Indomitable: Ora Washington, Philadelphia’s Ultimate Sports Trailblazer

Posted by on Jun 8, 2020 in | Comments Off on Indomitable: Ora Washington, Philadelphia’s Ultimate Sports Trailblazer On June 5, 1971, the African American newspaper Philadelphia Tribune published an obituary for an individual it called “Superwoman.” Although it was a fitting homage, few who read the Tribune that day would have appreciated the level of deference granted to the individual at the center of that tribute. Her name was Ora Mae Washington (1898–1971). Another African American paper, the Pittsburgh...
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Daisy E. Lampkin: Activist for Racial and Gender Equality

Posted by on Jun 4, 2020 in | Comments Off on Daisy E. Lampkin: Activist for Racial and Gender Equality Daisy E. Lampkin (1883–1965) dedicated her life to advancing the rights of  women and African Americans in the United States during the first half of the 20th century. Born Daisy Elizabeth Adams in Washington, D.C., she spent her childhood in Reading, Berks County, before moving to Pittsburgh in 1909 and marrying restauranteur William Lampkin in 1912. She began her public career at the height of...
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Smoketown by Mark Whitaker

Posted by on Dec 11, 2019 in | Comments Off on Smoketown by Mark Whitaker Smoketown The Untold Story of the Other Great Black Renaissance by Mark Whitaker Simon & Schuster, 432 pp., cloth $30 Smoketown tells a story at once inspiring and tragic: the tale of how Pittsburgh became home to one of the nation’s most dynamic black communities before urban redevelopment and civil unrest gutted its vibrant cultural center, the Hill District. The Hill, once dubbed the...
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Jackie Ormes, African American Woman Cartoonist

Posted by on Jun 13, 2017 in | Comments Off on Jackie Ormes, African American Woman Cartoonist Born Zelda Mavin Jackson in Pittsburgh in 1911 and raised in Monongahela, Washington County, Jackie Ormes was the first African American woman cartoonist. At the height of her career, her cartoons and comics reached more than a million readers across the nation through the black press. When the Jim Crow era was in full swing and racial stereotypes were prevalent, Ormes broke down barriers of...
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Daisy Lampkin: A Life of Love and Service

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Daisy Lampkin: A Life of Love and Service The March 11, 1965 front-page, banner headline of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, oldest newspaper in the United States west of the Allegheny Mountains, de­clared: “Alabama Race Tensions Mount … Marchers Defy Ban by Wallace.” The editorial page posed the ques­tion: “What Peace in Selma?” Just one day earlier, March 10, Pittsburgh’s Daisy Lampkin, whose life of...
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The Black Press in Pennsylvania

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Black Press in Pennsylvania I The Black press in Pennsylvania played a leading role in the struggle for Afro-American freedom in the pre-Civil War period. After the war, Afro-American tabloids in the Commonwealth were among the first newspapers to call for the civil rights and enfranchise­ment of Afro-Americans in the South and North. Fre­quently, editors of these newspapers became elected politicians and they used their...
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Currents

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Currents Feathered Friends An exhibition entitled “Fine Feathered Friends: Rare Ornithological Books from the Francis R. Cope, Jr., Collec­tion” will open at the Library Company of Philadelphia on Monday, April 25 [1994]. The collection contains major works by the most important ornithologists of the nine­teenth century, including John James Audubon, John Gould, Daniel Giraud Elliot, and R....
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Josh Gibson, The Heartbreak Kid

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Josh Gibson, The Heartbreak Kid The kid tapped his bat on Yankee Stadium’s home plate and tugged at the sleeves of his gray visi­tors’ uniform, revealing biceps “built like sledge ham­mers.” Before him, the stadi­um’s left field roof, with its famous gingerbread lattice facing, soared one hundred and eighteen feet into the air some four hundred feet from home plate. The scene was the World Series...
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Currents

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Currents Wholly Warhol! Andy Warhol (1928-1987) was as well known for his commentary about contem­porary society (“In the future, everyone will be world famous for fifteen min­utes.”) as for his illustrations, art, writing, films, design, and publishing. Few, how­ever, realized the extent of his insatiable appetite for collecting until the auction house of Sotheby’s in New York...
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Current and Coming

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Current and Coming Constitution Center Drawn up by nearly five dozen dele­gates to the Constitutional Convention held in Philadelphia during the swelter­ing summer of 1787, the Constitution of the United States is a system of the nation’s fundamental laws, defining distinct powers for the Congress, the president, and the federal courts. Ratified by the states the following year, the Constitution offers a...
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