Cover -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- CHAPTER 1. What Is Pennsylvania Dutch? -- CHAPTER 2. Early History of Pennsylvania Dutch -- CHAPTER 3. Pennsylvania Dutch, 1800-1860 -- CHAPTER 4. Profiles in Pennsylvania Dutch Literature -- CHAPTER 5. Pennsylvania Dutch in the Public Eye -- CHAPTER 6. Pennsylvania Dutch and the Amish and Mennonites -- CHAPTER 7. An American Story -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z
The twisty roads—and twisted tales—of the Appalachian Mountains make for distracted driving in western Pennsylvania. Ghostly travelers are said to wander the lonely roads of western Pennsylvania. A creeping fog rises from Blue Mist Road, and stories of car crashes, lynchings and even strange beasts haunt this isolated stretch outside Pittsburgh. Is it the angry spirit of a jealous husband or a gypsy king who stalks Erie County’s Axe Murder Hollow? Shades of Death Road in Washington County may be host to phantom coal miners killed during a deadly labor dispute. With firsthand accounts and historical research, authors Thomas White and Tony Lavorgne travel the backcountry roads and byways of western Pennsylvania to discover their ghost tales and mysterious legends. Includes photos! “The authors include a history of each road along with the supernatural legends and other unexplained activity. Surprisingly, they are able to provide possible explanations for most of the alleged hauntings, but admit that they cannot account for every one, which allows the roads in question to keep their allure and spooky possibilities.” —PopCultureGuy
Researcher and author Marlin Bressi has compiled a panoply of unsolved mysteries and unusual happenings throughout the history of the Keystone State. From unsolved mysteries, headless corpses, missing persons, to ghosts and missing treasure, Bressi's compilation is sure to entertain: CONTENTS: PART I: UNSOLVED MYSTERIES 1. The Lamb's Gap Murder Mystery 2. Berks County's Missing Skeleton 3. Who Buried the Babies in the Church Cellar? 4. A Cat's Funeral and a Philadelphia Mystery 5. Allison Hill's House of Mystery 6. The Broad Mountain Mystery 7. The Kulpmont Mob Murders of 1939 8. The True Story of Shamokin's Famous Missing Head 9. The Mystery of the Murder Marsh PART II: STRANGE PLACES AND PEOPLE 10. The Cripple's Curse and the Kings of Pittsburgh 11. The Aeronaut's Fate: The Story of Wash Donaldson 12. Witchcraft in Stony Creek Valley 13. The Strange Connection Between Bucknell University and the RMS Titanic 14. The Tragic Fate of Homer Swaney 15. Simeon Pfoutz: Lord of the Manor 16. The Headless Horseman of Lawrence County 17. Mount Carmel's Mysterious Suicide Cell 18. A Tragedy in Ghost Hollow 19. The Loomis Street Affair: Haunting or Hoax? 20. The Ticking Tombstone 21. A Ghost in the Furnace PART III: CRIME AND PUNISHMENT 22. Dynamite and Diphtheria: The Strange Trial of Lloyd Wintersteen 23. The Hanging of Charles Chase 24. The Lutz Axe Murder 25. The Ghost of Adam Volkovitch 26. Mount Carmel's Night of Terror: The Strantz & Yorkavage Crime Spree of 1937 27. The Murder of Daisy Smith PART IV: ODDS AND ENDS (A collection of interesting newspaper clippings)
The extraordinary story of an unjustly forgotten group of Black men in Pittsburgh who became the first paramedics in America, saving lives and changing the course of emergency medicine around the world Until the 1970s, if you suffered a medical crisis, your chances of survival were minimal. A 9-1-1 call might bring police or even the local funeral home. But that all changed with Freedom House EMS in Pittsburgh, a group of Black men who became America’s first paramedics and set the gold standard for emergency medicine around the world, only to have their story and their legacy erased—until now. In American Sirens, acclaimed journalist and paramedic Kevin Hazzard tells the dramatic story of how a group of young, undereducated Black men forged a new frontier of healthcare. He follows a rich cast of characters that includes John Moon, an orphan who found his calling as a paramedic; Peter Safar, the Nobel Prize-nominated physician who invented CPR and realized his vision for a trained ambulance service; and Nancy Caroline, the idealistic young doctor who turned a scrappy team into an international leader. At every turn, Freedom House battled racism—from the community, the police, and the government. Their job was grueling, the rules made up as they went along, their mandate nearly impossible—and yet despite the long odds and fierce opposition, they succeeded spectacularly. Never-before revealed in full, this is a rich and troubling hidden history of the Black origins of America’s paramedics, a special band of dedicated essential workers, who stand ready to serve day and night on the line between life and death for every one of us.
