PA -- Pittsburgh -- Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center:
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- Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
- HRHC_071021_017.JPG: Conestoga Wagon, c. 1784...
- HRHC_071021_020.JPG: Ford DeLuxe Sedan with stainless steel body from Brackenridge, PA, 1936...
- HRHC_071021_027.JPG: Conestoga Wagon, c. 1784:
George Fleck used this wagon to move his family and belongings across the Allegheny Mountains to Western Pennsylvania in 1784. At that time, most families traveled west on foot, using ox carts to carry their possessions. Conestoga wagons were commonly used to transport large shipments of goods and were considered the tractor trailers of their day.
- HRHC_071021_030.JPG: Ford DeLuxe Sedan with stainless steel body from Brackenridge, PA, 1936:
The gleaming finish of this automobile is a testament to the innate properties of stainless steel. Thought it is over 60 years old and has traveled more than 200,000 miles, the body of this car still looks brand new.
The car is one of six designed by Allegheny Steel (later Allegheny Ludlum Steel Corporation) and the Ford Motor Company to demonstrate the practical and promotional uses of stainless steel. After rolling off the assembly line in Detroit, the cars were dispatches to district office of Allegheny Ludlum in New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, and St. Louis. Company representatives, usually salesmen, drove the cars for business. Wherever they went, the cars attracted attention and provided salesmen the opportunity to expound on the assets and abilities of the "Allegheny metal," stainless steel.
As well as increasing interest and awareness in stainless steel, the cars demonstrated the metal's durability and resistance to weather, wear, and corrosive elements. The stainless steel body of this car has long outlasted its non-stainless steel parts. Though retired from company use in 1947, the Ford Sedan aptly served its purpose.
- HRHC_071021_034.JPG: Combination engine, made by the American LaFrance Fire Engine Company, Elmira, New York, 1919
- HRHC_071021_036.JPG: Combination engine, made by the American LaFrance Fire Engine Company, Elmira, New York, 1919:
This combination engine, ordered new by the Pittsburgh Fire Department in 1919, had two purposes. It carried hose in the rear section that could be hooked up to a hydrant or used when working in concert with a similar engine equipped with a big pump. This allowed firemen to throw large amounts of water onto a raging fire. This engine also has a thinner hose located behind the front seat, hooked up to a tank holding about 30 gallons of water. When Engine 5 encountered a smaller fire, such as a grass or trash fire, they used this tank to put it out.
... This engine could carry a crew of five to seven. The driver and siren operator rode in front with three to five firemen standing on the rear platform. Engines such as this formed part of the fleet that protected the people and property of Pittsburgh 80 years ago.
- HRHC_071021_044.JPG: Heinz Hitch, late 19th century, renovated 1978:
The Heinz Hitch operated from 1986 to 2006, traveling hundreds of thousands of miles and delighting crowds at parades, country fairs, and festivals across North America. The late 19th century wagon, built in South Bend, Indiana, by Studebaker, was discovered in a storage shed in central Pennsylvania in 1978. Neglected for decades, it had a tree growing through the floorboards. After meticulous reconstruction and painting, the wagon recalls the beautifully decorated Heinz delivery trucks from the early 20th century.
The Hitch was the inspiration of John Dryer, retired general manager of research and quality assurance. Dryer combined his years of service to Heinz with his love of horses to bring the Heinz Hitch to life. Eight stunning black Percherons, the horse favored by H.J. Heinz to pull the original delivery wagons, powered this hitch. Dryer travelled more than 100 days a year driving the Hitch in national events such as the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, the Fiesta Bowl Parade, and Major League Baseball's Opening Day Parade.
- HRHC_071021_051.JPG: Prototype jeep, made by American Bantam Car Company, 1940
- HRHC_071021_053.JPG: Prototype jeep, made by American Bantam Car Company, 1940:
Western Pennsylvania is the birthplace of the world-famous "Jeep." In 1940, 19 months before America went to war, the U.S. Army requested bids for a reconnaissance car that would take the place of the horse and provide a go-anywhere gun platform.
The big automakers such as Ford and Willys-Overland and 135 other carmakers found the Army's strict requirements for a lightweight, four-wheel drive vehicle impossible to meet in the 49-day deadline imposed by the government. But the little American Bantam Car Company of Butler, PA, thought it could do the job. Nearly bankrupt, the owners staked everything on the challenge. After five days of frantic brainstorming, Bantam presented the Army with the design for a vehicle that would help win WWII and revolutionize the auto industry.
