Shorts

Opening Saturday, October 30 [1993], at the Philadelphia Museum of Art is an exhibi­tion of one hundred and twenty-five old master drawings selected from both public and private collections in the United States and Europe, many of which have never before been exhibited in this country. Entitled “Visions of Antiquity: Neoclassical Figure Drawings,” the exhibition features works by a...
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Mailbox

For continuing research, as well as a forthcoming article in Pennsylvania Heritage, on Philadelphia’s historic Fairmount Water Works, information and ephemera relating to the Fairmount Park Aquarium are being collected. The attraction, one of the first aquariums in the United States, opened to the public in 1911 in the engine house, began deteriorating after World War II, and finally dosed...
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Shorts

“Making History,” a major exhibit illustrating how evidence from the past is discovered in documents, books, artifacts, objects, and photographs at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, will remain on view through Saturday, May 27 [1995]. The exhibit will also examine the ways in which selections drawn from the society’s extensive holdings have been used to...
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Shorts

The Friends of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission is offering an in-depth study tour of the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania on Monday, October 16 [1995]. Sessions include an exploration of the museum’s extensive collections and the history of the Pennsylvania Railroad, in addition to a living history performance by Richard L. Pawling and lunch on the Strasburg Railroad...
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Finding a Light in the Forest: Conrad Weiser Homestead

More than any other, Conrad Weiser (1696-1760) captured the imagination of the Pennsylvania German community during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a time when its leaders asserted its right to be considered a major participant in the building of America. The veneration he was accorded led to the creation in 1923 of the historic park bearing his name and interpreting his...
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A Kentucky Frontiersman’s Pennsylvania Roots: The Daniel Boone Homestead

Mere mention of the name Daniel Boone conjures images of an American icon: trailblazer of the Wilderness Road, preeminent Kentucky frontiersman, defender of early settlements, a crack shot with a long rifle. Boone’s real and folkloric exploits are so well-known that his character is often overlooked, as is the fact that his personality took shape during a boyhood not spent in...
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Shorts

“Pennsylvania Regionalism: The Turn of the Century,” on view at the Cumberland County Historical Society, Carlisle, through Saturday, October 30 [1999], presents a survey of impressionism and realism spanning the period from 1870 to the 1930s. The exhibit features landscapes, still lifes, and portraits by twenty-four Pennsylvania artists, among them Edward W. Redfield, Daniel Garber,...
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Shorts

To observe February 2000 as Black History Month, the Valley Forge Convention and Visitors Bureau has created a special driving tour which includes the John­son House in Germantown, a station along the Underground Railroad, and Camp William Penn, the nation’s first recruiting and training camp for black soldiers, where eleven thousand troops were trained. The country’s first...
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Currents

Brush with Conflict On September 11, 1777, on and near the banks of the Brandywine River where the Brandywine River Museum now stands, the American army led by General George Washington attempted to halt a larger force of British troops intent on capturing Philadelphia (see “British Images of War at Brandywine and the Tredyffrin Encampment” by Thomas J. McGuire in the fall 2002...
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Current and Coming

Photography of Design Margaret Bourke­-White (1904-1971) is best remembered as the first staff photographer of Fortune magazine, the first female war correspondent, and the woman whose photographs made the covers of Life magazine famous. Before she began traveling throughout the world to record history in the making, Bourke-White was creating evocative abstract photographs of American industry...
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