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This collection is a digitized copy of the book Architecture—Practical and Theoretical by the Beezer Brothers (1894). The Beezer brothers (Louis and Michael J.) were famous more architects who originally set up their firm in Altoona, PA where they built many homes, but then moved on to Pittsburgh and eventually Seattle, WA. less

This collection contains postcards from the early 20th century of Johnstown, Pennsylvania area landmarks.

The Builder is an architectural publication that was published in Pittsburgh from 1901 to 1919. Its subtitle is: "Devoted to Architecture". The Builder is a highly more unique resource that provides an in-depth look at the design and construction of residential and commercial spaces in Pittsburgh during the era that Pittsburgh's industrial, commercial and civic life thrived. The contents in the Builder includes both the artistic & architectural overview of individual buildings and neighborhood developments, as well as the artisan and skilled trade resources used by designers, architects and builders during this period. ​Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh gratefully acknowledges the loan of several volumes of The Builder for this project by the University of Notre Dame. less

Compositions on abstract concepts created by a young Mary E. D. Wilson of Bellefonte, PA and written while attending the Lawrenceville Female Seminary in New Jersey more circa 1851 and 1852. Concepts include: twilight, intemperance, ignorance, falsehood, liberty, peace, sad and dreary, friendship, sunset, evening, childhood, night, love, the importance of a well-spent youth, the life of man, sadness and mirth, and home. Also includes daguerreotype and B&W photographs of Mary E. D. Wilson and several of her report cards from the school. less

History of the Miles-Potter-Humes House in Bellefonte, PA from 1815 to the present and of its owners through photographs, other images, and documents.

This collection was created by Alexander W. Scott (1926-1999) a Cheltenham principal and resident for many years. The 771 images (originally slides) show the people, homes, more and neighborhoods of the Cheltenham communities in Montgomery County. The photographs are categorized around multiple themes and the descriptions were written by Mr. Scott and are copied verbatim from his Index. less

The digitized reminiscences recorded by John Hill Brinton consist of five volumes (three original and two typed transcripts) and date from 1856 to 1868. Found within more the collection are descriptions of early Chester County people, places, and historical events dating back to the late 1600s. John Hill Brinton (1811-1893) was born in Thornbury, Pennsylvania on June 2, 1811, the son of Thomas Hill and Catharine Odenheimer Brinton. He attended Strode’s Academy, West Chester, Pennsylvania and Germantown Academy in Philadelphia. Brinton then studied law for three years with William H. Dillingham and was admitted to the Chester County bar on October 6, 1832. He practiced law in West Chester, and was the oldest member of the county bar at the time of his death. Active in politics and a self-identified Jacksonian Democrat, Brinton was a compelling speaker. Though he was never elected to office, he was appointed Deputy Attorney General—the equivalent of District Attorney—for Chester County, serving from April 1847 until July 1848. Brinton was also a local historian interested in his family genealogy, as well as early Chester County history. In 1873, he traveled to Europe in part to learn about his family’s origins. Additionally, beginning in the 1840s, he interviewed Chester County residents about their families and recorded their memories about the county’s past. Brinton died, aged 81, unmarried and childless, after a brief illness on February 5, 1893. The collection consists of three handwritten volumes and two volumes of transcriptions that document the history of Chester County, Pennsylvania from the late 1600s to the mid-1800s through the reminiscences of residents interviewed by Brinton. After Brinton’s death, the original manuscript was held by the Ogier family for many years before being returned to the Brinton family at which point handwritten indexes were added. In 1915, Francis D. Brinton underwrote the manuscript’s typed transcription and the two volumes of transcripts were bound by Fahr and Johnson of Philadelphia in 1950. The only typed index is in the first transcribed volume, leaving readers to refer to the original manuscript volumes for handwritten indexes to Book 2 and Book 3. Book 1 is described by Brinton as “Conversations held with old people respecting former times—some of them relatives, some of them friends, some acquaintances—and residing generally in Chester and Delaware Counties and Birmingham and Thornbury Township.” The volume begins with a 23 page index followed by 240 pages of Brinton’s handwritten synopses. These recollections include many members of the Carr, Darlington, Dilworth, Downing, Hickman, Hoopes, Mendenhall, Sharpless, and Taylor families. Brinton notes that these conversations were recorded as soon as they took place, though in cases of multiple conversations with single individuals, manuscript notations were consolidated into a single record. Topics discussed include the Revolutionary War and the Battle of Brandywine, the growth and development of Chester County, the changing appearance of the county’s land and trees, house and road construction, Quaker meetings, family genealogies, local mills, property ownership, politics, legal precedents, and etc. In addition, Brinton family members and the building, renovation, and general appearance of the 1704 Brinton House are discussed at length. Book 2 begins with a 32 page index followed by 231 pages of handwritten recollections, which cover topics similar to those in Book 1. In addition, Brinton records his visit to Europe, which he undertook in part to trace his family’s history and origins. Book 3 begins with a 14 page index followed by 174 pages of notes. The first section, “Notes of Conversations held by me with old inhabitants about the early settlement in Penn’s Colony,” covers events relating to Chester County’s earliest European inhabitants. The second section, “Some account of William Brinton one of the early settlers in Penn’s Colony of Pennsylvania and of His Descendants,” is an essay on the life of William Brinton, who settled in America in the 1600s. less

