From Sugar Camps to Star Barns: Rural Life and Landscape in a Western Pennsylvania Community

From Sugar Camps to Star Barns: Rural Life and Landscape in a Western Pennsylvania Community PDF Author:
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 9780271042008
Category : Country life
Languages : en
Pages : 182

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From Sugar Camps to Star Barns: Rural Life and Landscape in a Western Pennsylvania Community

From Sugar Camps to Star Barns: Rural Life and Landscape in a Western Pennsylvania Community PDF Author:
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 9780271042008
Category : Country life
Languages : en
Pages : 182

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Book Description


From Sugar Camps to Star Barns

From Sugar Camps to Star Barns PDF Author: Sally Ann McMurry
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271021071
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
Rural Pennsylvania's landscapes are evocative, richly textured testimonies to the lives and skills of generations of builders&—architects as well as local builders and craft workers. Farmhouses and barns, silos and fences, even field patterns attest to how residents over the years have had a sense of place that was not only functional but also comfortable and aesthetically appropriate for the time. From Sugar Camps to Star Barns tells the story of one such place, a landscape that evolved in southwestern Pennsylvania's Somerset County. Sally McMurry traces the rural life and landscape of Somerset County as it evolved from the earliest settlement days. Eighteenth-century residents were a forest people, living on sparsely built farmsteads and making free use of the heavily forested landscape. The makeshift sugar camp typified their hardscrabble lives. In the nineteenth century, the people of this area turned to farming. Prompted by the ''market revolution'' that had come to Somerset County, they pursued a highly varied agriculture, combining a subsistence base with robust production of commodities shipped to distant cities. Their landscape reflected this combination of the local and the cosmopolitan&—a combination that reached its full expression in the distinctive two-story banked farmhouse with double-decker porch, flanked by a substantial Pennsylvania barn. The twentieth century brought a more industrialized agriculture to Somerset County. But the shift to profit-and-loss farming also meant the accentuation of landscape elements specific to market products. The magnificent ''star barns'' of this era overshadowed the houses, and ancillary structures, such as ''peepy houses'' and silos, spoke to the pressures of efficiency and mass production. The subsequent rise of coal mining helped to stimulate this trend, both by supplying local markets and by creating an incentive for farmers to visually distinguish their landscapes from those of the coal-patch towns. Illustrated with over 100 photographs, maps, drawings, and diagrams, From Sugar Camps to Star Barns demonstrates how much we can learn about the economy and culture of a particular place simply by being attentive to the built landscape.

Somerset Historical Center

Somerset Historical Center PDF Author: Lorett Treese
Publisher: Stackpole Books
ISBN: 9780811731423
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 52

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Book Description
A guide to western Pennsylvania's rural heritage museum in Somerset that recalls the fervent spirit that settled the Pennsylvania frontier. The site features historic and reproduction buildings and a museum that illustrate the history of agriculture and the evolving technology that continues to advance farming in this region. Pennsylvania Trail of History Guides: Each handbook in this continuing series focuses on one of the historic sites or museums administered by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, with a concise history of the subject, detailed tour of the grounds, and full-color photographs.

Encyclopedia of American Folklife

Encyclopedia of American Folklife PDF Author: Simon J Bronner
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317471954
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 1469

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Book Description
American folklife is steeped in world cultures, or invented as new culture, always evolving, yet often practiced as it was created many years or even centuries ago. This fascinating encyclopedia explores the rich and varied cultural traditions of folklife in America - from barn raisings to the Internet, tattoos, and Zydeco - through expressions that include ritual, custom, crafts, architecture, food, clothing, and art. Featuring more than 350 A-Z entries, "Encyclopedia of American Folklife" is wide-ranging and inclusive. Entries cover major cities and urban centers; new and established immigrant groups as well as native Americans; American territories, such as Guam and Samoa; major issues, such as education and intellectual property; and expressions of material culture, such as homes, dress, food, and crafts. This encyclopedia covers notable folklife areas as well as general regional categories. It addresses religious groups (reflecting diversity within groups such as the Amish and the Jews), age groups (both old age and youth gangs), and contemporary folk groups (skateboarders and psychobillies) - placing all of them in the vivid tapestry of folklife in America. In addition, this resource offers useful insights on folklife concepts through entries such as "community and group" and "tradition and culture." The set also features complete indexes in each volume, as well as a bibliography for further research.

The Routledge History of Rural America

The Routledge History of Rural America PDF Author: Pamela Riney-Kehrberg
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135054983
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 426

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Book Description
First published in 2014. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Architecture and Landscape of the Pennsylvania Germans, 1720-1920

Architecture and Landscape of the Pennsylvania Germans, 1720-1920 PDF Author: Sally McMurry
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812204956
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
The phrase "Pennsylvania German architecture" likely conjures images of either the "continental" three-room house with its huge hearth and five-plate stoves, or the huge Pennsylvania bank barn with its projecting overshoot. These and other trademarks of Pennsylvania German architecture have prompted great interest among a wide audience, from tourists and genealogists to architectural historians, antiquarians, and folklorists. Since the nineteenth century, scholars have engaged in field measurement and drawing, photographic documentation, and careful observation, resulting in a scholarly conversation about Pennsylvania German building traditions. What cultural patterns were being expressed in these buildings? How did shifting social, technological, and economic forces shape architectural changes? Since those early forays, our understanding has moved well beyond the three-room house and the forebay barn. In Architecture and Landscape of the Pennsylvania Germans, 1720-1920, eight essays by leading scholars and preservation professionals not only describe important architectural sites but also offer original interpretive insights that will help advance understanding of Pennsylvania German culture and history. Pennsylvania Germans' lives are traced through their houses, barns, outbuildings, commercial buildings, churches, and landscapes. The essays bring to bear years of field observation as well as engagement with current scholarly perspectives on issues such as the nature of "ethnicity," the social construction of landscape, and recent historiography about the Pennsylvania Germans. Dozens of original measured drawings, appearing here for the first time in print, document important works of Pennsylvania German architecture, including the iconic Bertolet barns in Berks County, the Martin Brandt farm complex in Cumberland County, a nineteenth-century Pennsylvania German housemill, and urban houses in Lancaster.

