Revolutionary Things: Objects from the Collection

Posted by on Jan 14, 2026 in | Comments Off on Revolutionary Things: Objects from the Collection Massachusetts has the Boston Tea Party, Bunker Hill and the Shot Heard Round the World; Virginia can lay claim to Mount Vernon, Monticello and Yorktown; and New Jersey and New York bore the brunt of the fighting in the conflict. But few if any of the original 13 colonies can compete with Pennsylvania in terms of the sheer concentration of people, places and things associated with the nation’s...
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Albert Gallatin, Visionary of the Early Republic

Posted by on Dec 1, 2023 in | Comments Off on Albert Gallatin, Visionary of the Early Republic Albert Gallatin (1761–1849) came to America with a vision, not a dream. While tens of thousands of his fellow immigrants settled the New World in pursuit of personal success, he carried grander hopes. In his pursuit of shaping the young American nation, the Swiss-born Gallatin left behind an impressive legacy as a politician, a diplomat, and the longest-serving secretary of the treasury in U.S....
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Irish Presbyterians and the Shaping of Western Pennsylvania by Peter E. Gilmore

Posted by on Apr 14, 2020 in | Comments Off on Irish Presbyterians and the Shaping of Western Pennsylvania by Peter E. Gilmore Irish Presbyterians and the Shaping of Western Pennsylvania, 1770–1830 by Peter E. Gilmore University of Pittsburgh Press, 248 pp., hardcover $27.95 The Scots-Irish have always captured the imaginations of historians. Images of hardscrabble frontiersmen, ferocious both in their devotion to Presbyterianism and their hostility toward the Indians they hoped to displace from their new Canaan, have...
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Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation Newsletter – Summer 2017

Posted by on Jun 13, 2017 in | Comments Off on Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation Newsletter – Summer 2017 Topics in the Summer 2017 Newsletter: Third Annual Giving Circle Dinner The Giving Circle PHF-Held Endowment Funds Whiskey Still for Fort Pitt Museum Collection PHF Welcomes New Board Member PHF Receives Grant in Partnership with Eckley Miners’ Village Join the Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation   pennsylvania-heritage-foundation-newsletter-summer-2017...
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From the Executive Director

Posted by on Jun 6, 2016 in | Comments Off on From the Executive Director Over the past few months I have been spending time with visitors in the new Pennsylvania Icons exhibit at The State Museum of Pennsylvania (see “Pennsylvania Icons: State Treasures Telling the Story of the Commonwealth,” Winter 2016). There is a small but very powerful section of the exhibit entitled “Pennsylvania and the Nation.” It is a dramatic reminder of the close connection between...
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Pennsylvania Icons: State Treasures Telling the Story of the Commonwealth

Posted by on Apr 19, 2016 in | Comments Off on Pennsylvania Icons: State Treasures Telling the Story of the Commonwealth   Pennsylvania Icons is a landmark exhibition at The State Museum of Pennsylvania that tells the story of the commonwealth and its people, places, industries, creations and events with more than 400 artifacts and specimens from the museum’s collection. The State Museum contains the largest and most comprehensive Pennsylvania history collection in the world, with a diverse array of objects...
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Washington County: From Ice Age to Space Age

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Washington County: From Ice Age to Space Age Southwestern Pennsylvania was for centuries a happy hunt­ing ground for Indians who were living there as long as two thousand years ago. In fact, as the result of archaeological discoveries made at the Meadowcroft Rock Shelter near Avella between 1973 and 1975, University of Pittsburgh anthropologists have proven conclusively that Ice Age people roamed the forests of Washington County even...
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Preserving Yesterday’s Life for Tomorrow

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Preserving Yesterday’s Life for Tomorrow Historic preservation has taken on a new dimension in Bedford County. Old Bedford Village, just off the Pennsylvania Turn­pike at Bedford Exit 11, is a nonprofit venture helping to preserve the history AND economy of this central Pennsyl­vania county. Bedford County as it exists today, is bounded on the south by the Mason­-Dixon Line, on the west, north and east by Somerset, Cambria, Blair,...
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Somerset County: Paths through the Roof Garden

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Somerset County: Paths through the Roof Garden Referring to the high elevation and the scenic quality of the region, Gov. Martin G. Brumbaugh called Somerset County “the Roof Garden of Pennsylvania” at an annual Farmers’ Day picnic in 1916. Since then. the description has become a familiar and respected title; the words “Roof Garden” have been in­corporated in the names of various businesses, and the complete...
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Fayette at the Crossroads

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Fayette at the Crossroads Fayette County has always been at the crossroads, both literally and figuratively, its destiny shaped by its location, the incredible riches of its natural resources and the vi­tality of a people descended from al­most every nation of Europe. It has a son of dual personality, geo­graphically divided between mountains and lowlands, historically divided into two almost equal eras of economic...
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