Representing Pennsylvania’s “Precious Heritage”: Art of the State 50

Art of the State is an annual juried exhibition that has been showcasing the work of Pennsylvania’s artists at The State Museum of Pennsylvania since 1968. The body of art that has been exhibited reflects half a century of creative endeavor in the Keystone State. Through the years, exhibitors have shared their ideas and engaged viewers in the categories of painting, photography, craft,...
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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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Bookshelf

Saved for the People of Pennsylvania: Quilts from The State Museum of Pennsylvania by Lucinda Reddington Cawley, Lorraine DeAngelis Ezbiansky, and Denise Rocheleau Nordberg Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1997 ($14.95, paper, 67 pages) Since its founding in 1905, The State Museum of Pennsylvania has collected nearly two million artifacts and objects which docu­ment and interpret...
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Executive Director’s Message

The history we carry with us­ – our personal history – is perhaps the most significant way we establish meaning and value in our lives. In recognition of the dawn of a new millennium, we are inviting readers to share their personal memories in a new feature, “Pennsylvania Memories For A New Millennium,” that will begin with our next edition of Pennsylvania Heritage and...
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Currents

When Worlds Collide History, politics, and art collide in a newly opened exhibition of works by renowned illustrator N.C. Wyeth (1882- 1945) and his grandson, James Wyeth (born 1946), at the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, Delaware County. One Nation: Patriots and Pirates Por­trayed by N.C. Wyeth and James Wyeth brings together eighty draw­ings and paintings that challenge viewers to...
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Strolling Through History at Hopewell Village

For more than a century, Hopewell Furnace in southeastern Pennsylvania had exemplified the technological growing pains of a nation initially built on agriculture but destined to become the industrial titan of the western hemisphere. Between 1771, when Mark Bird (1739-1816) established his furnace at the headwaters of French Creek in Berks County, and 1883, when the­ fires finally cooled,...
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Records of the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs

One of the basic responsibilities of government is the protection of its citizens from armed aggression. As a consequence of that responsibility, Pennsylvania’s government has created a vast amount of documentary evidence. Beginning with the French and Indian War (1754-1763) and culminating in the Vietnam Conflict (1961-1975), the Pennsylvania State Archives, observing its centennial in...
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Out and About

Soul Soldiers The Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center recently unveiled the most comprehensive exhibition ever to explore the issues of the Vietnam War from an African American perspective. “Soul Soldiers: African Americans and the Vietnam Era” tells the story of the Vietnam War’s impact on African American life and culture by examining both the war and the civil rights...
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Frank Rizzo: Philadelphia’s Tough Cop Turned Mayor

On Saturday night, August 29, 1970, unknown assailants shot to death Philadelphia police sergeant Frank Von Colln while stationed in a small guardhouse in the Cobbs Creek section of the city’s expansive Fairmount Park. No one witnessed the killing, but police suspected that it was the work of the Black Panther Party, an African American revolutionary organization that endorsed violence as a...
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Bookshelf

Vietnam Zippos: American Soldiers’ Engravings and Stories, 1965–1973 by Sherry Buchanan published by the University of Chicago Press, 2007; 180 pages, cloth, $25.00 For generations of Americans, it was an icon with the decidedly distinctive click. Invented by George G. Blaisdell, the first Zippo® lighter was manufactured by the Zippo Manufacturing Company, Bradford, Bradford County, seventy-five...
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