Jon-Erik Gilot 
History enthusiasts are a different bunch. Rain, wind and snow don’t typically deter us from exploring battlefields and historic sites, while here in Western Pennsylvania, summertime humidity can feel almost tropical. Sunburns, insects, dehydration, or a twisted ankle, can just as easily put us right back onto the couch. If the cold-weather months are a Read More
For nearly a decade, the Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall has been proud to host a biennial Civil War symposium, featuring one full day of Civil War historians and enthusiasts discussing this pivotal period in American history. Paired with our national treasure Captain Thomas Espy Post, our contemplative Lincoln Gallery, and our monthly Read More
While Thanksgivings present so often involves friends, family, food and football, our visions of Thanksgivings past likely hearken back to the pilgrims and Native Americans at Plymouth. How many of us think of Gettysburg when someone mentions Thanksgiving? Just me? Yikes! In recognition of the Federal victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg in July 1863, Abraham Read More
Later this month — July 21, to be exact — we will mark the 160th anniversary of the first major land battle of the Civil War at Bull Run. It was on the fields around Manassas, Va., only 25 miles from Washington, D.C., that some 60,000 Union and Confederate soldiers met in vicious, sometimes hand-to-hand Read More
“A capacity, and taste, for reading, gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others. It is the key, or one of the keys, to the already solved problems. And not only so. It gives relish, and facility, for successfully pursuing the [yet] unsolved ones.” — Abraham Lincoln I thought this quote from Abraham Read More