Pennsylvania Germans

Pennsylvania Germans PDF Author: Simon J. Bronner
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421421399
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 590

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Book Description
This comprehensive encyclopedia—the first of its kind—maps out three hundred years of German history and culture in Pennsylvania and beyond. Winner of the CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title of the Choice ACRL Destined to become the standard reference on Pennsylvania Germans (also known as the “Pennsylvania Dutch”), this book is the first survey of this extensive American group in nearly seventy-five years. Nineteen broad interpretive essays written by a distinguished group of historians, anthropologists, sociologists, linguists, and folklorists tell the rich and nuanced story of Pennsylvania German history and culture. United by a distinct (and distinctly American) language, the Pennsylvania Germans have been slower to assimilate than other ethnic groups. This sweeping volume reveals, though, that the group is much less homogenous and isolated than was previously thought. From architecture, media, and farming techniques to food, folklore, and medicine, the Pennsylvania Germans and their descendants display a wide range of cultural variation. In Pennsylvania Germans, editors Simon J. Bronner and Joshua R. Brown broaden the geographical and social coverage of the group, touching both on Pennsylvanian communities and the Pennsylvania German diaspora, including settlements in Canada and Mexico. They also expand historical coverage of the Pennsylvania Germans to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Beautifully illustrated, this volume—while paying tribute to the historical and cultural legacy of the Pennsylvania Germans—is the most comprehensive book on the subject to date. Contributors: R. Troy Boyer, Simon J. Bronner, Joshua R. Brown, Edsel Burdge Jr., William W. Donner, John B. Frantz, Mark Häberlein, Karen M. Johnson-Weiner, Donald B. Kraybill, David W. Kriebel, Gabrielle Lanier, Mark L. Louden, Yvonne J. Milspaw, Lisa Minardi, Steven M. Nolt, Candace Perry, Sheila Rohrer, and Diane Wenger

Pennsylvania Farming

Pennsylvania Farming PDF Author: Sally McMurry
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 0822983060
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 509

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Book Description
Since precolonial times, agriculture has been deeply woven into the fabric of Pennsylvania's history and culture. Pennsylvania Farming presents the first history of Pennsylvania agriculture in more than sixty years, and offers a completely new perspective. Sally McMurry goes beyond a strictly economic approach and considers the diverse forces that helped shape the farming landscape, from physical factors to cultural repertoires to labor systems. Above all, the people who created and worked on Pennsylvania's farms are placed at the center of attention. More than 150 photographs inform the interpretation, which offers a sweeping look at the evolution of Pennsylvania's agricultural landscapes right up to the present day.

Geography and Genealogy

Geography and Genealogy PDF Author: Jeanne Kay Guelke
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317128893
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
Genealogy has become a widely popular pursuit, as millions of people now research their family history, trace their forebears, attend family reunions and travel to ancestral home sites. Geographers have much to contribute to the serious study of the family history phenomenon. Land records, maps and even GIS are increasingly used by genealogical investigators. As a cultural practice, it encompasses peoples' emotional attachments to ancestral places and is widely manifest on the ground as personal heritage travel. Family history research also has significant potential to challenge accepted geographical views of migration, ethnicity, socio-economic class and place-based identities. This volume is possibly the first ever book to address the geographical and scholarly aspects of this increasingly popular social phenomenon. It highlights tools and information sources used by geographers and their application to family history research. Furthermore, it examines family history as a socio-cultural practice, including the activities of tourism, archival research and DNA testing.

On the Edge of Freedom

On the Edge of Freedom PDF Author: David G. Smith
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
ISBN: 0823263967
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 451

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Book Description
This groundbreaking Civil War history illuminates the unique development of antislavery sentiment in the border region of south central Pennsylvania. During the antebellum decades every single fugitive slave escaping by land east of the Appalachian Mountains had to pass through south central Pennsylvania, where they faced both significant opportunities and substantial risks. While the hundreds of fugitives traveling through Adams, Franklin, and Cumberland counties were aided by an effective Underground Railroad, they also faced slave catchers and informers. In On the Edge of Freedom, historian David G. Smith traces the victories of antislavery activists in south central Pennsylvania, including the achievement of a strong personal liberty law and the aggressive prosecution of kidnappers who seized African Americans as fugitives. He also documents how their success provoked Southern retaliation and the passage of a strengthened Fugitive Slave Law in 1850. Smith explores the fugitive slave issue through fifty years of sectional conflict, war, and reconstruction in south central Pennsylvania and provocatively questions what was gained by emphasizing fugitive protection over immediate abolition and full equality. Smith argues that after the war, social and demographic changes in southern Pennsylvania worked against African Americans’ achieving equal opportunity. Although local literature portrayed this area as a vanguard of the Underground Railroad, African Americans still lived “on the edge of freedom.” Winner of the Hortense Simmons Prize