In the Chanukah display of the A Very Merry Pittsburgh experience at the Heinz History Center is a box of candles with 120 years of history. The box itself is unremarkable, but a sticker pasted on its backside offers this intriguing note: “These Chanuko Candles are Presented in Loving Memory of Abraham Lippman, President of The Rodef Shalom Congregation from 1889 to 1910.”

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The History Center Museum Shop has Pittsburgh-proud gifts for everyone on your shopping list this holiday season! All purchases help support the work of the Smithsonian-affiliated History Center and its family of museums. Check out our top 10 picks this holiday season!

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In mid-October 1845, as the city climbed out of the fire’s devastation, the Pittsburgh Post announced a new upcoming novel, “The Smoky City – A Tale of Crime.” Anticipated for early December release, the book would become one of Pittsburgh’s most famous “lost” works.

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I suppose I wondered if the day held any omens, and therefore I was stunned to read the following account from October 27, 1905: “A pogrom occurs in Semenovka, Russia. Looting and burning of Jewish property accompanies the slaughter of the Jews—11 are massacred, 11 are gravely wounded.” The same day, the same toll, separated by 113 years and by the wide ocean between the cruel Old World and the promise of North America. What did it mean?

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In honor of National Women’s Small Business month, here are four more stories of women in business told through the collection of the Heinz History Center:

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