The Giant That Stumbled: Baldwin Locomotive Works Dominated Its Field for a Century, Then Vanished

Posted by on Mar 24, 2021 in | Comments Off on The Giant That Stumbled: Baldwin Locomotive Works Dominated Its Field for a Century, Then Vanished How could a Philadelphia-based global giant with 20,000 employees and a history of 120 years of operation disappear, leaving little trace? It happened to the Baldwin Locomotive Works (BLW), which perfected the art and science of building steam locomotives for domestic and worldwide markets. Baldwin was so dominant that in 1901, eight smaller builders that were scattered around the East banded...
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Gallantly Saving Railroad History: The Adventures of George M. Hart, Founding Director of the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania

Posted by on Dec 30, 2020 in | Comments Off on Gallantly Saving Railroad History: The Adventures of George M. Hart, Founding Director of the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania Four months before his retirement in 1983 as founding director of the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, George Michener Hart (1919–2008) received high praise as the state’s premier railroad historian from the Smithsonian Institution’s curator of transportation, John H. White Jr. Addressed to Hart’s boss, Peter C. Welsh, director of the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission’s Bureau of...
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Trailheads

Posted by on Mar 13, 2020 in | Comments Off on Trailheads Summer is the busiest season on the Pennsylvania Trails of History. Daytrippers enjoy a wealth of options for guided or free-range touring. Families find places to create lasting memories and help stave off the dreaded “learning loss” of summer. Outdoor enthusiasts break up their recreational time, or wait out bad weather, with a gallery visit or two. Numerous summer camp offerings are available...
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Schuylkill County: Built on Coal

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Schuylkill County: Built on Coal The history of Schuylkill County is inextricably bound to the story – and drama – of the great anthracite industry in the United States. Despite nearly two centuries of active mining, the county’s 783 square miles still boast the largest accessible reserves of hard coal known in the world. Its lives and lifestyles have been quasi-fictionalized by two of the county’s best...
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Sullivan County: Picture Post Card Pretty

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Sullivan County: Picture Post Card Pretty Named for Gen. John Sullivan, fearless leader of the leg­endary bloodbath, Sullivan’s March, mounted in 1779 to attack the hostile Iro­quois of northern Pennsylva­nia, Sullivan County is today – as it was throughout the nineteenth century – a bucolic, pastoral landscape, best known for the recreational opportunities it has offered generations of sportsmen and sojourners. For...
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Historic Preservation in Pennsylvania: A Primer

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Historic Preservation in Pennsylvania: A Primer Depending on the individual, historic preser­vation evokes a myriad of interpretations. To the local historical society, it’s restoring the town’s oldest structure to a house-museum showcasing collections of period antiques. To community planners, it often results in a challenge of saving the best while destroying the rest. And to many, historic preservation means little more than a...
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Reading’s Past Will Be a Part of Its Future

Posted by on Nov 28, 2013 in | Comments Off on Reading’s Past Will Be a Part of Its Future Travellers, visitors, or out-of-towners have associated Reading, Pennsylvania, at various times in its history with its most sa­lient industry or activity. In the eighteenth century, had our ancestors been as ready as we to identify a per­son or place solely by one feature, Reading could have been known as “Felt Hat City.” In the nineteenth century, when railroading became one of...
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Fishing around Philadelphia

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Fishing around Philadelphia Sport fishing, one of mankind’s favorite recreational activities, has been practiced by young and old, rich and poor, male and female, for centuries. Today’s fisherman may be standing elbow-to-elbow with his peers on the opening day of trout season, racing his four wheel drive vehicle along the beach to be the first at his favorite surf-casting spot, or bobbing up and down in a...
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America’s Dream Highway

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on America’s Dream Highway Almost no one could have foreseen, fifty years ago, that an experiment in trans­portation engineering mean­dering across the rugged southern Alleghenies could profoundly affect the way tens of millions of Americans tra­vel. But from the very day it opened on October 1, 1940, the Pennsylvania Turnpike did just that – despite the fact that its first section ran from nowhere to nowhere. The...
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Two Gentlemen of Vision

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Two Gentlemen of Vision Henry Janssen and Ferdinand Thun, whose small textile company grew mto the multi-million dollar Wyomissing Industries, were not only prominent industrial­ists, but also visionaries and idealists. With their unique, progressive approach, the two were largely responsible for the development of Wyomiss­ing, Berks County, one of the first planned industrial com­munities in Pennsylvania. Although...
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