This collection contains images of limited edition, hand-printed linocut holiday cards that were made by folk artist Mary Hamilton who lived and worked throughout her career more in Clarion County, was well-known in the area, and made many contributions to the culture in Western Pennsylvania. She made these holiday cards annually for over 20 years and sent them to close personal friends. Dr. Charles Marlin, a friend of the artist and recipient of the cards, donated the original cards that show the evolution of Mary Hamilton's work. less

The Church of the Brethren Photograph Collection consists of more than 500 mostly black and white photographs of meeting houses and churches in eastern Pennsylvania, historic more sites, gravestones, portraits and nursing homes associated with the Church. The photographs date from the 1890's to the present. A subset of the collection includes images from 200 glass-plate negatives dating from 1890 to 1915. These photographs were taken by J.G. Francis, a leader in the founding of Elizabethtown College and a minister of the Church of the Brethren in eastern Pennsylvania. less

The Harmonists, a Christian Communal society, founded Old Economy Village in 1824. They were known for their piety, as well as for their economic successes in more textile manufacturing, including silk production, and later in the oil and railroad industries. Old Economy Village in Ambridge, PA is the home of a great deal of information about the Harmony Society and life in general in the nineteenth century. Major topics covered by the archives and library include music, architecture, religion, business, photographs, and more. less

In the Johnstown neighborhood of Cambria City are located five historical, ethnic churches. In 2009, the Altoona/Johnstown Diocese closed four of the churches and renamed the more fifth church. Each of these churches has celebrated a centennial and one has celebrated a quasquicentennial. Before the churches were de-sanctified, each one was photo-documented and a description developed to explain the location and history of realia contained in the church. In addition, print materials were digitized related to each church (e.g. church newsletters, event flyers, bulletins.) The ethnicities of the churches were German, Slovak, Irish, Polish/Hungarian, and Croatian. less

This collection is comprised of images created sometime between 1928 and 1950 by Philadelphia photographer, Ida W. Pritchett. A 1914 graduate of Bryn Mawr College, Pritchett more received her doctorate from Johns Hopkins University, and held an appointment at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York where her work focused on pathology and bacteriology. She left the Rockefeller Institute in 1930 to pursue a professional life in photography. In 1928, Pritchett's photograph titled the "Luminous Globe" was included in the Royal Photographic Society's Annual Exhibition. Following on, she exhibited her work in the 1930 International Photographic Exhibition, Tokyo, and the Philadelphia International Salon of Photography sponsored by the Philadelphia Museum of Art. As a working photographer, Pritchett provided photographic illustrations for various publications, for example, "A Viking Drinking Cup--Birch Knob" for inclusion in Sir Wilfred Grenfell's The Romance of Labrador. With her friend, Marjorie LaMonte Thompson, she co-published a book of photographs documenting the buildings, interior spaces and grounds of Bryn Mawr College. Pritchett retired in the early 1950s and she and Thompson divided their time between their homes in Haverford and Sandwich, New Hampshire until her death in 1965. This digital project is supported in part by a 2022 National Endowment for the Humanities Sustaining the Humanities Through the American Rescue Plan (SHARP) grant. less

James Lawrence Dillon (1859-1942) was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Irish immigrants James and Annie Eleanor Dillon. His mother died when he was 4, and his more father when he was 11. In 1886, James married Mary Beck Fisher. They had two children, Florence Hazel Dillon Jacoby (1887-1986) and Theodore Fisher “Jack” Dillon (1890-1979). James Dillon was proprietor of a successful photography business in Philadelphia, James L. Dillon & Co., Inc, Photographers, located at 1017 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia. Among other subjects, Dillon’s photography company documented many architectural projects in and around Philadelphia including churches, private residences, banks, government buildings, cultural institutions, commercial enterprises, factories, and area hospitals. The business continued after his death (April 6, 1942) at least into the 1960s. This lantern slide collection of approximately 277 images, mostly executed in the 1920s, captures another, more artistic side of Dillon’s photography. Images in this collection include many plant portraits, fruit and flower studies, garden images, friends and family in gardens, and Philadelphia views such as Logan Square, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Fairmount Park and the Wissahickon. The collection also contains views of the William Hinckle Smith garden in Bryn Mawr, the Widener estate Lynnewood Hall in Elkins Park, and Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. Views of national parks in the United States and Canada and images of the Bermuda Islands are also represented. Many of the lantern slides were produced using the Autochrome Lumière color photography process, giving the carefully composed images a luminous beauty and dream-like quality. The lantern slide collection was given to PHS McLean Library & Archives by Dillon family descendant Ginger Hankins in 2021. This digital project is supported in part by a National Endowment for the Humanities Sustaining the Humanities Through the American Rescue Plan (SHARP) grant. less

