Pittsburgh in 50 Maps by Stentor Danielson

Posted by on Aug 13, 2026 in | Comments Off on Pittsburgh in 50 Maps by Stentor Danielson Pittsburgh in 50 Maps by Stentor Danielson Belt Publishing, 136 pp., hardcover $30 If a picture says a thousand words, what might we say about a map, or more to the point, 50 maps, professing to explore and reveal the patterns and contours of a single city? Based on the specimens gathered together in this highly informative, often surprising, and relentlessly original volume by Stentor...
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Andy Warhol’s Mother by Elaine Rusinko

Posted by on Aug 13, 2026 in | Comments Off on Andy Warhol’s Mother by Elaine Rusinko Andy Warhol’s Mother The Woman Behind the Artist by Elaine Rusinko University of Pittsburgh Press, 528 pp., hardcover $40; paperback $24 Born Andrew Warhola in Pittsburgh in 1928, the man better known as Andy Warhol went on to become one of the most enduringly prominent American artists of his generation. Warhol’s legacy has been turned to repeatedly in recent biographies, docuseries and...
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Fort Pitt Block House

Posted by on Apr 17, 2026 in | Comments Off on Fort Pitt Block House The Fort Pitt Block House, a pentagonal-shaped structure of brick and stone, was built in 1764 as an outlying redoubt of Fort Pitt at the confluence of the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio rivers in what is today Pittsburgh. The British constructed Fort Pitt in 1759–61, after gaining control of the Ohio River valley from the French. The fort was built using the star-shaped, bastion trace design...
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Bettis: Where Pittsburgh Aviation Took Off by Brian Butko and Sue Morris

Posted by on Jan 14, 2026 in | Comments Off on Bettis: Where Pittsburgh Aviation Took Off by Brian Butko and Sue Morris Bettis Where Pittsburgh Aviation Took Off by Brian Butko and Sue Morris Senator John Heinz History Center, 124 pp., paperback $19.95 Most of the 9 million people flying to or through Pittsburgh know only Pittsburgh International Airport, a sprawling, 10,000-acre facility, the largest civil-aviation field in Pennsylvania today. But in fact, it’s only the latest in a succession of four major...
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Welcome Aboard the Party Train: The Pennsylvania–Texas Power Nexus

Posted by on Jan 14, 2026 in | Comments Off on Welcome Aboard the Party Train: The Pennsylvania–Texas Power Nexus As U.S. House Speaker and Vice President John Nance “Cactus Jack” Garner (1868–1967) of Texas could attest, no congressional outing in the 1930s was complete without Pittsburgh’s Joe Guffey (1870–1959). In 1901, Guffey’s uncle, James, with money borrowed from the Mellon family, brought in Spindletop on the Gulf Coast. James Guffey midwifed the Texas petroleum industry — and provided the Mellons...
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Hanauer Rosenberg Residence

Posted by on Dec 1, 2025 in | Comments Off on Hanauer Rosenberg Residence Nestled in Pittsburgh’s Deutschtown neighborhood, an unassuming rowhouse was once the home of Pauline Hanauer Rosenberg (1863–1940), a leader of Progressive Era reform movements and founding member of the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW), the first nationwide Jewish women’s organization. Rosenberg was born into a German Jewish family in Allegheny City (now part of Pittsburgh). She and her...
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Teammates & Rivals: Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson and the Pittsburgh Crawfords

Posted by on Sep 8, 2025 in | Comments Off on Teammates & Rivals: Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson and the Pittsburgh Crawfords On September 10, 1942, the Negro American League champion Kansas City Monarchs faced the Negro National League champion Homestead Grays at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. It was Game Two of a best-of-seven matchup that would determine the World Series of Black baseball. The Monarchs had taken a one-game lead in the series the previous day, handily defeating the Grays, 8–0. Homestead was out for...
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Roads and Rails in Pittsburgh’s North Hills: How Transportation Fast-Tracked 20th-Century Suburban Development

Posted by on Feb 24, 2025 in | Comments Off on Roads and Rails in Pittsburgh’s North Hills: How Transportation Fast-Tracked 20th-Century Suburban Development The North Hills of Pittsburgh today resembles the suburban landscape clustered around many other American cities, dotted with housing subdivisions, roadside shopping centers, schools and too many traffic lights to count. But a little more than a century ago, this part of Allegheny County was like a rural outpost, a sparsely settled land of forested hillsides, rolling farmers’ fields, and the...
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Editor’s Letter

Posted by on Feb 21, 2025 in | Comments Off on Editor’s Letter In the Spring 2024 edition of Pennsylvania Heritage, we looked at the World War II experience of Steelton’s Thomas Mosley, one of the first Black men to serve in the U.S. Marines since the Revolutionary War. In this issue we continue our focus on World War II as we approach the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge and highlight the role of Pennsylvanians in that decisive conflict. In the...
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She Devils at the Door by Eliza Smith Brown

Posted by on Aug 9, 2024 in | Comments Off on She Devils at the Door by Eliza Smith Brown She Devils at the Door by Eliza Smith Brown Carnegie Mellon University Press, 360 pages, paperback $29 The United States Women’s Suffrage Movement was a tenuous battle that took nearly eight decades to be realized. Women across the country saw this fight pass from themselves to their daughters and granddaughters in hopes that women would be seen as more than custodians of home and hearth. Eliza...
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