In the woodlands south of Reading, Pennsylvania, the landscape around French Creek tells two quintessentially American stories. One is the 18th–19th-century tale of Hopewell Furnace—an industrial community of ironmasters, colliers, founders, and teamsters who helped forge a young nation. The other is the [...]
Hawk Mountain Council, BSA—serving Berks and Schuylkill counties and the Panther Valley region of Carbon County—stands as a local expression of a national movement. Formed in 1970 by the consolidation of the Daniel Boone Council (Reading/Berks) and the Appalachian Trail Council (Schuylkill/Carbon), its [...]
As the Reading Liederkranz celebrates Oktoberfest we are reminded that the month of October is German Heritage Month. German people began moving to Pennsylvania as early as 1683. Between 1683 and 1783, more than 100,000 German-speaking immigrants from the Palantine, Wurttemberg, and Hesse; [...]
The Reading Council, which would in time become the Daniel Boone Council, was established in March 1916, when Woodrow Wilson was president and World War I was underway in Europe. The United States would enter the war the following year, three years after [...]
Saint Michael Convent began as a “seminary for young ladies,” established and conducted by the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The fifty acre hilltop tract and the building were the result of a pious bequest in the will of Henry Felix, [...]
Many of the new immigrants, particularly in the second half of the nineteenth century, were from Poland and were looking for a new land with religious and civil freedoms. Pennsylvania would be the land of opportunity for many immigrants, some of whom would [...]
George Bornemann was born October 5, 1838, at Lingen, Province of Hanover, Germany. His father was a rope-maker; his mother, Louisa (born, Rolfs) died when he was six years old. The schools of his native town provided his elementary education, and he early [...]
The Wyomissing Polytechnic Institute, founded by Ferdinand Thun and Henry Janssen, was originally organized as the Educational Department of the Textile Machine Works. Below: Ferdinand Thun. Below: Henry Janssen. Textile Machine Works, the world's largest manufacturer of full-fashioned hosiery machinery, [...]
For more than half of our nation's history, social services were not provided by the government, but by benevolent and religious institutions. As the number of Catholics in Berks County grew, so did the establishment of a number of convents of women religious [...]
St. Catharine's Orphan Asylum for Girls was founded due to the generosity of Mrs. Catharine Madary, a Reading widow who passed away on May 22, 1871. Below: The photo below shows the small beginning of St. Catharine's Female Orphan's Asylum. Due to her [...]
