Preservation in Many Forms

The July program page has info for the remainder of the month; I've highlighted some events below for this weekend.

This week's post has something resembling a theme. Maybe it's more of a thread. I noticed a bunch of posts in my Facebook feed that highlighted the multiple ways the PHMC's Trails of History sites help to preserve historic structures, landscapes, and lifeways. That's probably true most of the time, since, y'know, that's what we do. But it felt like a convergence, so I'm sharing.

But first, your moment of Justin Trudeau...

Since late June, the U.S. Brig Niagara has been away from the Erie Maritime Museum, visiting U.S. and Canadian ports around the Great Lakes. This week they are in Quebec City for a tall ships event, one of a series of "Rendez-vous 2017" festivals celebrating the 150th birthday of the dominion of Canada (created in 1867 as a confederation of British colonies Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick). Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was on hand Wednesday to help launch the Quebec City festival and posed with crew members from the ships, including Niagara captain William Sabatini (2nd from left in front row in the tan shirt). Pretty cool.



Now that we've gotten that out of the way, Eckley Miners' Village shared a post about a visit from two historians from the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) program. Camille Westmont and Lisa Pfeuller Davidson were on site to document four types of worker housing as part of a study of anthracite mining towns in northeastern Pennsylvania. The HABS program was created in 1933 through an joint agreement of the American Institute of Architects, the Library of Congress (which houses the documentation), and the National Park Service to preserve through documentation a complete range of American building types "from the monumental and architect-designed to the utilitarian and vernacular, including a sampling of regionally and ethnically derived building traditions." HABS is now one of the National Park Service's Heritage Documentation Programs, along with the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) and the Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS).

In 1937, HABS worked to document Hope Lodge, a Georgian mansion owned at the time by William and Alice Degn and now part of the Trails of History. According to the site guidebook, the Degns received a certificate from the Dept. of the Interior the following year declaring Hope Lodge an outstanding example of Colonial architecture. Hope Lodge recently shared some photos from the HABS project via the Library of Congress. You can search or browse more HABS/HAER photo collections in the Library of Congress online.

(Incidentally, "Habs" is also a nickname for the Montreal Canadiens hockey team, no doubt a favorite of Prime Minister Trudeau. Who says there's no serendipity in a Google search?)

Landis Valley Museum gardeners July 2017

Staff and volunteers of Landis Valley Village and Farm Museum's Heirloom Seed Project (photo above) have been busy cultivating and weeding as we move into the heart of the summer. The site's Facebook page has had numerous posts with lovely photos of the flowers and vegetables that are to be found growing around the site.

On a somewhat darker note, the Pennsylvania Lumber Museum shared info about a new documentary, Cathedral: The Fight to Save the Ancient Hemlocks of Cook Forest, which will have showings Friday and Saturday, July 28 and 29, at the Cook Forest Sawmill Center for the Arts (info, trailer, and online tickets). Rangers from Cook Forest State Park will take questions from the audience about the ongoing battle against the hemlock woolly adelgid.

And I'll bookend that with this video clip from Pennsbury Manor's garden. This Sunday you will find the gardeners there, ready to talk about what's growing and ready to pick (see listings below for more info).


Coming up this weekend...

Landis Valley Village and Farm Museum
July 22-23: Civil War Weekend—the site is transformed into a rural Pennsylvania village during the Civil War, with reenactors portraying soldiers and civilians (more info). The Landis Collections Gallery will have an exhibit on Abraham Lincoln's visit to Lancaster in 1861. Admission charged; tickets are available online. Food will be available for purchase at the museum store. (Read more in this LancasterOnline article.) 10 am-4 pm both days.

Old Economy Village
June 22: Saturday Spotlight—this week, decorative arts. Included in regular admission. 11 am-4 pm.

Pennsbury Manor
June 23: Special Sunday Programming—this week, chat with the gardeners and the brewers and see what they're up to. Included in regular admission. 1-4 pm.


Pennsylvania Military Museum
July 21: Lecture—as a lead-up to this weekend's living history event, Dr. Ron Lenox, museum volunteer and retired Armstrong chemist, will present "Napalm and Agent Orange: Two Iconic Chemical Weapons of the Vietnam War." 6:30-7:30 pm.
July 22-23: VIETNAM Revisited—living historians will be on the grounds portraying American combat and support troops “in country” in the late 1960s (more details and photos from previous events are on the website). Julie Decker, DNP, RN, of the Penn State School of Nursing, will present "The Real China Beach: U.S. Army Nurses in Vietnam" at 10:30 am on Saturday in the museum auditorium (regular admission rates apply for the lecture). Folks from public media organization WPSU will also be on hand to talk about their upcoming film, A Time to Heal, which documents the experiences of Pennsylvanians during the Vietnam era (see promo above and more info on Facebook). 10 am-4 pm (tactical demo at 1:30 pm each day).

Somerset Historical Center
July 22: Exhibit opening—"Unraveling the Woof" is this summer's exhibit. Included in regular admission.

State Museum of Pennsylvania
July 21: Free Summer Friday and Learn at Lunchtimeadmission is free today, 9 am to 5 pm, and there will be a paleontology program in Nature Lab, 12:15-12:45 pm.
July 21: 3rd in the Burg—enjoy light refreshments and a tour of the Art of the State exhibit(on view thru Sept. 10), then visit the Susquehanna Art Museum (SAM) for a tour. SAM's Director of Education, Tina Sell, will conduct the "Art of the State Tour," and Ophelia Chambliss, artist and PHMC Commissioner, will conduct the tour at SAM as part of a program called "The Great Summer Switch" (info on Facebook). Admission is free for this event. 5:30-7:30 pm (State Museum tour starts at 6 pm, SAM tour starts at 7:30).

Washington Crossing Historic Park
July 21-23—celebrate the Park's centennial, learn to fish, and gaze at the stars, not necessarily in that order. More info on the website.

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