Making History Blog
Colin Powell: A Soul Soldier’s Life
In 2006, I was busy working on a new exhibit, Soul Soldiers: African Americans and the Vietnam Era. The exhibit would go on to win regional, statewide, and national awards and travel to seven…
Acorns for Dinner: Finding Food in Prehistoric Pennsylvania
A walk in Squirrel Hill is always pleasant, but as I followed the sidewalk yesterday after a summer of ethnobotanical study, I looked at the plants growing along the…
Asian American Heritage at the Heinz History Center
May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. To mark the occasion, explore artifacts from the Heinz History Center collection that speak to Asian and Asian American heritage…
Celebrating National Nurses Week
A photograph in the collection of the History Center’s Detre Library & Archives captures a moment in the life of an operating room nurse from Montefiore Hospital, c. 1910.…
Matzah, Made in Pittsburgh
A photograph from the April 24, 1929 edition of the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, showing Radbord and a team of baker packing matzah for Passover deliveries throughout Western Pennsylvania. If you…
Daisy Lampkin
Born in Washington, D.C. and educated in Reading, Pa., Daisy Lampkin was a suffragette, civil rights activist, organization executive, business woman, orator, and community leader. Gift of Earl L.…
Meet Winnie the Welder
“No. We were not Rosie the Riveter. We welded ships. Rosie got all the attention. No one even gave us a name. Anne Jurjevic Thomas, welder at Dravo during…
The Rise and Fall of Pittsburgh’s Diamond Market
Traffic running under Diamond Market, c. 1960. At the time it was developed, planners saw the traffic throughway as a solution to creating space for both cars and commerce.…
The Tuskegee Airmen
Photo of William A. Johnston. Johnston grew up in Sewickley, Pa. He enlisted in the Army Air Force at the age of 17 and served as a Second Lieutenant…
The Crawford Grill
Crawford Grill #2, c. 1975. From the McBride Sign Company Photographs, Detre Library & Archives at the History Center. The Crawford Grill in Pittsburgh’s Hill District served as the…