Documenting Everyday Life in Pennsylvania During the Great Depression and World War II

Posted by Miles Orvell on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Documenting Everyday Life in Pennsylvania During the Great Depression and World War II The documentary photography project initiated by the Farm Security Administration (FSA) in 1935 was an unprecedented experiment in the history of photography, and it remains a monument to a collective effort that will never be equaled-the recording of an entire nation, from the city and town to the farm, from the home to the factory, from work to leisure, from school to church, from the baseball...
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PHMC Celebrates A Century of Service

Posted by PA Heritage Staff on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on PHMC Celebrates A Century of Service The year 1914 was notable for a number of reasons. Germany declared war on Russia and France. Joyce Kilmer wrote “Trees.” Henry Bacon designed the Lincoln Memorial. Mack Sennett produced Making a Living starring Charlie Chaplin. Irving Berlin composed Watch Your Step. The Federal Trade Commission was created. Walter Hagen won the U.S. Golf Association Open. The patent for airplanes...
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Dispatch from Governor Andrew Curtin

Posted by Willis Shirk on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Dispatch from Governor Andrew Curtin A dispatch issued on June 15, 1863, by Governor Andrew Gregg Curtin (1817–1894) to various post offices in Pennsylvania alerted citizens to the imminent arrival of Confederate troops under General Robert E. Lee in Pennsylvania. It was the first public notice of the South’s advance on the Keystone State which ultimately resulted in the horrific three-day Battle of Gettysburg waged July 1-3. “Lee...
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“Atoms for Peace” in Pennsylvania

Posted by Willis Shirk on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on “Atoms for Peace” in Pennsylvania In 1957, Shippingport, along the Ohio River in far western Pennsylvania, became home to America’s first commercial nuclear power plant under President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” program. Just two decades later, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) converted the Beaver County plant to a light water breeder reactor that successfully demonstrated the feasibility...
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Dan Desmond, Eyewitness to Energy History

Posted by Michael Smith on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Dan Desmond, Eyewitness to Energy History Pennsylvania news writers have crowned him Pennsylvania’s Energy Czar and legions of admirers look to him as the Keystone State’s energy guru. And it’s little wonder why. Daniel J. Desmond served the Commonwealth for nearly two decades and helped guide the growth of Pennsylvania’s renewable energy industry. He joined the Pennsylvania Energy Office in 1983 and served as...
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Carpet Mill, Bloomsburg, Pa.

Posted by PA Heritage Staff on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Carpet Mill, Bloomsburg, Pa. The Magee Carpet Company in Bloomsburg, Columbia County, was an outgrowth of James Magee and Company, a small factory of twenty-five looms founded in Philadelphia by James Magee at the close of the American Civil War. Magee’s son and namesake, James Magee II, began working in his father’s mill by sweeping floors. He eventually worked in a number of departments and earned the position of plant...
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Peter Kalm in Pennsylvania

Posted by Myra Jacobsohn on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Peter Kalm in Pennsylvania The territory now recognized as Pennsylvania was once part of a Swedish colony stretching from Delaware to New York. Swedish farmers settled in small villages along the Delaware River, in southern New Jersey, and in the Hudson Valley. Established by the New Sweden Company in March 1638, it was administered from Fort Christina (Wilmington) in what is now Delaware. In 1655, a band of Dutch...
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