Though Bantam developed this prototype, they were unable to manufacture the Jeeps in the huge volume needed by the Army and the production contract went to Ford and Willy-Overland. But, the civilian Jeeps produced in large numbers following WWII and the SUVs and four-wheel drive vehicles that crowd our highways today, owe their existence to the original Bantam Jeep produced here in Western Pennsylvania.
- HRHC_071021_100.JPG: The sports museum starts here
- HRHC_071021_175.JPG: Meriweather Lewis life mask, 2003: This reconstruction by article Michael Kraus portrays the 29-year-old Lewis as he appeared on his departure from Pittsburgh in August 1803.
- HRHC_071021_181.JPG: Meriweather Lewis:
Lt. Meriweather Lewis served with Capt. William Clark in the Chosen Rifle Company in Western Pennsylvania during the 1794 Whiskey Rebellion.
While stationed at Ft. Fayette in Pittsburgh in March 1801, Capt. Lewis, paymaster of the First Infantry Regiment, was summoned to Washington by Thomas Jefferson, newly elected President of the United States. Lewis had grown up in sign of Jefferson's estate, Monticello, and Jefferson needed a private secretary he could trust.
Jefferson commissioned Lewis to lead the Corps of Discovery as soon as Louisiana Territory was purchased from French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte in 1803. Lewis and Jefferson chose Pittsburgh, the "Gateway of the West," as the supply depot and launch point for the expedition.
- HRHC_071021_190.JPG: Aluminum gate exhibit starts here
- HRHC_071021_196.JPG: Aluminum:
The Blums began experimenting with aluminum in the 1930s when the material gained greater prominence with architects and industrial designers. Louis Blum remembers the first efforts at working the metal ended miserably. Applying the techniques of ironwork caused the softer aluminum to turn to powder under the force of the hammer and hot forge.
Pittsburgh company Alcoa, then the Aluminum Company of America, worked with the Blums to develop and aluminum allow better suited to their needs and methods of production. This more resilient alloy allowed the Blums to hammer complex shapes similar to wrought iron. As the Blums became conversant with the material, they began treating aluminum for its own distinct qualities, polishing and smoothing its surface as illustrated by the two gates here.
When all metals were restricted for military use during World War II, the company halted decorative production. The Hyman Blum Company, worked aluminum extrusions into parts for aircraft and other components for war use. Following the war, the Blums began to manufacture aluminum railings and doors in a more modern style and produce them under the company name Blumcraft. The company's products have been installed in more than 77,000 locations throughout the world, including the White House, the Louvre Museum in Paris, and government buildings in Liberia.
- HRHC_071021_237.JPG: Beginning of the glass history section
- HRHC_071021_253.JPG: Glass Section -- Why Pittsburgh?
"Materials are very conveniently procured and the Glass Works situate on the banks of a navigable river... near an extensive coal mine... Our market is plentiful and cheap... extensive prospects of Sales of glass ware." -- Isaac Craig, 1801
The first two glasshouses in Western Pennsylvania opened in 1797. The owners recognized the advantages of the region's strategic location and abundant raw materials. To succeed, glassmakers also needed a fuel source, skilled workers, capital financing, systems of transportation, and a market.
Both the Pittsburgh Glass Works of James O'Hara and Isaac Craig and the New Geneva Glass Works of Albert Gallatin and his partners were built along the rivers. The Ohio River, formed by the convergence of the Monongahela and the Allegheny at the Point in downtown Pittsburgh, funneled thousands of settlers west and linked local factories to distant frontier markets. Local coal deposits provided cheap, abundant fuel for glasshouse furnaces. Since the mountain to the east made transport costly, local factories were effectively shielded from foreign imports and competition from the east.
- HRHC_071021_329.JPG: Start of Soul Soldiers Exhibit. Description:
Soul Soldiers: African Americans and the Vietnam Era explores the events of civil rights and the Vietnam War as they impacted African American life and culture. The mid-1950s to the 1970s was an era of great change in America as new social, political, and cultural perspectives began to reshape the American landscape. In Vietnam and at home, African Americans were impacted by these events, resulting in a greater expression of political and cultural expression; of Black arts and Black Power. African American men and women, Soul Soldiers, battled on two fronts, for equality at home and democracy abroad. Their service in war was valor and their activism in civil rights was historic.
