George Rapp’s Coat and Cap

Posted by on Apr 19, 2016 in | Comments Off on George Rapp’s Coat and Cap Silk was all the rage in America during the 1820s and 1830s. Initially imported from Europe, silk fabric was used in men’s suits, women’s dresses and miscellaneous household articles. The Harmony Society, always at the forefront of industry at the time, added silk manufacturing to its long list of enterprises shortly after the religious communal group settled in 1825 at their last home in...
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Unlikely Capitalists: Harmonists as Textile Manufacturers

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Unlikely Capitalists: Harmonists as Textile Manufacturers At the end of the eighteenth century, George Rapp (1757-1847) planned to create a religious community in the wilderness as near to heaven on earth as was humanly possible. He succeeded to a large extent, but in the process achieved a different kind of success: he created one of the largest textile manufacturing enter­prises in the Pennsylvania of his time. While still in his native Württemburg,...
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Preserving Pieces of Pennsylvania’s Past: An Inside Look at the Building of the Commonwealth’s Collections

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Preserving Pieces of Pennsylvania’s Past: An Inside Look at the Building of the Commonwealth’s Collections Associations between butterflies and buttons, Conestoga wagons and cannon, sculpture and arrowheads, or fossils and founder William Penn’s original Charter may seem tenuous, even obscure and, perhaps, nonsensical. But a relationship does exist: they are among the one and a half million objects and thirty thousand cubic feet of manuscripts, records, maps and photographs in the custody and...
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Women Go to Work!

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Women Go to Work! The illusion of the Victorian woman – a creature accustomed to leisure and com­fort- was alive and well in Indiana County at the turn of the century. Newspaper columns reported a variety of social activities in which women participated, including temperance and missionary societies, social and reading clubs. Advertisements for medicines appealed to women who considered themselves delicate,...
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Ethnic History: Of the Children, by the Children, for the Children

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Ethnic History: Of the Children, by the Children, for the Children Interest in the study of history is drifting in conflicting directions. The teaching of Pennsylvania history in schools is steadily declining and enrollment in history classes at all levels including college has slipped. The growing idolization of exact sciences such as physics and chemistry and quantif­ication has discredited the sometimes subjective perceptions of historical studies. On the...
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