A Full-Circle Moment: Three Pittsburgh Institutions Work to Secure August Wilson’s Legacy

Posted by on Sep 12, 2022 in | Comments Off on A Full-Circle Moment: Three Pittsburgh Institutions Work to Secure August Wilson’s Legacy August Wilson seemed perturbed when he met journalist Abiola Sinclair for a May 1990 interview in his favorite nook in the lobby of New York’s famed Edison Hotel. This candid session, published later in New York Amsterdam News, included the exasperated playwright’s charge that — despite having four of his American Century Cycle plays performed on Broadway — his work had not received the...
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Updike by Adam Begley

Posted by on May 8, 2015 in | Comments Off on Updike by Adam Begley Updike by Adam Begley HarperCollins, 558 pp., cloth $29.95 “No, no, no, no, no, to paraphrase King Lear,” John Updike told me 12 years ago when I suggested he consider authorizing a biographer. “Please don’t ruin the rest of my life with any talk of a biography, that living death.” Updike’s opposition to literary biography was so fierce it’s no surprise his widow, Martha Updike, refused to...
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You Can Go Home Again: An Interview with James A. Michener

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on You Can Go Home Again: An Interview with James A. Michener James A Michener is a man of diverse talents, boundless energy, and seemingly countless interests. He is naturally inquisitive, passionately curious. He is fascinated by the world around him and the people who inhabit it. He collects stories about far-away places as effortlessly as one gathers seashells on the shoreline in summer. He is the Ultimate Con­noisseur. Of people. Of places. Of things....
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Currents

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Currents Chester County Centennial The Chester County Historical Society, West Chester, has marked its one hundredth anniversary by mounting an exhibition entitled “Presenting Your Past: A Centennial Celebration.” The exhibit highlights the extraordinary collections acquired by the historical society during its first century. Objects on view include significant pieces selected from the...
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Homeward Bound: An Interview with David McCullough

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Homeward Bound: An Interview with David McCullough David McCullough is a familiar name – and face. Known to millions as the author of bestselling books, including The Great Bridge, The Path Between the Seas, Truman, Mornings on Horseback, and Brave Companions, and as host of the popular PBS television series “Smithsonian World” and “The American Experience,” he is noted for his remarkable gift of writing richly...
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Letters to the Editor

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Letters to the Editor Sheer Eloquence I enjoyed reading David McCullough’s first-person account of how he tackles research and writing (see “Homeward Bound: An Interview with David McCullough” by Brent D. Glass in the summer 1994 edition). He is articulate and perceptive. His words are nothing short of sheer eloquence. Aren’t we fortunate to be able to claim him as a native Pennsylvanian?...
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Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf The Indian Industrial School, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, 1879-1918 by Linda F. Witmer Cumberland County Historical Society, 1993 (166 pages, cloth, $29.95) The Indian Industrial School, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, 1879-1918, is a photo­graphic essay tracing the origins and development of the educational institu­tion established in the Cumberland County seat by Captain Richard H. Pratt. The Indian...
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Currents

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Currents Moore Is More As early as 1915, acclaimed American poet Marianne Moore (1887-1972) had discovered the artists and writers who were shaping what was coming to be known as the “new art.” Comments contained in her notebooks indicate her early grasp of the significance of the New York Armory Show of 1913, a benchmark in the American Modernist movement. In several lengthy letters to her...
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Currents

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Currents Setting Sail One of Pennsylvania’s most exciting museums-and certainly its newest-will open its doors during the Memorial Day weekend (see “Executive Director’s Message” in the spring 1998 edition). The Erie Maritime Museum, with the U.S. Brig Niagara as its centerpiece, will join more than two dozen historic sites and museums along the well-traveled Pennsylvania Trail of...
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My Memories of Harrisburg and the Flood of ’36

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on My Memories of Harrisburg and the Flood of ’36 In 1923, I was four years old when my family moved from Philadelphia to Harrisburg. My father, Einar Barfod, had been appointed chief investigator in the securities department of Pennsylvania’s ban.king department by Governor Gifford Pinchot. My earliest memory of Harrisburg was a summer when my mother hired a farmer to plow the field next to our house, then having all the neighborhood...
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