- AAA "Gem": AAA considers this location to be a "must see" point of interest. To see pictures of other areas that AAA considers to be Gems, click here.
- Wikipedia Description: Heinz History Center
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Senator John Heinz History Center is a 275,000-square-foot educational institution that engages and inspires a diverse audience with links to the past, understanding in the present, and guidance for the future by preserving regional history and presenting the American experience with a Western Pennsylvania connection. It is located the Strip District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. An affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, it is the largest history museum in the state of Pennsylvania.
Senator John Heinz History Center:
The History Center features the Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum and the Library and Archives, and includes six floors of permanent and changing exhibitions that tell the story of Western Pennsylvania.
Housed in the century-old Chautauqua Lake Ice Company building, the museum is an exhibit in its own right. The History Center also features the following permanent exhibitions:
* More than 250 years of regional history is highlighted in Points In Time: Building a Life in Western Pennsylvania, 1750-Today.
* Senator John Heinz: A Western Pennsylvania Legacy details the life and legacy of one of Pittsburgh's most beloved philanthropists and politicians.
* Pittsburgh's reign as America's glass city is showcased in Glass: Shattering Notions.
* Heinz 57 chronicles the history of the H.J. Heinz Company.
* The Special Collections Gallery houses more than 3,000 artifacts illustrating the rich ethnic history and corporate fabric of the Pittsburgh region.
The museum's history begins in 1879 with the formation of a club called Old Residents of Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania. In 1884 it changed its name to the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania (HSWP) and has been in continuous existence since, making it the Pittsburgh region's oldest cultural organization.
HSWP began the tradition of interpreting public history in 1911, organizing the centennial of steamboat navigation in Pittsburgh, as well as the city's 1955 bicentennial celebration. In the early years, HSWP held meetings in homes and churches, but in 1893, it was granted a space for its archives at the new Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh in Oakland. By 1914, it had its own building nearby, where it remained until its current home in Pittsburgh's Strip District opened in 1996.
Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum at the History Center:
Located in the Smithsonian wing of the Senator John Heinz History Center, the Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum spans 20,000 square feet of exhibit space over two floors.
The "museum within a museum" captures the Pittsburgh region's evolution and impact as a sports leader over more than a century, from amateur to pro and across the spectrum of sports.
The Sports Museum captures the unforgettable and almost forgotten tales of Pittsburgh sports through hundreds of artifacts, more than 70 hands-on interactive exhibits, and 20 audio-visual programs.
Select artifacts include Franco Harris' "Immaculate Reception" shoes; Mario Lemieux's hockey skates; Satchel Paige's baseball glove; the pitching rubber from the 1960 World Series; Billy Conn's gloves and light heavyweight champion belt; Arnold Palmer's sweater and golf bag; Chip Ganassi's 2000 Indy 500-winning race car; the "Ultimate Steelers Fan's Car;" the Homestead women swimmers Olympic medals from the 1920s and 1930s; and hundreds of Pirates baseball cards.
Library & Archives at the History Center:
The History Center's Library & Archives is an extensive scholarly resource documenting 250 years of life in Western Pennsylvania. The collection includes books, manuscripts, photographs, maps, atlases, newspapers, films, recordings and other memorabilia.
Meadowcroft Rockshelter and Museum of Rural Life:
The History Center also operates Meadowcroft Rockshelter, a world-renowned archaeological site south of Pittsburgh near Washington County's Avella community.
The Rockshelter is the oldest site of human inhabitation in North America, with evidence of man living there for nearly 16,000 years. The site was named a National Historic Landmark in 2005.
Adjacent to the rockshelter is the Museum of Rural Life, a village recreating rural life in the 19th century.
- Bigger photos? To save server space, the full-sized versions of these images have either not been loaded to the server or have been removed from the server. (Only some pages are loaded with full-sized images and those usually get removed after three months.)
I still have them though. If you want me to email them to you, please send an email to guthrie.bruce@gmail.com
and I can email them to you, or, depending on the number of images, just repost the page again will the full-sized images.
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