Fighter’s Heaven: Muhammad Ali’s Training Camp in the Pennsylvania Wilderness

Posted by on Dec 28, 2020 in | Comments Off on Fighter’s Heaven: Muhammad Ali’s Training Camp in the Pennsylvania Wilderness On a mountainside overlooking Deer Lake, in Pennsylvania’s Schuylkill County, is a restored boxers’ training camp called Fighter’s Heaven, originally built by Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) in 1972. The Champ, as he boastfully called himself, designed the boxing haven during the early phase of his post-three-year-suspension comeback tour in order to escape the hullabaloo of civilization as he trained...
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Editor’s Letter

Posted by on Jun 4, 2020 in | Comments Off on Editor’s Letter With the recent premiere of Country Music, director Ken Burns has launched another epic PBS TV docuseries that amplifies the significance of an enduring American institution. In this issue’s cover story, “High on a Mountain,” we follow up with a look at Pennsylvania’s key role in the evolution of country music and the state’s later contributions to the genre. Author Joe Baker takes us on a...
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Boathouse Row by Dotty Brown

Posted by on Mar 13, 2017 in | Comments Off on Boathouse Row by Dotty Brown Boathouse Row: Waves of Change in the Birthplace of American Rowing by Dotty Brown Temple University Press, 273 pages, cloth $35 Mention “Pennsylvania” and “navy” in a game of word association, and history-minded folks might mention U.S. Brig Niagara, Oliver Hazard Perry’s War of 1812 flagship that fought in the Battle of Lake Erie. Another guess might be the USS...
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Chuck Noll by Michael MacCambridge

Posted by on Mar 13, 2017 in | Comments Off on Chuck Noll by Michael MacCambridge Chuck Noll: His Life’s Work by Michael MacCambridge University of Pittsburgh Press, 504 pp., cloth $27.95 There is a saying in the world of professional sports that a coach will not know for five to ten years whether a decision to accept a job was the right choice. That maxim, in essence, says everything about the risks of making a career out of professional coaching, and it is the theme...
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The Stetson Company and Benevolent Feudalism

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Stetson Company and Benevolent Feudalism Philadelphia, during the first three decades of the twentieth century, was known for its great industrial enterprise. The city called itself the World’s Greatest Workshop and was a leader in the manufacture of more than 200 different items. It ranked first in the nation in the pro­duction of hosiery and knit goods, carpets and rugs, locomotives, street railway cars, saws, surgical...
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Delaware County: Where Pennsylvania Began

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Delaware County: Where Pennsylvania Began Delaware County is part of the densely populated belt around Philadelphia, stretching from the city’s western boundary to the circular Delaware state line. Covering approx­imately 185 square miles, it is the third smallest Pennsylvania county yet the fourth largest in population. Its southern boundary is formed by the Delaware River, from which the county takes its name. The site of early...
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Soaring above the Sandlots: The Garfield Eagles

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Soaring above the Sandlots: The Garfield Eagles Baseball was first and foremost among American sports, but it is only a summer game. Its place in the seasons bas much to do with its charm. In March and April, after sport’s tiempo muerto, many are willing to endure cold snaps and icy spring rains. But in the fall, each sunset foreshadows season’s end as baseball runs its course. Some pursued it year-round, in Cuba and Mexico,...
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The State Normal Schools: Teaching Teachers and Others

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on The State Normal Schools: Teaching Teachers and Others In view of their complex, if not complicated, information systems, computers and advanced technology seemingly snatched from the next century, Pennsylvania’s “modern” state universities evolved from what were originally called “normal” schools. During the last century, both educational and social traditions have changed drastically; in fact, nineteenth century...
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The Call of the Clarion

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Call of the Clarion To the eighteenth century French explorers, the river the Indians called Tobeco was Riviere au Fiel – the “River of Hate.” Pioneers know it as Toby or Stump Creek. In 1817 it was christened Clarion by road surveyors Daniel Stanard and David Lawson as they camped along its shores because the river’s clear, shrill sound reminded them of the medieval trumpet. The name of the...
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Pennsylvania’s First Television Station: “Loving What We Were Doing”

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Pennsylvania’s First Television Station: “Loving What We Were Doing” No champagne corks popped at Philadel­phia’s old Philco plant on October 17, 1941, to celebrate. The achievement failed to rate even a few lines in local newspapers as reports of the increasingly grim drama unfolding in Eu­rope took chilling precedence. Like so many of the seemingly minor events that herald major changes in our way of living, America’s first commercial network...
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