Charter Day All Over the State

So Sunday is Charter Day, and we'll be celebrating Pennsylvania's birthday all along PHMC's Trails of History. A couple of sites will celebrate other birthdays as well - Dr. Joseph Priestley and Ephrata founder Conrad Beissel. Landis Valley Village & Farm Museum will debut their 2016 exhibit on weathervanes. The State Museum will have the original Charter of 1681 on display. Conrad Weiser Homestead will hold their largest living history event and kickoff their season. And those are just a few of the activities planned - be sure to check out the list of open sites and the March program listings for details. Be sure all your clocks are set ahead one hour early Sunday morning for Daylight Saving Time or you might miss some of the fun!

UPDATE: If you tweet about your Charter Day visit please include #PaCharter2016 and tweet to @PHMC.

Landis Valley's 2016 exhibit will be open through December

In recent weeks I've been sharing links to media mentions of our sites and museums, and this week is no different...

Jim Cheney, who has written about a number of Trails of History sites on his blog, UncoveringPA.com, recently described his visit to Ephrata Cloister. Appropriately for Charter Day, Cheney concludes his post (after noting that he quite enjoyed his visit) with: "It offers a peek into one of colonial America’s most unusual religious societies and gives a great perspective on how the religious freedom instilled into Pennsylvania by William Penn shaped the colony in the 18th century and beyond."

A Los Angeles Times article about the west coast debut of Julia Wolfe's Pulitzer-Prize-winning choral work, Anthracite Fields, noted that her research included folks at the PA Anthracite Heritage Museum in Scranton (read more about it in a previous Trailheads post).

Last week, VacationIdea.com had a post listing the "25 Best Things to See & Do in Erie, PA." Near the top was our very own Erie Maritime Museum - the article noted the museum's exhibits of historical artifacts, its interactives, the Lawrence ship-section exhibit (which shows the effects of cannon-fire on a wooden sailing ship), and the GE steam-powered generator. Visitors also know that the museum is the homeport of the US Brig Niagara.

Earlier this winter, DC-based blogger Erin Gifford (kidventurous.com) and her four kids had some unexpected school vacation time due to snow. They headed north to PA to avoid cabin fever. Their visit to Lancaster County (recounted in a post called "Exploring with Kids: 36 Hours in Lancaster, PA") included stops at the Railroad Museum of PA and Landis Valley Village and Farm Museum.

And okay, this last one isn't specific to the PHMC or the Trails of History, but I'm sharing it anyway because. On the blog for the Association of Living History, Farm and Agricultural Museums (ALHFAM), Derrick Birdsall recently wrote a post called "The Walking Dead and ALHFAM?" that explores an interesting point. (I don't follow the show so I don't know if this constitutes a spoiler or not - if that matters to you then stop reading now.) Birdsall notes that a location called the Hilltop that serves as a refuge from the zombie apocalypse was chosen because it had been a living history site, preserving the knowledge of how to survive without the modern amenities. He wonders if any living history sites might be able to take advantage of that fact in their marketing. Thoughts?

Finally, since we're talking about marketing and promotion and all that, the PA Tourism Office this week unveiled a new brand for Pennsylvania. They produced a video to launch the idea and I thought you might like to see it, if you haven't already.

Pulitzer Prize Winner to Speak at Anthracite Heritage Museum

Please check out the November program listings to see what else is happening on the Trails of History this weekend.

Tomorrow afternoon, Nov. 14, from 3:15 to 4:45, composer Julia Wolfe will talk about her Pulitzer Prize-winning oratorio, Anthracite Fields, at the Anthracite Heritage Museum (AHM) in Scranton. As noted in an article in the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, Wolfe conducted some of her research at the museum, including interviewing AHM docent Barbara Powell about her experiences growing up in the hard coal region. Wolfe told Times Leader reporter Mary Therese Biebel that her conversations with Powell provided the inspiration for the "Flowers" portion of the oratorio, shedding light on ways that mining families added beauty to their daily lives.

Anthracite Fields, which won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Music, was commissioned by the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia through Meet the Composer’s Commissioning Music/USA program, made possible by generous support from the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the Helen F. Whitaker Fund. Additional support was made possible through the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia Alan Harler New Ventures Fund, The Presser Foundation, The Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, the National Endowment for the Arts, The Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia, and the Aaron Copland Fund for Music.

Bang on a Can All Stars (photo provided by Wyoming Seminary)

Bang on a Can All Stars and the Choir of Trinity Wall Street, conducted by Julian Wachner, will perform Anthracite Fields tomorrow night, 7:30 pm, at Wyoming Seminary's Kirby Center for the Creative Arts, Kingston (Wolfe will give a pre-concert talk at 6:30). Tickets are $10 online or at the door, and a portion of the proceeds will benefit the Anthracite Heritage Museum.

To learn more about Anthracite Fields and composer Julia Wolfe, check out this interview on NPR's "All Things Considered," visit Bang on a Can's website, or watch this brief clip:



In Other News...

On a related note, the State Museum's "Pennsylvania Icons" exhibit has opened. Among the objects are items carried by Marilyn McCusker, a roof bolter helper who became the first woman killed in a deep-mine accident when the roof of the Rushton Mine (Centre County) collapsed on Oct. 2, 1979. McCusker was a bituminous (soft coal) miner, but her story is similar in many ways to those told in the anthracite region about the dangers of mining.

Although leaf peeping season is pretty much over, there are still plenty of reasons to visit PA's northern tier. A new driving tour designed by the Greater Renovo Area Heritage Park Association features locations and public art related to the history of the Civilian Conservation Corps in the Lumber Heritage Region (the map was supported by LHR and other entities). Of course, one of the stops is the Pennsylvania Lumber Museum, whose new exhibit (that I might have mentioned once or twice here in Trailheads) includes a section on the CCC and its legacy in northern PA. What I haven't mentioned (I don't think) is that the Visitor Center at the Lumber Museum will now be open year-round, so if you're in the area, be sure to stop in.

If you're more of an armchair tourist, you might want to see what's happening in Bucks County with new Google Street View Trekker tours that include Washington Crossing Historic Park. It took me a little while to figure out the navigation, but it was interesting once I did. Not a replacement, in my opinion, for being there in person, but a useful tool for anyone wanting to preview a visit.