Brian Tomlin | January 30, 2012
To get a better understanding of how different the world and the United States was in 1860, we can compare some basic statistics from the beginning of the Civil War and the present day. 1860 2010 World’s Population 1.27 billion 6.989 billion U.S. Population 31,443,321 308,745,538 Pennsylvania Population 2,906,215 12,702,379 Dauphin County PA population 46,756 268,100 […]
Brian Tomlin | January 16, 2012
With interest in the Civil War growing each week, it is only natural that we are all developing a natural curiosity for what life was like in the 1860s. Today marks the first in a regular series of posts on this blog about the culture and daily life of Americans during the Civil War. The […]
Norman Gasbarro | January 1, 2012
Happy New Year 2012, from Gratz, Pennsylvania. A selection of editorial comments from Pennsylvania newspapers is presented here to show the mood in the state and nation at the start of the New Year 1862, 150 years ago! First, from the North American and United States Gazette, 1 Jan 1862: THE NEW YEAR This day […]
Norman Gasbarro | December 25, 2011
Merry Christmas to all from Gratz, Pennsylvania! Many Christmas traditions celebrated today originated during the Civil War era, including that of Santa Claus. The Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia held a special program 2010 on how those traditions started and evolved over time. Catherine Wright, Collections Manager of the Museum of the Confederacy, […]
Norman Gasbarro | December 24, 2011
SILENT NIGHT (Stille Nacht) The facts of how and why Fr. Joseph Mohr wrote the poem in 1818 in Austria which was set to music by church organist Franz Gruber have been lost in time. What has not been lost is the tradition that evolved from the hymn, a tradition which exists down to the […]
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