The Joseph Ascenzi Collection consists of 64 color and black-and-white glass lantern slides, most were produced by the J. Horace McFarland Company, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Williams, more Brown & Earle Inc. of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, between approximately 1920-1940. Many of the Williams, Brown & Earle slides focus primarily on trees in-situ and include images of Sycamores, Poplars, and Oaks among others. In addition, the William, Brown, & Earle slides contain images from three series titled “Spring’s Awakening” featuring woodland plants, “Botany,” and “A Summer’s Ramble.” The J. Horace McFarland slides in the collection typically center on foundation plantings around entryways and corner plantings around suburban houses. The collector, Joseph M. Ascenzi, is the horticulturist and president of Laurel Hill Gardens (Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia). This digital project is supported in part by a National Endowment for the Humanities Sustaining the Humanities Through the American Rescue Plan (SHARP) grant. less

This collection consists of documentation related to the Philadelphia Flower Show from 1829 to the present including tickets, advertisements, posters and high-quality photographs to exhibits and more promotional events. Some of the images include buildings that no longer exist, such as Philadelphia's Commercial Museum and Civic Center. less

This is a collection of posters of varying size, color and medium pertaining to the U.S. and Pennsylvania from before the start of the Civil War more Period to the present. Subjects include business advertising, public announcements, broadsides, political cartoons, campaign posters, World War II, world travel, and civic duties. Manufactured for many different businesses, institutions, and government agencies, the artwork is by famous, obscure, and unknown commercial illustrators. less

This collection is of World War I era posters of varying size, color and medium pertaining to the U.S. and Pennsylvania. The posters are manufactured for more many different businesses, institutions, and government agencies, and the artwork is by famous, obscure and unknown commercial illustrators. Those printed by various federal agencies were intended to generate patriotic fervor in Americans. less

This collection contains miscellany from various exhibitions and expositions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in Pennsylvania.

Walter J. “Buzz” Storey was a well-known and admired journalist/editor from Uniontown, PA. His obituary published in the September 16, 2004 edition of The Herald-Standard newspaper more stated, “Storey joined the news staff of the Daily News Standard (predecessor to the Herald-Standard) in 1940, and worked as a reporter and editor until retiring from full-time duty in 1987. He continued writing a Sunday column until January 2001, compiled the Uniontown downtown historic district application and in addition to two books, wrote several brief histories on city and county subjects.” Over the span of his 61year career “Buzz” Storey in his role as reporter, cameraman, and editor took and collected photos of historical interest in Uniontown and Fayette County, PA. This collection of photos takes the viewer on a journey through time. Included are aerial views of Uniontown, PA. Along with photos of Uniontown’s centennial celebration, and a variety of family group photos. Viewers and researchers can compare photos to see how various locations have changed over the years. Of particular interest is the transformation of Uniontown’s western five corner intersection, today’s location of the George C. Marshall Park. Varied businesses from delicatessens, soda shops, a blacksmith shop, old lumber yards, and a boarding house bedroom provide a glimpse into Fayette County’s past. It was rumored that Abraham Lincoln once visited Fayette County family members. Perhaps it is the stuff of a local family’s legend. But here one can see photos of old grave markers of the Fayette County Lincoln family members located in the Bethelboro Cemetery. For many generations King Coal ruled Southwestern Pennsylvania. The Storey Collection includes many photos of various coal operations throughout the area. In the early days a lone miner swings a pick. In later years a large continuous-mining operator removes tons of coal per day. From a grand opera house to a coal patch house. Railyards to cokeworks. From the mountain tops to the mines below, the Storey photo collection preserves a visual history of Fayette County Pennsylvania. The people of Fayette County are seen in photos of school classes, occupations, families, social groups, formal portraits and everyday street scenes.Schools, churches, and historical sites are gathered in the Storey collection. Fort Gaddis, the Summit Hotel and the old Fayette County Courthouse along with photos from the dedication of Fort Necessity, where George Washington met defeat in his first military encounter Historians, students and any person curious about the history of Fayette County, PA will find this collection interesting and entertaining. less