Thomas Alva Edison Archives - Pennsylvania Heritage Magazine

Philadelphia’s Forgotten Inventor: The Untold Story of Rudolph M. Hunter

Posted by David Hursh on Jun 13, 2017 in | Comments Off The lot at 3710 Chestnut Street in Philadelphia is all but empty now – a low scraggly hedge in front, a scattering of shade trees, a long concrete walk on the right, skirting Penn Newman Catholic Center. It’s hard to imagine the fanciful Victorian mansion that once adorned the site – a “pretty residence of brick,” the Philadelphia Press unimaginatively put it in...
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Free-Thinking, 19th-Century Style

Posted by Wayne Trotta on Dec 2, 2013 in | Comments Off Francis Ellingwood Abbot (1836–1903) was nothing if not determined. In 1872, as editor of The Index, the nation’s leading free-thought magazine, he began to muster the full force of his small army of subscribers against what was being called “the God-in-the-Constitution amendment.” A philosopher and theologian, he sought to reconstruct theology in accordance with scientific methodology. From the...
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“The Greatest Thing That Ever Happened to Us Country People”

Posted by Mary Romeo on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off On a Halloween night early in the 1930s, a barn caught fire a few miles from Corry, Erie County. A passer by, Harry Burrows, hurriedly tied his horse and ran to help free the trapped animals. In the excitement no one noticed that the farm’s hired man was missing, but later they learned that his kerosene lantern was the culprit in starting the fire. “Some time, some way, he knocked...
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Siegmund Lubin: The Forgotten Filmmaker

Posted by Linda Kowall-Woal on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off In Philipsburg, the summer of 1914 ended with a crash that could be heard for miles and seen around the world. On the slopes of Centre County’s Collision Field, a stadium formed by nature, five thousand festive, flag-waving spectators gathered to watch the wrecking of two great Pittsburgh & Susquehanna Railroad locomotives. Bands entertained the Labor Day celebrants with musical...
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Northumberland County: The Mother County

Posted by Michael O'Malley on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off Although named for the most northern of England’s shires, Northumberland County has been often called by many the “Mother County.” Organized on March 21, 1772, as Pennsylvania’s tenth county, at one time it encompassed eighteen thousand square miles! The county once extended from the Lehigh to the Allegheny rivers, with the New York border as its northern boundary. Its...
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Currents

Posted by PA Heritage Staff on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off Let’s Motor! Although Detroit has earned the title of “Motor City,” Pittsburgh was home to twenty automobile makers at the turn of the century, manufacturing such notable vehicles as the Penn 30 Touring Car, the Standard Model E Touring Car, the Keystone Six-Sixty, the Brush Model D Runabout, and the Artzberger Steam Surrey. Several of these automobiles attracted widespread...
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Bookshelf

Posted by PA Heritage Staff on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off The King of the Movies: Film Pioneer Siegmund Lubin by Joseph P. Eckhardt Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1998. (286 pages, cloth, $55.00) That immigrant Jews exerted a profound impact on the growth of American cinema is well known and has been the subject of considerable scholarship. However, the country’s first Jewish movie mogul, Siegmund “Pop” Lubin (1851-1923) of...
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Visiting the Museum of Anthracite Mining: A Walk Through the Rise and Fall of Anthracite Might

Posted by Fred Lauver on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off One of Pennsylvania’s most significant resources was once considered useless. Although anthracite was distinguished as a natural resource as early as 1770, the sale of “stone coal” – as it was then called – was outlawed in some places. Many believed that anthracite (or “hard” coal) was little better than slate and would not burn. Eventually, however, a...
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Bookshelf

Posted by PA Heritage Staff on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off Carnegie By Peter Krass John Wiley and Company, Inc., 2002 (612 pages, cloth $35.00) The name Carnegie, like several others of its day – Westinghouse, Morgan, Ford, Rockefeller, Winchester, Chrysler, Du Pont, Edison, Hershey – stands apart, apparently requiring little, if any, introduction. Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) stands next to J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller as one of the...
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Bookshelf

Posted by PA Heritage Staff on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off The Spectator and the Topographical City by Martin Aurand published by the University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006; 232 pages, cloth, $29.95 Martin Aurand’s The Spectator and the Topographical City examines Pittsburgh’s built environment as it relates to the city’s unique topography. The author explores the conditions present in the natural landscape that led to the creation of architectural...
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