Charles Carroll Public School

By the late 1960s the Philadelphia public school system was faced with a crisis. The urban population, after years of growth and expansion to the city’s outskirts and beyond, was now in decline. At the same time racial tensions became prevalent as the urban population became more integrated. Many Philadelphia public schools, especially those found in integrating or depressed neighborhoods, had...
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Lebanon County: Small in Size – Rich in Heritage

Lebanon County is located in the southeastern portion of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the center of the beautiful Lebanon Valley, which is formed by the Blue Ridge of the Kittatinny range of mountains to the north and the South Mountains, or Furnace Hills, to the south. Covering an area of 363 square miles, the county is inhabited by ap­proximately 100,000 people. Between the shale...
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Montgomery County: The Second Hundred Years

County histories, written in most cases during the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries, serve as the starting point for most research in local history. Montgomery Coun­ty’s classic county history, by Theodore W. Bean, is no exception. History, however, did not stop as the final pages of that volume were written. Much has happened since. Just as the Centennial of our nation spurred...
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Political Leadership: A Catalyst for Special Education

President Kennedy was admired for his efforts to help retarded citizens, and most people realize that these efforts were motivated, in part, by his personal awareness of mental retardation. But few people know of the dramatic story of personal motivation moving.govern­ment bureaucracy to assist the handicapped in Pennsyl­vania. It has been nearly half a century since Henry Lanius, a blind...
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Washington County: From Ice Age to Space Age

Southwestern Pennsylvania was for centuries a happy hunt­ing ground for Indians who were living there as long as two thousand years ago. In fact, as the result of archaeological discoveries made at the Meadowcroft Rock Shelter near Avella between 1973 and 1975, University of Pittsburgh anthropologists have proven conclusively that Ice Age people roamed the forests of Washington County even...
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Preserving Yesterday’s Life for Tomorrow

Historic preservation has taken on a new dimension in Bedford County. Old Bedford Village, just off the Pennsylvania Turn­pike at Bedford Exit 11, is a nonprofit venture helping to preserve the history AND economy of this central Pennsyl­vania county. Bedford County as it exists today, is bounded on the south by the Mason­-Dixon Line, on the west, north and east by Somerset, Cambria, Blair,...
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York County: A Most Treasured Land

Planted squarely above the Maryland border, the gigantic horse’s hoof, which is the out­ line of York County, covers an area of 914 square miles, supporting a popula­tion of 300,000. Its eastern contour is delineated by the “long, crooked” Sus­quehanna, its pastern cleanly cut off by Cumberland County on the north, its outer edge defined by Adams Coun­ty on the west. This...
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Evolution of a Preservation Agency: Centre County’s Historic Registration Project

The commemoration of America’s Bicentennial gave birth to numerous community-minded pursuits during its nationwide celebra­tion. Although many of these special endeavors were shelved when the year was over, the administrators of one at least. the Historic Registration Project in Centre County. realized that their work had just begun. Now, four years later, this unique organization is still...
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The Jefferis Collection: A Pennsylvania Treasure

In February 1905, four men entered a small brick building on Miner Street in West Chester and began a month of careful labor. Using cotton and fine wood shavings, they individually wrapped 35,000 mineral speci­mens with their handwritten labels, carefully placed them into boxes, nailed the boxes shut and hauled box after box to the West Chester railroad station. Newspaper reporters kept the...
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Tioga County: A Last Frontier

Fallbrook, Hoytville, Landrus and Leetonia are names that evoke memories of the past for some Tiogans, while for others, build­ings or a place on a map serve as re­minders of what has been. These names are evidence of the establish­ment, growth and demise of economic centers – coal mines, lumber mills and tanneries – important in Tioga County’s past. Today, these enterprises...
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