The Roots of Bird Conservation in Penn’s Woods

Posted by on Apr 17, 2026 in | Comments Off on The Roots of Bird Conservation in Penn’s Woods   Native naturalists and immigrant ornithologists who began their celebrated careers in Penn’s Woods played a pivotal role in establishing America’s enduring romance with the continent’s fabled feathered tribes. Their fieldwork and studies also helped assemble and strengthen the natural science from which bird conservation emerged in the United States. Birdsong, species diversity and the...
read more

Hawk Mountain Sanctuary

Posted by on Mar 17, 2023 in | Comments Off on Hawk Mountain Sanctuary Hawk Mountain Sanctuary is a 2,600-acre forested conservation area in eastern Pennsylvania run by the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary Association for ornithological education and research. Located on the border of Berks and Schuylkill counties at the crest of the Kittatinny Ridge, the sanctuary is on one of the world’s largest migratory flyways for raptors and other bird species. The Lenape Indians who...
read more

From the Executive Director

Posted by on May 13, 2022 in | Comments Off on From the Executive Director PHMC plays a large role in preserving and sharing Pennsylvania history, but of course, this is not work we do alone. Pennsylvanians rely on a host of local organizations to help keep the history they care about alive. As part of its budget each year, PHMC receives $2 million for its Cultural and Historical Support Grants. This somewhat bureaucratic-sounding line item translates into meaningful...
read more

Breaking Nature’s Silence: Pennsylvania’s Rachel Carson

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Breaking Nature’s Silence: Pennsylvania’s Rachel Carson She was belittled as an anti-humanitarian crank, a priestess of nature, and a hysterical woman. The director of the New Jersey Department of Agriculture believed she in­spired a “vociferous, misin­formed group of nature­-balancing, organic gardening, bird-loving, unreasonable citizenry.” An official of the Federal Pest Control Review Board, ridiculing her concern about genetic...
read more

Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf Guide to Photo­graphs at the Pennsylvania State Archives by Linda A. Ries Pennsylvania Histori­cal and Museum Commission, 1993 (229 pages, paper, $6.95) Although the Pennsylvania State Archives safeguards mostly documentary materi­als – such as the private and personal papers of individuals, governmental records, maps, military records, industrial reports, and similar archival items...
read more

Celebrating Fifty Years of State Historical Markers

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Celebrating Fifty Years of State Historical Markers On a September day in 1946, three men stood alongside U.S. Route 22, fourteen miles east of Harrisburg, inspecting a distinctive blue and gold sign that had just been erected. They were James H. Duff, chairman of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (who in four months would be inaugurated the Commonwealth’s thirty­-fourth governor), and Commission members Charles G. Webb and...
read more

Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf Guide to the State Historical Markers of Pennsylvania By George R. Beyer Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 2000 (456 pages, paper, $15.95) It is generally well known that the Commonwealth’s state historical marker program is among the most popular public history initiatives ever mounted by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC). The program, also one of the...
read more

The Lady and the Titan

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Lady and the Titan Before the creation of the Pulitzer Prize, long before Woodward and Bernstein, there was Pennsylvania’s own Ida M. Tarbell (1857-1944). Best known as the muckraking journalist who single-handedly took on the mighty John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937), she was among the most feared and admired women of her time. Writing during the Progressive Era, an age of hope and reform running roughly from...
read more

The Value of Pennsylvania History

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Value of Pennsylvania History George W. Bush won the presidential election of 2000 because the fifty states cast more electoral votes for him, even though more people actually voted for his opponent, Albert A. Gore Jr. The election reminded Americans about a curious institution called the Electoral College, and an equally peculiar system known as federalism in which each state conducts elections according to distinct laws...
read more

Maurice K. Goddard: The Commonwealth’s Conservation Czar

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Maurice K. Goddard: The Commonwealth’s Conservation Czar There is a point in crossing the top of the Allegheny Mountains between Pittsburgh and Harris­burg at which a traveler sees, at every turn, only trees. It is one of the most spectacular views on the North American Continent. The scene lacks the frenetic energy of Niagara Falls, or the awe-filling majesty of the Grand Canyon, but this several­-hundred-square-mile panorama of second-growth forest...
read more