jonathan W. White and Daniel Glenn Kent State University Press, 142 pp., hardcover $29 The title of this unique collection of Civil War letters draws from an influential work of modern scholarship. The editors observe in their introduction that it was social historian J. Matthew Gallman who...
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Pennsylvanians at Meuse-Argonne: The 28th, 79th and 80th Divisions in the Last Major Offensive of the Great War

Posted by on Oct 28, 2019 in | Comments Off on Pennsylvanians at Meuse-Argonne: The 28th, 79th and 80th Divisions in the Last Major Offensive of the Great War Pennsylvanians served with honor and distinction in World War I, with more than 297,000 men from the Keystone State engaged in the conflict as part of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF), established in July 1917 to join the Allied Powers (France, Great Britain, Russia and Italy) in the fight against the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Turkey and Bulgaria). The majority of...
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Craft Brewing: Another Revolution in Pennsylvania

Posted by on Dec 13, 2016 in | Comments Off on Craft Brewing: Another Revolution in Pennsylvania The history of brewing beer in Pennsylvania has seen heights of success and pits of disaster. The commonwealth grew from colonial home-brewing roots to become a recognized industrial center, home to some of the most notable brewers in America before the disaster of Prohibition. After bouncing back with Repeal, Pennsylvania clung to its established favorites longer than any other state, savoring...
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Made in America 1800-1900: Fine Ceramics from Commission Collections

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Made in America 1800-1900: Fine Ceramics from Commission Collections The decorative arts department of the William Penn Memorial Museum in Harrisburg, ad­ministered by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, houses a collection of fine American ceramic pieces spanning the years from 1800 to 1900. Many of these examples are very familiar, but some are quite surprising and not as well known. This sampling from the collections can help to trace the design...
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Preserving Pieces of Pennsylvania’s Past: An Inside Look at the Building of the Commonwealth’s Collections

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Preserving Pieces of Pennsylvania’s Past: An Inside Look at the Building of the Commonwealth’s Collections Associations between butterflies and buttons, Conestoga wagons and cannon, sculpture and arrowheads, or fossils and founder William Penn’s original Charter may seem tenuous, even obscure and, perhaps, nonsensical. But a relationship does exist: they are among the one and a half million objects and thirty thousand cubic feet of manuscripts, records, maps and photographs in the custody and...
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Chester County Welcomes Thee

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Chester County Welcomes Thee The history of Chester County constitutes a significant part of the history of Pennsylvania, both province and commonwealth, and of the history of the United States of America. At the beginning of our nation’s Bicentennial and on the threshold of our state’s and our county’s tricentennial celebrations, Chester County looks proudly upon its past accomplishments and with...
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Clatter, Sproing, Clunk Went the Trolley…

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Clatter, Sproing, Clunk Went the Trolley… On a balmy autumn day in 1923, a young boy riding his pony along the banks of the Schuylkill River near Valley Forge stumbled upon the mortal remains of a once-famous movie star. De­spite the mud and tangle of weeds, he recognized her at once. She was well preserved and the boy wondered-as he raced back to his grandfather’s house in nearby Audubon-if the carcass couldn’t be salvaged....
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Letters to the Editor

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Letters to the Editor Homestead Revisited Thank you for the contribution by Brent D. Glass in the winter 1992 issue, “‘The Public is Enti­tled to Know’: Fighting for the Public Memory of Henry Clay Frick.” Many Pittsburgh resi­dents with three generations of local family knew that his reputation was built on the backs of coal miners and steel workers whose wretched lives he ignored. An...
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Paradise Lost: A Poet in the Political Labyrinth

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Paradise Lost: A Poet in the Political Labyrinth During the nineteenth century, it was not unusual for promi­nent literary figures – authors, playwrights and, of course, poet laureates­ – to be awarded diplomatic posts as honors. Perhaps these appointments lent prestige to administrations or helped lessen suggestions of rank patronage. Writer Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) was one of the best examples; he held several custom house...
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No Summer Solstice: War Stories of the Home Front Survivors

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on No Summer Solstice: War Stories of the Home Front Survivors War stories. Before epic movies and documentaries changed its connotations, the phrase once implied a personal exchange, the kind that took place in barber shops, on porches, or in front of the court house on hot summer afternoons when the fish weren’t biting. They were the kind of stories that grew better in the telling, each time preserving another aspect, perhaps, of a day in a...
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