When Antoine Dutot opened the Kittatinny Hotel&—the first tourist hotel in the Poconos&—in 1829, little did he know that he was a pioneer in what would become one of the largest and most diverse tourist and recreation areas on the East Coast. Although his initial venture failed, the tourist industry of the Poconos has been a long-term success, evolving and adapting to change. Better in the Poconos tells the story of Pennsylvania&’s premier vacationland from its earliest days to the present. The flourishing tourist and resort industry in the Poconos can be attributed, in part, to the area&’s splendid mountains, streams, and forests. But the timeless appeal of nature was matched, and even surpassed, by the resorts&’ ability to redefine themselves. In the mid-nineteenth century, William Cullen Bryant depicted the Pocono region as a hunter&’s delight, describing abundant game and sublime landscapes. The Victorian era, however, brought genteel carriage rides and croquet; later, specialized ethnic resorts catered to the minority populations of Philadelphia and New York; and in the 1940s and 1950s, the Poconos earned its reputation as a honeymoon paradise. This evolution continues today: the land of romance has given way to the ski resorts and water slides enjoyed by today&’s vacationing families. Poconos resort owners and innkeepers have long recognized the cutthroat competition inherent in the vacation business. Early on, they realized that they were vying not only with each other but also with other resorts&—first in the Catskills and on the New Jersey shore, and then in Florida, in the Caribbean, and even in Europe. Better in the Poconos illustrates the strategies by which resorts in northeastern Pennsylvania responded to these market forces. They were compelled to provide superior service and amenities as well as novel amusements and activities for their guests. In the latter half of the twentieth century, for example, &"super-resorts&" started to supplant the old hotels: the new resorts could offer year-round activities, thanks to the invention of artificial snow. Similarly, honeymoon hotels declined as couples resorts&—retreats that boasted such innovations as the heart-shaped bathtub and the Jacuzzi in the shape of a tall champagne glass&—emerged on the Poconos scene. Better in the Poconos recreates that scene and the people who brought it to life&—not only the innkeepers, souvenir sellers, laborers, and service workers, but also the community leaders and visionaries who promoted the vacation economy and sought to guide it. The proper Victorians, the devoted sportsmen, the young newlyweds, the families and singles, the staid ladies of the Women&’s Christian Temperance Union (and the sinners whose vices they wished to temper), the members of the Ku Klux Klan, the rich Quakers, the Jewish socialists, and the immigrants&—all these, and more, make up the humanly rich mosaic of the Poconos.
This collection is the first in a proposed series of strange and incredible stories. The events described and recounted in these stories occurred in Fayette County, Pennsylvania . Author Victoria Dutko Leonelli has selected an assortment of tales and stories ranging from a long ago Shawnee tribe legend to a young child's encounter with ghosts in the 1980s. The original artwork and rare images are truly remarkable. These stories are being presented to you for your enjoyment. These tales will pique the imaginations of those who have a thirst for the eerie, the mysterious and the utterly inexplicable. But readers beware! Some of these stories may simply tickle your funny bone, but others will certainly tingle your spine.
Reproduction of the original. The publishing house Megali specialises in reproducing historical works in large print to make reading easier for people with impaired vision.
Submitted for your consideration: the blind man who designed and built an automobile, the "volunteertree growing out of a courthouse roof, and much, much more.
What stories do we tell about America’s once-great industries at a time when they are fading from the landscape? Pennsylvania in Public Memory attempts to answer that question, exploring the emergence of a heritage culture of industry and its loss through the lens of its most representative industrial state. Based on news coverage, interviews, and more than two hundred heritage sites, this book traces the narrative themes that shape modern public memory of coal, steel, railroading, lumber, oil, and agriculture, and that collectively tell a story about national as well as local identity in a changing social and economic world.
