Susquehanna Heritage seeks national designation

(YDR) For the third time, the Susquehanna Gateway Heritage Area is trying to be designated a National Heritage Area, a designation that requires an act of Congress.
And that seems to be the holdup.
"We're hoping...this time it'll be passed," said Susquehanna president Mark Platts.
The Susquehanna area first sought the federal designation in 2008. Its request passed National Park Service muster, meeting the federal guidelines for historic and cultural significance, but by the time the request that would grant the designation got to Congress, its session was ending and it did not pass. Continued

Archaeology work being done at historic Dill's Tavern

(YDR) A couple of years ago, some second-graders digging to learn about archaeological work made a discovery at the historic Dill's Tavern in Dillsburg.
The students hit what appeared to be a foundation, and it ran underneath the tavern, said Sam McKinney, director of restoration at Dill's Tavern.
McKinney and a helper opened up the area a little more and found what appeared to be a fireplace. They stopped working and the Northern York County Historical and Preservation Society, which owns the tavern, hired a professional archaeologist to investigate. Continued

Photograph of Dill's Tavern courtesy of the Northern York County Historical and Preservation Society

Baltimore museums search for inner beauty

(Baltimore Sun) In the 1990s, crowds packed the Walters Art Museum to see a touring show of artifacts from the reign of China's first emperor. They flocked as well to the Baltimore Museum of Art to see a collection from London's Victoria and Albert Museum. Those were the days of the so-called blockbusters, the traveling exhibits of high-profile art. The prevailing trend now at museums in Baltimore and across the country is to cut down on the number of touring shows.
"They're expensive, and money is so tight," said Gary Vikan, director of the Walters Museum of Art. "We would have brought in two major shows in 2007-2008, but we couldn't afford it."
Museums aren't left with empty galleries, however. They are hunting and scouring — inside their own collections. Continued

Martin Baum

Martin Baum (15 June 1765 in Hagerstown, Maryland – 14 December 1831 in Cincinnati, Ohio) was an American businessman and politician.
The son of German immigrants Jacob Baum and Magdalena Elizabeth Kershner, Baum fought with General Anthony Wayne at the Battle of Fallen Timbers.
After settling in Cincinnati, Baum became active in civic affairs, and was elected mayor in 1807 and 1812. Through his agents in Baltimore, New Orleans and Philadelphia, Baum attracted a great number of German immigrants to work in his various enterprises — steamboats, a sugar refinery, a foundry and real estate. Baum founded the Western Museum, was active in the first public library 1802, and was one of the main pillars of the First Presbyterian Church. He married Anna Somerville Wallace in 1804. Continued

Flag Day

"Why ain't you got your flag out?" says Mr. Richmond, entering the gas station in which he spends much of his time these days. "You know today is flag day, don't you?"

"I guess the boss forgot to buy a flag, George," says Mr. Davis, the station attendant. "And even if we had one, we ain't got no place to put it."

Mr. Richmond: "That's a fine state of affairs, that is. Here they are tryin' to bring home to you people the fact that you're livin' in one of the few countries where you can draw a free breath and you don't even know it. You're supposed to have flags out all this week. Don't you know that? This is flag day and this is flag week. Where's your patriotism?"

Mr. Davis: "What the hell are you hollerin' about, George? You're always runnin' the country down. They can't do anything to suit you. You're worryin' about taxes and future generations and all like that. Where's your patriotism?"

Mr. Richmond: "Well, that's different. A man got a right to criticize. That's free speech. Don't mean I ain't patriotic."

- Library of Congress

Shedding Hazy Light on a Midnight Ride

(NYTimes) The potential presidential candidate Sarah Palin has been criticized for her recent description of Paul Revere as “he who warned the British that they weren’t going to be taking away our arms, by ringing those bells.”
The comment was debated in news pages and on cable television in the first week of June, but perhaps nowhere was the controversy fiercer than on Wikipedia, where rival versions of the Paul Revere story played out thereafter.
In the first 10 days of June, the Paul Revere article there had half a million page views.
Ms. Palin’s implication — that Revere’s was a ride to warn the British overlords rather than the fearful colonists, with a gun-rights message rather than a self-government message, and that he used bells rather than his lungs — is very much in the tradition of the telling of the Midnight Ride, which has long been used as an exercise in mythmaking. Continued

The Office of War Information

(LoC) On June 13, 1942, some six months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Office of War Information (OWI) was created. In October of that year, the documentary photography unit of the Farm Security Administration (FSA) was transferred to the OWI to document the war effort, as it had the U.S government’s battle against poverty during the Great Depression. An important U.S. government propaganda agency during World War II, the OWI supported America’s mobilization for the war effort by recording the nation's preparations for war in films, texts, photographs, radio programs, and posters. OWI photographers documented American life and culture during the early years of World War II, focusing on such subjects as aircraft factories, training for war work, women in the workforce, and the armed forces. Photographs were created to inspire patriotism in the American public. Continued

