Currents

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Currents Hello, History! The former Chautauqua Lake Ice Company warehouse in Pittsburgh’s historic Strip District will come to life on Sunday, April 28 [1996], when it officially opens to the public as the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center. Renovated by the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania, which has been protecting, preserving, and interpreting the history of the...
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Executive Director’s Message

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Executive Director’s Message Travel Notes – April 1996, Pittsburgh A series of conferences, meetings, and special events brings me to Pittsburgh for eight days this month and reconfirms the rich historical legacy of this city and region. Despite the enormous changes that have occurred in recent decades, there remains an abundance of physical reminders of the past. I begin my visit, as I always do, at the Forks of the...
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Lead Glass Tumblers by Stourbridge Flint Glass Works (1835)

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Lead Glass Tumblers by Stourbridge Flint Glass Works (1835) Research for a landmark exhibit re­cently opened at the John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center, “Glass: Shattering Notions,” has uncov­ered new information about an early nineteenth-century pair of colorless lead glass tumblers. In the collections of the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania (which administers the center) since the 1970s, the tumblers, with finely cut and...
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Currents

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Currents Setting Sail One of Pennsylvania’s most exciting museums-and certainly its newest-will open its doors during the Memorial Day weekend (see “Executive Director’s Message” in the spring 1998 edition). The Erie Maritime Museum, with the U.S. Brig Niagara as its centerpiece, will join more than two dozen historic sites and museums along the well-traveled Pennsylvania Trail of...
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Shorts

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Shorts “A Portrait of an American City: 200 Years of New Castle History,” chronicling the founding and settlement of the first community laid out in present-day Lawrence County, is on exhibit at the Lawrence County Historical Society through May 1999. Laid out by John Carlysle Stewart in 1798, New Castle was incorporated as a borough in 1825 and recognized as a city in 1869. “A...
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Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf Connie Mack’s ’29 Triumph: The Rise and Fall of the Philadelphia Athletics Dynasty by William C. Kashatus McFarland & Company, Inc., 1999 (216 pages, cloth, $28.50) To baseball historians, Connie Mack (1862-1956) is a star among managers. His professionalism, penetrating knowledge of the game, and ability to handle his players helped him claim nine pennants, win five World...
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Shorts

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Shorts Continuing at the Library Company of Philadelphia through Thursday, November 25 [1999], is “Ardent Sprits: The Origins of the American Temperance Movement,” featuring books, prints, broadsides, sheet music, and manuscripts spanning the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The American Temperance Movement called for moderation and even abstention in the use of alcohol. The longest and...
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Shorts

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Shorts Offering a comprehensive view of the emergence and influence of French impressionism on American artists of the late nineteenth through the early twentieth centuries, “American Impressionism from the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery” will be on view at the Southern Alleghe­nies Museum of Art at Ligonier Valley from Friday, March 2, through Sunday, April 22, 2001. For more information,...
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Current and Coming

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Current and Coming First in the West More than fifteen organizations in western Pennsylvania are collaborating to commemorate the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with a wide array of events, activities, and programs, such as exhibitions, reenactments, lectures, workshops, living history presentations, and performances. Participants include local and regional governments, educational organizations,...
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Abraham Lincoln Mask (1860) by Leonard W. Volk

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Abraham Lincoln Mask (1860) by Leonard W. Volk One of the most famous likenesses of President Abraham Lincoln is an unusu­al life-mask made in March 1860 by sculptor Leonard W. Volk (1828-1895) in his Chicago studio. Volk measured Lin­coln’s head and upper torso and made a plaster impression of his face, on which he based his exquisite bust of the beard­less future president. Lincoln’s life-mask lay neglected for twenty years,...
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