Ringing Out for Women’s Suffrage: The 1915 Campaign to Win the Vote for Women in Pennsylvania

Posted by on Apr 15, 2020 in | Comments Off on Ringing Out for Women’s Suffrage: The 1915 Campaign to Win the Vote for Women in Pennsylvania   “The appearance in villages of this car with a “Votes for Women” apron in front, yellow pon-pons floating in the breeze and pennants flying, awakens interest in the most lethargic.” – The York Daily, October 25, 1915 On June 24, 1919, Pennsylvania became the seventh state to ratify the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote. For Philadelphia suffragist...
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100 Games: The Penn State–Pitt Rivalry

Posted by on Mar 12, 2020 in | Comments Off on 100 Games: The Penn State–Pitt Rivalry It “leaves an everlasting impression on you because, in Pennsylvania, it’s the only game that counts,” wrote Tim Panaccio about the rivalry between the Pennsylvania State University Nittany Lions and the University of Pittsburgh Panthers in his 1982 book Beast of the East: Penn State vs. Pitt. In the same breath, he added, “Records don’t mean a thing, just who wins this game.” Panaccio’s...
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Battlefield Pennsylvania by Brady J. Crytzer

Posted by on Mar 6, 2020 in | Comments Off on Battlefield Pennsylvania by Brady J. Crytzer Battlefield Pennsylvania A Guide to the Keystone State’s Most Sacred Ground by Brady J. Crytzer Westholme Publishing, 288 pp., cloth $28.00 Ironically, the soil of Pennsylvania, founded by pacifist and Quaker William Penn, was soaked with the blood of its inhabitants. Brady J. Crytzer’s Battlefield Pennsylvania documents the many battles waged in this state. Some near present-day...
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Bubley by Greyhound: Photographing Wartime Rationing

Posted by on Feb 3, 2020 in | Comments Off on Bubley by Greyhound: Photographing Wartime Rationing Most photographs from World War II document industries or overseas military activities. Rarely do we get a look at daily life on the home front. One young woman who was documenting ordinary lives at that time was Esther Bubley (1921–98), who became known for taking intimate photos of people despite lugging around a large camera. There’s no better example of that than a story from her niece Jean...
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Paying It Forward: The Legacy of Genevieve Blatt

Posted by on Dec 31, 2019 in | Comments Off on Paying It Forward: The Legacy of Genevieve Blatt When she was a judge on Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court, Genevieve Blatt (1913-96) was known to instruct her law clerks that she didn’t want to see them typing. “She was very insistent that we had other people who could perform that task for us,” said Mary K. Kisthardt, a former law clerk for the judge who is now a professor of law at the University of Missouri–Kansas City School of Law....
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Editor’s Letter

Posted by on Dec 17, 2019 in | Comments Off on Editor’s Letter Welcome to the first issue of the 45th volume of Pennsylvania Heritage. Since the publication of the premiere edition of December 1974, more than 750 features on Pennsylvania history, culture and natural history by leading authors in their fields, as well as hundreds of columns and news items, have been printed in our quarterly magazine. In this anniversary edition we continue our tradition 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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1918’s Deadliest Killer: The Flu Pandemic Hits Pennsylvania

Posted by on Dec 1, 2019 in | Comments Off on 1918’s Deadliest Killer: The Flu Pandemic Hits Pennsylvania I had a little bird, Its name was Enza. I opened the window, And in-flu-enza. —Children’s rhyme, 1918 The year 1918 was arguably one of the darkest in modern times and the deadliest ever recorded in human history. Much of Europe was locked in a hideous, relentless military struggle that had dragged on for three years, killing millions of soldiers and bankrupting its governments. Famine stalked...
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Stephanie Kwolek, Inventor of Kevlar

Posted by on Dec 1, 2019 in | Comments Off on Stephanie Kwolek, Inventor of Kevlar Born into a Polish American family in New Kensington, Westmoreland County, Stephanie Kwolek (1923–2014) received a bachelor’s degree in 1946 from the Margaret Morrison Carnegie College of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Although she intended to pursue a career in medicine, she took a job with DuPont as a chemist to earn money to attend medical school. She became so involved in her...
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Luna by Brian Butko

Posted by on Nov 3, 2019 in | Comments Off on Luna by Brian Butko Luna Pittsburgh’s Original Lost Kennywood by Brian Butko Senator John Heinz History Center, 140 pp., paper $12.95 It’s not often that a history book begins with a graphic description of a lion attack. But in Brian Butko’s latest, Luna, it is the perfect way to set the stage for this enjoyable look at the growth of the entertainment industry in Pittsburgh at the turn of the 20th century. The...
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