In the Netherlands, a fallen WW2 soldier from West York 'will be remembered'

York, PA (YDR) It was a Thursday, Dec. 16, 1943, when the Eighth Army Air Force's 413th Bomb Squadron took off from the airfield at Snetterton Heath, on the east coast of England, on the edge of the North Sea, to bomb Bremen, an industrial town in northwest Germany.
The fleet of B-17 Flying Fortresses left the base and climbed above the clouds, leveling off at 25,000 feet over the North Sea, heading northeast toward the coast of the Netherlands.
Tech. Sgt. Kenneth Elwood Slenker was the top turret gunner and engineer on one of those aircraft, one of 10 crew members. He was a 19-year-old kid, the second youngest of the four Slenker boys from West York, all of whom served during World War II. Growing up, Kenneth Slenker never ventured far from his family's home on West King Street -- the family didn't have a car -- and here he was, flying over the North Sea in a bomber. Continued

Couple restores historic log home in Aberdeen

(Baltimore Sun) In 1988, with only three months to relocate from Fort Monmouth, N.J., to Aberdeen, Stephen Hoffman and his wife, Sharon, set out to find a house in Maryland.
The couple started their search with a historic house in Harford County that had been recorded in the Aberdeen Heritage Trust. According to the entry, the "Cole House" was originally a small log house, built in the mid-1700s on a parcel of some 100 acres that had been deeded to Col. James Cole. Continued

Patrick Gass

Patrick Gass (June 12, 1771 – April 2, 1870) served as sergeant in the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1801-1806). He was important to the expedition because of his service as carpenter and he published the first journal of the expedition in 1807, seven years before the first publication based on Lewis and Clark's journals. Continued

June 12, 1897: The Swiss Army Gets Its Own Knife

(Wired) 1897: Karl Elsener legally registers his "soldiers' knife" for use by the Swiss army.
In an age when nationalism was fashionable, Elsener, a Swiss manufacturer of surgical instruments and cutlery, was a very fashionable man indeed. So he was less than thrilled to learn that the Swiss army was importing Solingen blades from neighboring Germany. Elsener set out to develop a homegrown multifunctional tool worthy of being carried by his local Alpine troops. Continued

Photo: Courtesy Victorinox/Wired

York College lauded for Kings Mill Depot renovation

York, PA (YDR) At one point in the more than 100-year history of the Kings Mill Depot, the building was a storage place for hundreds of pounds of paper.
Today the former warehouse on Kings Mill Road in York is home to two start-up companies ushering in a paperless digital age.
The building's transformation is part of the first major renovation project done by York College on the former Smurfit-Stone site, acquired by the school in 2006. The renovation created a business incubator in the building and recently received an award from Historic York for its successful adaptive reuse. Continued

Gitmo

(LoC) On June 10, 1898, U.S. Marines landed at Guantánamo Bay. For the next month, American troops fought a land war in Cuba that resulted in the end of Spanish colonial rule in the Western Hemisphere. Cuban rebels had gained the sympathy of the American public while the explosion and sinking of the U.S.S. Maine, widely blamed on the Spanish despite the absence of conclusive evidence, further boosted American nationalistic fervor.
Popular demand for intervention in the Cuban-Spanish conflict led Congress to pass resolutions demanding the withdrawal of Spanish armed forces from Cuba, authorizing U.S. aid to effect this, and promising American support for Cuban self-rule. Spain declared war against the United States on April 24, 1898, and the United States promptly replied with a counter-declaration. Continued

Florence MacBeth

(LoC) Florence MacBeth was known as the Minnesota Nightingale. In 1947, she married James M. Cain [of Maryland], author of "Mildred Pierce," "Double Indemnity" and "The Postman Always Rings Twice." According to Cain's biography, the two remained devoted to each other until her death in 1966.

Prototype: How Theda Bara Became Silent Film’s Supernatural Siren

(Wired) Theodosia Goodman was a tailor’s daughter from Cincinnati. People who knew her growing up said she was a “nice Jewish girl.” Then she changed her name to Theda Bara and started making movies.
In 1915 she starred in A Fool There Was. Listed in the credits as simply the Vampire, occasionally shortened to the Vamp, she was a temptress who lured men to ruin, mouthing lines like “Kiss me, my fool!” The movie itself was unremarkable, but the way it was marketed was revolutionary. The fledgling Fox Film Corporation tasked its new publicity department, staffed by two former New York World reporters, with fabricating a backstory for the Polish-American starlet.
At a press conference for A Fool, the assembled journalists were told that Bara was the Serpent of the Nile, born in the Sahara to a French actress mother and an Italian sculptor father, and raised “in the shadow of the Sphinx.” Continued