Thaddeus Stevens, Equality of Man Before the Creator

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Thaddeus Stevens, Equality of Man Before the Creator In his thirty-five year legislative career, Thaddeus Stevens garnered several reputations. Ex-Confederates called him “the scourge of the South,” an epithet which survived into the twentieth century. In D. W. Griffith’s film Birth of a Nation, character Austin Stoneman is unabashedly modeled on Thaddeus Stevens, complete with clubfoot and wig. For his en­deavors to secure...
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With Dash and Spirit: Haverford College Plays Soccer!

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on With Dash and Spirit: Haverford College Plays Soccer! A strong, blistering wind cut across the playing field as the young athletes ran through their pre-game drills. It was April 1, 1905, and spring, as usual, seemed to introduce itself to Boston with a lion’s roar rather than the meekness of a lamb. Eager to begin the match, Harvard’s players abbreviated their warm-up exercises to huddle on the sidelines of Soldiers’ Field and...
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Commemorating a Centennial by Revising a Vision

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Commemorating a Centennial by Revising a Vision The American museum was and is an idea. The European museum was a fact. Almost without exception the European museum was first a collection. With few exceptions most American museums were first an ideal,” Philadelphian Nathaniel Burt wrote in his 1977 history of the American museum, Palaces for People. Unlike their European counterparts, which were usually created to house the great...
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Isabel Darlington, Esq., Belle of the Bar

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Isabel Darlington, Esq., Belle of the Bar On a crisp day in late December 1897, the members of the Chester County Bar Association gathered on the front steps of the courthouse in West Chester for their annual group portrait. Three dozen lawyers posed solemnly before the camera, each mustachioed face a mirror image of the next. For the first time in its one hundred and fifty year history, there was something notice­ably different about...
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Unconventional Patriot: An Interview with Ann Hawkes Hutton

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Unconventional Patriot: An Interview with Ann Hawkes Hutton Shadyside, the Bucks County home of Ann Hawkes Hutton, sets the perfect stage for an animated conversation with one of the country’s foremost promoters of patriotism and historic preservation. With its views of the picturesque Delaware River, its collection of fine furnishings, and its hundreds of books, photographs, and documents chronicling American history, Shadyside embodies what many...
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Pushing William Penn’s “Holy Experiment” to Its Limits: Ephrata Cloister

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Pushing William Penn’s “Holy Experiment” to Its Limits: Ephrata Cloister On the banks of the Cocalico Creek in northern Lancaster County a group of remarkable individuals established Ephrata, one of colonial Pennsylvania’s most unusual communities. A place of intense spirituality, unconventional way of life, literary and artistic brilliance, and medieval-style architecture, Ephrata was the center of a religious society whose principles gave William Penn’s...
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Keystone Born, Hollywood Bred: “Movie Buff” David Mallery Reviews the Acting Careers of James Stewart and Grace Kelly

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Keystone Born, Hollywood Bred: “Movie Buff” David Mallery Reviews the Acting Careers of James Stewart and Grace Kelly There is magic in the movies. They draw viewers away – even if but for a few hours – from mere ordinary, everyday life to see their own experience and the experience of others in a detached but powerful way. Some induce laughter, others bring tears. But audiences seem grateful for the opportunity to know the richness, the complex­ity, and the irony of events without their having to...
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The Home Kids Find a Place of Their Own

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Home Kids Find a Place of Their Own In 1912, Isador Sobel, born in New York in 1858, was an individual of considerable standing in Erie, where he had studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1888. Three years later he was elected to city council and during his second term served as president. President William McKinley appointed him Erie’s postmaster in 1898, as did President Theodore Roosevelt in 1902 and 1906, and...
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Crusader with a Camera: Lewis Hine and His Battle against Child “Slavery”

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Crusader with a Camera: Lewis Hine and His Battle against Child “Slavery” National History Day, held each year in June, caps a series of competi­tions conducted at successively higher levels during the academic year. During the year, school students engage in extensive research of primary sources in order to prepare papers, projects, performances, and media presentations based on a historical theme. National History Day is open to students in grades six through eight,...
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Painting a Sense of Place: Walter Emerson Baum and the Lehigh Valley

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Painting a Sense of Place: Walter Emerson Baum and the Lehigh Valley Even today, take any of its highways or byways and, around some turn in the road, a visitor can be overwhelmed with a scene of such intimate beauty that it makes the heart race a little. This is the bucolic Lehigh Valley of southeastern Pennsylvania. Streams and stone houses, church spires, quaint villages nestled among the lush, rolling hills – all come together in a blend so distinct...
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