Editor’s Letter

With this edition of Pennsylvania Heritage, we begin our commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the year of American independence. In the coming months, the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission and its Trails of History sites will be offering an array of related programs, exhibitions and events that you’ll hear about in these pages.

This winter, The State Museum of Pennsylvania will be opening a wide-ranging exhibition, Revolutionary Things, featuring objects from the museum’s collection related to Pennsylvania’s role in the American Revolution. This issue includes a companion piece to the exhibition by its lead curator, Curtis Miner, the museum’s chief of interpretation and a regular contributor to this magazine. Both the exhibition and article are organized in three parts, starting with authentic relics from the Revolution —from a battle flag and a Lafayette cannon to a lock of George Washington’s hair — that were preserved for their historic value and passed down through the ages. The midsection looks at representations and replicas, focusing on art and objects that were created in Pennsylvania in the decades following the Revolution that convey an American identity and a symbolic connection to the past struggle for independence. The final section examines artifacts produced for the Keystone State’s participation in two
previous anniversaries — the 1876 Centennial and the 1976 Bicentennial — illustrating how Pennsylvanians in subsequent centuries celebrated the nation’s founding while simultaneously reflecting the spirit of their own ages.

Another feature in this edition takes us to the Roosevelt era and follows oil-rich U.S. Senator Joseph Guffey of Pittsburgh as he eases his way, along with future U.S. president Harry S. Truman, into a spirited group of moderate politicians led by U.S. Vice President John Nance Garner of Texas. Guffey becomes host to the “Garner Pack” for various outings, via his personal train, to the Kentucky Derby and a hunting camp at St. Marys in Pennsylvania’s Elk County, where social dynamics would have a deep impact on later national politics. The article, “Welcome Aboard the Party Train,” was written by history professor Kenneth J. Heineman of Angelo State University from his research for a book he will be publishing about Garner.

The decade of the Bicentennial was also a dynasty era for three of Pennsylvania’s professional sports teams. In the 1970s, the Pittsburgh Pirates won two Major League Baseball World Series championships, and the Pittsburgh Steelers were the victors in four National Football League Super Bowls within six years. On the other side of the state, the Philadelphia Flyers won the National Hockey League’s Stanley Cup for 1973–74, a season in which the team broke the 40-win mark for the first time in NHL history with an astounding 50 wins, and then took the Cup again in 1974–75, ending with another record-breaking 51 wins. One of the star players in those seasons was Bernie Parent, two-time winner of both the Vezina Trophy for best goaltender and the Conn Smythe Trophy for most valuable player in the playoffs — and later a 1984 inductee in the Hockey Hall of Fame. Here, in another exclusive Pennsylvania Heritage interview with a leading Keystone State professional sports figure, William C. Kashatus spoke with Parent about his celebrated NHL career that took him from Montreal to Philadelphia and sports superstardom. Regrettably, Parent passed away while the article was in production. We respectfully dedicate this edition to him.

Kyle R. Weaver
Editor