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Harrisburg, PA 17120-0024
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News and Events
The Signature Series
Special opportunities for Heritage Society members and guests to meet popular historians, curators and authors, as well as in-depth tours and rare behind-the-scenes experiences at Pennsylvania's historic sites and museums.
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Upcoming Signature Series Events... |
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Signature Series Gettysburg Tour May 13, 2008 SOLD OUT!
Join the Pennsylvania Heritage Society for its annual spring bus excursion on Tuesday, May 13, 2008. This year’s trip takes us to Gettysburg National Military Park to see its fabulous new Visitors Center. In addition, following up Dr. Carol Reardon’s dynamic summer 2007 Signature Series lecture on Pickett’s Charge, we are pleased to offer a not-to-be-missed on-site tour of the battlefield led by Dr. Reardon as part of this event.
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The State Museum of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg June 23-24, 2008 Dr. Walter Licht, Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, and Dr. Tom Dublin, Professor of History at SUNY-Binghamton, will deliver Signature Series lectures profiling the history of industrialization in Pennsylvania, on Monday evening, June 23, 7 p.m., and Tuesday morning, June 24, 9 a.m., at The State Museum of Pennsylvania. Licht and Dublin are the co-authors of The Face of Decline: The Pennsylvania Anthracite Region in the Twentieth Century, published by the Cornell University Press in 2005. For more details or to RSVP, call toll-free (866) 823-6539, or email RA-paheritagesociety@state.pa.us. These lectures are are supported by a Teaching American History grant from the U.S. Department of Education.
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Signature Series:
Industrialization and Deindustrialization in Pennsylvania
The
Heritage Society and PHMC to Lead Civil War Project
The Pennsylvania Heritage Society has received a $500,000 grant on behalf of PHMC from the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development to conduct statewide planning for the Civil War Sesquicentennial (2011-2015). A newly formed Civil War Pennsylvania 150 Planning Committee (CWPA 150) has been meeting monthly since October 2007 with major partnering history and cultural institutions from Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Gettysburg, and Philadelphia. Mr. James Pickman (pictured above), a consultant who played a key role in the redevelopment of Independence Mall in Philadelphia and chaired the board of the Independence Visitor Center there, was hired by the Pennsylvania Heritage Society as project manager to direct the planning efforts of CWPA 150 and is providing crucial leadership in the facilitation of the project.
Under the auspices of the Heritage Society, the committee is developing a Pennsylvania programmatic agenda for the Sesquicentennial, identifying statewide projects such as major traveling exhibitions, a collections digitization project, new media, a web portal, and K-12 educational curricular materials and teacher professional development, as well as many regionally and locally coordinated programs and substantive commemorations grounded in the humanities.
Thank you to our PHMC stores and partners:
Brandywine Battlefield
Landis Valley Museum
Radius, The State Museum Store
Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania
Somerset Historical Center
Pennsbury Manor
The State Bookstore & Pabookstore.com
Capitol Preservation Committee
Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development
Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, and the Wild Resource Conservation Fund
See you next year!
Journey to Western
Pennsylvania
October 17-18, 2007
PHS members and guests traveled west on October 17 to Washington County’s famous Meadowcroft Rockshelter where they met site director David Scofield and noted archaeologist Dr. James Adovasio who gave them an in depth tour of the 16,000 year old site – one of the earliest known places of human habitation in North America and a National Historic Landmark. The following day the group visited PHMC’S beautiful Old Economy Village near Pittsburgh where they met site administrator Mary Ann Landis and staff who introduced them to the fascinating home of the Harmonists, a 19th century religious communal society.
Located in Washington County near the state’s
border, Meadowcroft Rockshelter is a massive rock overhang used
by Native American peoples as a campsite during the
Paleo-Indian, Archaic, Woodland, and Historic periods. The
Meadowcroft archaeological site has revealed the earliest
evidence of people in North America.
Old Economy Village on the Ohio River in Ambridge was founded in 1824 by the Harmonists, a Christian communal society. This picturesque, elegant site features gardens and seventeen furnished buildings reflecting the piety and economic successes of the Harmonists.
For more photos from our tour click here.
Pennsylvania
Heritage Reception
Washington Crossing Historic Park
October 11, 2007
Sixty PHS members and guests from the Bucks County and greater Philadelphia area attended a reception hosted by PHS to highlight the fall issue of Pennsylvania Heritage. Attendees mingled with PHS board members, PHMC leadership, and staff members at the event that featured comments from fall issue authors Joe Conti and Irwin Richman who wrote the cover story on Bucks County artists Faye Swengel and Ben Badura. Mr. Conti is a former state legislator who is currently chief executive officer of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board and Dr. Richman is professor emeritus of American studies and history at the Penn State Harrisburg.
Dr.
Guion Bluford, Jr., First African American Astronaut in Space,
visits The State Museum of Pennsylvania
Monday, September 24, Bluford regaled an audience of over 200 with stories of his experiences as a NASA astronaut. He flew in space four times – a total of 688 hours – between 1983 and 1992, aboard the Challenger and Discovery space shuttles.
The following day, September 25, nearly 600 Harrisburg-area elementary and high-school students filled three sessions, during which Bluford shared photos of his space travels and urged audience members to excel in school.
“It’s wonderful to know so many adults and children enjoyed these inspiring talks by Dr. Bluford – at no charge,” PA Historical and Museum Commission Executive Director Barbara Franco said. “I’m glad that they took advantage of this special program highlighting the museum’s efforts to offer events that are both educational and entertaining."
The event was presented by The Pennsylvania Heritage Society and the Friends of The State Museum of Pennsylvania, and sponsored in part by the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency.
Sponsored in part by
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