Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf Amish Houses and Barns by Stephen Scott Good Books, 1992 (158 pages, paper, $5.95) Home is the center of Amish life, and most – if not all – major life events occur within its walls: birth, mar­riage, visiting, worship, recreation, and death. Amish Houses and Barns is a carefully researched “behind-the­-scenes” look at these events on three farms in particular, as well as...
read more

Mailbox

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Mailbox On March 18, 1811, Gov. Simon Snyder approved an act of the legislature for the creation of Schuylkill County from parts of Northampton and Berks counties. A map of Pennsylvania by John Melish, dated 1822, shows a “Kaups Creek,” a tributary of the Little Schuylkill River, to the east of Orwigsburg (which served as the county seat until 1851). Information regarding this creek is...
read more

Heritage Highlights

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Heritage Highlights Pennsylvania Anthracite Heritage Museum, Scranton Exhibit: “Illustrating an Era: The Life and Work of Photographer John Horgan, Jr., 1859-1926”, through March 1994 Old Economy Village, Ambridge “Gartenfest”, May 14-15, 1994 Joseph Priestley House, Northumberland “Oxygen Day” Celebration, August 1, 1994 Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, Strasburg Lecture:...
read more

Shorts

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Shorts On Saturday, May 14, 1994, guides at Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site will demonstrate traditional sheep­-shearing methods with both period and modern hand-held tools. They will also discuss the importance of farms and farming practices to an 1830s industrial community. To obtain additional details, write: Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site, 2 Mark Bird Ln., Elverson, PA 19520; or...
read more

Drawing from Jack Savitsky’s Sketchbook

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Drawing from Jack Savitsky’s Sketchbook The work of Jack Savitsky (1910-1991) is highly prized by aficionados of twentieth century folk art. A native of Schuylkill County, Savitsky drew the subject matter for his art from his own experience as a hard coal miner in north­eastern Pennsylvania’s anthracite region, as well as from the area’s miners and mining villages. Interestingly enough, his paintings and drawings depict a...
read more

Currents

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Currents It’s a Zoo! When the Zoological Society of Philadelphia was organized at the home of Dr. William Camac (its first presi­dent) on March 21, 1859, it was the first of its kind in North America. In spite of its auspicious beginnings, the early years of the Philadelphia Zoo – now touted as “America’s First Zoo”­ – were dampened by the Civil War, which not only...
read more

Shorts

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Shorts A cartoonist and illustrator for The New Yorker from 1927 to 1966, Mary Petty (1899-1976) was well loved for her humorous and witty depictions of twentieth century life. An exhibit of fifty works in watercolor and ink, “The Life and Art of Mary Petty” will be on view at the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford through Sunday, November 20 [1994]. For more infor­mation, write:...
read more

Heritage Highlights

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Heritage Highlights Daniel Boone Homestead, Birdsboro Architectural Heritage Day, October 16, 1994 Bushy Run Battlefield, Jeanette Lecture: “British Treaties and Negotiations”, November 19, 1994 Drake Well Museum, Titusville Oil Country Christmas, December 10, 1994 Eckley Miners’ Village, Weatherly Children’s Christmas at Eckley, December 3, 1994 Graeme Park, Horsham Living History Day,...
read more

Explaining William Penn on the 350th Anniversary of His Birth: An Interview with Richard S. Dunn

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Explaining William Penn on the 350th Anniversary of His Birth: An Interview with Richard S. Dunn In his journal entry of December 29, 1667, noted seventeenth century English diarist Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) wrote that his young neighbor William Penn “has returned from Ireland a Quaker – or some very melancholy thing – that he cares for no company, nor comes into any.” For Pepys, who despised the noncon­formist Quakers, Penn’s reclusiveness was “a...
read more

Pennsbury Manor, The Philosopher’s Garden

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Pennsbury Manor, The Philosopher’s Garden Pennsbury Manor, William Penn’s reconstructed country estate north of Philadelphia, is a profoundly peaceful place. The Delaware River glides by the manor house’s front door, stately trees shade the site, and sheep dot the pastures. Rescued from an encroaching gravel quarry in the 1930s, the forty-three acre farm is a pastoral remnant of the founder’s original...
read more