War and Tranquility: From Gettysburg to Glen with Robert Bruce Ricketts

Posted by on May 8, 2015 in | Comments Off on War and Tranquility: From Gettysburg to Glen with Robert Bruce Ricketts The order was clear. Capt. Robert Bruce Ricketts and his two companies of artillery were to hold the Union’s left flank on East Cemetery Hill just beyond the outskirts of Gettysburg. “In case you are charged here,” Ricketts’ commanding officer Col. C.S. Wainwright told him, “you will not limber up under any circumstances, but fight your battery as long as you can.” The reality facing Ricketts on...
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Samuel Yellin: With a Hammer for a Pencil

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Samuel Yellin: With a Hammer for a Pencil When Samuel Yellin opened his Arch Street Metal worker’s Studio in Philadelphia in 1920, most who shared his ancient craft had abandoned their tools in favor of other pursuits. Yellin was a blacksmith – he insisted on calling himself that, although clients flocked to him for his sculptural and artistic skill, rather than to have horses shod or plows mended. From his shop poured the...
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Pennsylvania Gridiron: Washington and Jefferson College’s First Century of Football

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Pennsylvania Gridiron: Washington and Jefferson College’s First Century of Football Gentlemen, you are now going to play football against Harvard. Never again in your whole life will you do anything so important. Yale’s noted football coach T.A.D. Jones delivered his message just as his team was going out to defend Yale Bowl against its ancient rival. But it’s not only coaches whose pas­sion for football is ardent­ – millions play the game on high school,...
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Homeward Bound: An Interview with David McCullough

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Homeward Bound: An Interview with David McCullough David McCullough is a familiar name – and face. Known to millions as the author of bestselling books, including The Great Bridge, The Path Between the Seas, Truman, Mornings on Horseback, and Brave Companions, and as host of the popular PBS television series “Smithsonian World” and “The American Experience,” he is noted for his remarkable gift of writing richly...
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Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf Our Priceless Heritage: Pennsylvania State Parks, 1893-1993 by Dan Cupper Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1993 (70 pages, paper, $12.95) “Priceless” is a word that best defines the Keystone State’s natural history, and Our Priceless Heritage: Pennsylvania State Parks, 1893-1993, is a copiously...
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Current and Coming

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Current and Coming Mammoth Scale Sometime about 1808, renowned Philadelphia physician Caspar Wistar (1761-1818) – for whom the city’s Wistar Institute is named – asked sculptor William Rush (1756-1833) to create a series of large-scale anatomical models. Rush, known chiefly as a maker of civic statuary and ships’ figureheads, responded with the strangest works of his career: a massive inner...
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“He, on the Whole, Stood First”: Gifford Pinchot

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on “He, on the Whole, Stood First”: Gifford Pinchot President Theodore Roosevelt, Gifford Pinchot (1865-1946) was a talented and gifted public servant. Of his friend and adviser, Roosevelt wrote, “I believe it is but just to say that among the many, many public officials who, under my administra­tion, rendered literally invaluable service to the people of the United States he, on the whole, stood first.” Among Pennsylvania’s...
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Executive Director’s Letter

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Executive Director’s Letter This spring marks the launch of a number of exciting initiatives celebrating important people, places, and events in our history. In anticipation of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial in 2009 celebrating the 200th anniversary of the sixteenth president’s birth in 1809, Governor Edward G. Rendell has appointed a state commission to work with the National Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission to...
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Out and About

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Out and About Canis Major “I never met a pet I didn’t like,” pop icon Andy Warhol (1928–1987) — born Andrew Warhola in Pittsburgh — once wrote. The artist had many pets throughout his life, including his childhood dog, a lovable mutt named Lucy, more than a dozen Siamese cats, and his dachshunds Amos and Archie. His New York studio, the Silver Factory, had two resident felines, Black Lace and White Pussy, and...
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Waging War Their Own Way: Women and the Civil War in Pennsylvania

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Waging War Their Own Way: Women and the Civil War in Pennsylvania Pennsylvania’s recently conserved Civil War Muster Rolls, housed at the Pennsylvania State Archives, document the commonwealth’s contributions to the Union. Nearly 345,000 Pennsylvanians served in the U.S. Army during the war, or approximately 60 percent of the adult male population.1 A century and a half ago clerks carefully transcribed the names, ages, regiments, and brief...
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