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Friday, December 20, 2024

WHEN CHRISTMAS WAS ALMOST... HISTORY


At the beginning of the 19th century, the celebration of Christmas in the English-speaking world was in a state of disrepute and dis favor. 

Observing the festival had been banned by Puritan governments in Scotland, England, and the New England colonies, and even when it became legal again to mark the holiday, Christmas had become Stripped of its religious significance by Enlightenment freethinkers.

In the cities of Great Britain and the United States, the Twelve Days of Christmas were marked by vandalism, interruption of church services, attacks on religious and racial minorities, and urban gangs bent on mayhem. 

But just when Christmas seemed on its last legs, the first decades of the 1800s saw the festival almost miraculously revived by writers, poets, musicians, and thinkers in America and England.
 

In the United States we must thank, among others, the writer Washington Irving and members of the New-York Historical Society.

 

It was these well-off gentlemen who looked to the history of Dutch settlement in New York and found the figure of Sinterklaas (Saint Nicholas), who they said was a magical Christmas gift-bringer who brought treats for good little girls and boys and switches to paddle the bottoms of bad children. 



The poets, who wrote “Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas,” better known as “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” (1822), popularized a fur-clad figure who arrived on Christmas Eve in a reindeer-pulled sleigh full of gifts.


Meanwhile in England, Charles Dickens was refashioning ideas about the sacred season. In his “A Christmas Carol” of 1843, Dickens linked old notions of the holiday as a time of mid-winter jollity and community to the idea of the festival as the feast of family togetherness and forgiveness.

The resurrection of Christmas also owes much to the example of Queen Victoria and the British royal family as celebrators of a family-centred Christmas.

The German background of her husband, Prince Albert, contributed greatly: his importation of the Christmas tree, emphasis on domestic togetherness proved an enormously attractive model for middle-class folk who now sought to emulate their monarch.
Now, In the 21st century we still observe Christmas in ways that Washington Irving, the New-York Historical Society, Charles Dickens, and Queen Victoria would find familiar and approve... of.

Monday, January 3, 2022

Parade for Departing Local Youth

September 14, 1942 - Daily Notes

162 young men depart for Army Service


A parade of local draftees and supporters on their way to Train Station

Parade of inductees marching down Jefferson Ave.
past Colaizzo Beer Garden on way to train station










 

Friday, November 20, 2020

Wednesday, October 21, 2020

George Washington Visits Canonsburg

George Washington

In September, 1784, Washington traveled into western Pennsylvania to survey property near Venice, Pa and Mt. Pleasant township thawarded him for his service in the French and Indian War.


click to enlarge
A "Historical Marker" sets on the property, 2813 acres located near the intersection of PA 980 & PA 50 within the Town of Venice.

The following link provide a fuller story regarding this GW's property:https://explorepahistory.com/hmarker.php?markerId=1-A-28F

During this September, 1784 journey, George Washington would spend an extended weekend in Canonsburg.

1796 portrait

The below article published in the Daily Notes, on Friday,  April 18th ,1919 documents a part of George Washington's three day weekend visit, in September, 1784.  During his stay, he lodged at the home of the Town founder John Canon.  

George Washingtonfive years later, in 1789, would become the first President of the United States of America.

Washington, both the city and county were named after the American Revolutionary War leader. 

The Town of Canonsburg was formally defined and laid out by Colonel John Canon in 1789.






Jim Herron's article regarding G. Washington visit to Canon's Burg:
March 1968 - Jefferson College Historical Society Issue:







Tuesday, October 13, 2020

Alhambra Theater

Alhambra Theatre

10-14 E. Pike Street,
 Canonsburg, PA 15317

Originally called "The Please U Theatre"  which opened in 1907.    On September 16, 1912 it was renamed Alhambra Theatre and for an additional 50 years continued as the town's most popular family entertainment  venue.  (click on images to enlarge) 



This painting, titled: "Catching The Trolley: Canonsburg 1939" by Jim Sulkowski shows the Alhambra and Pollock's Shoe Store with a trolley out front.  Here the people are lined up to buy tickets for the newly released "Gone With The Wind" playing at the Alhambra. 



An admission ticket and a coming attraction ad. 


The Alhambra closed in 1964.