Bookshelf

Barns of Chester County Pennsylvania: A Bicentennial Overview: “So Your Children Can Tell Their Children” by Berenice M. Ball published by the Women’s Auxiliary to Chester County Hospital, 1974, contains 256 pages with 378 illustrations including original art and photographs The book’s profit will also benefit Chester County Historical Society. The author, Mrs. Bell,...
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A Tour Through Very Early York County

Everyone has some interest in the past, even if only an intrinsic realization that our present existence is shaped by past experiences. For many, there is a much greater aware­ness of our debt to the past, or at least an abiding interest in prior human events and products. The degree and reasons for these curiosities vary enor­mously: from the function of a rusted tool, or the fascina­tion with...
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They Left with the British: Black Women in the Evacuation of Philadelphia, 1778

Black women were a small but important segment of the eighteenth-century Pennsylvania laboring classes. As slaves, as indentured servants, or as free persons of color, their options were extremely limited, but they could and did make decisions that affected their lives. The evacuation of Philadelphia by the British in 1778 during the Revolutionary War reveals the kinds of limited choices which...
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A New Look at the Pennsylvania Continental Soldier

The Bicentennial’s focus on pageantry and commemoration has given us a clear image of what the Pennsyl­vania Continental soldier looked like – at least, at his best. But who was this keen-eyed, square-jawed stalwart, dressed in fringed hunting shirt and leggings, or sporting smart blue regimentals with red facings and gleaming white small-clothes? Where did he come from? What was his...
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A History of the York-Pullman Automobile

In the first two decades of the twentieth century, there were a number of manufacturers in eastern Pennsylvania producing both passenger cars and trucks. Much of the activity centered around Reading, where in addition to the famous Duryea, the Acme, Boss, Daniels, Dile, Meteor, Middlebury, Reber, Riviera, Snader and S.G.V., not to mention the “Read­ing Steamer,” were made – all...
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Shenks Ferry Revisited: A New Look at an Old Culture

In their efforts to trace the changing ways of life of ancient human societies, archaeologists have had to devise labels for each individ­ual culture they discovered. Often, these names seem strange and confusing. For example, in the Eastern United States, the term Late Wood­land Period has been given to all Indian cultures which prac­ticed large scale agriculture, and which existed between...
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Courageous Cumberland County

Anxious to persuade a Scottish cleric, the Rev. Charles Nisbet, to become the first president of Dickinson Col­lege, its founding trustee Dr. Benjamin Rush wrote the Presbyterian worthy in 1784, describing central Cumberland County. The town of Carlisle lies 120 miles to the westward of Philadel­phia and about 18 miles from the river Susquehannah. It consists of about 300 houses, most of which...
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Mailbox

The State Museum of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, is compiling a comprehensive listing of works by Pennsylvania artist Lloyd Mifflin (1846-1921), hailed as the “Poet and Painter of the Sus­quehanna River.” Born in Columbia, Lancaster County, Mifflin studied in Europe in the early 1870s and returned to his home­town to devote his life to painting and poetry. In addition to his paintings,...
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Shorts

Opening Saturday, October 30 [1993], at the Philadelphia Museum of Art is an exhibi­tion of one hundred and twenty-five old master drawings selected from both public and private collections in the United States and Europe, many of which have never before been exhibited in this country. Entitled “Visions of Antiquity: Neoclassical Figure Drawings,” the exhibition features works by a...
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Heritage Highlights

Cornwall Iron Furnace, Cornwall Lecture:” America Starts Here: Pennsylvania’s Historic Sites”, May 9, 1995 Lecture: “Joanna Furnace”, August 8, 1995 Lecture: “The Welsh Slate Mining Community of Delta, York County”, September 12, 1995 Lecture: “Henry Clay Furnace, Lancaster County: An Archaeological Perspective”, October 10, 1995 Lecture:...
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