EVENTS



UPCOMING EVENTS



Tuesday, November 13, 2022 | 7:00 p.m.



Custer's Last Stand

Speaker: Rob Dunbar





Anchor and Anvil Coffee Bar
7221 Church Avenue
Ben Avon, PA 15202


Custer’s Last Stand, one of the most studied battles in military history, still provokes controversy 146 years later. The battle, fought on the bluffs above the Little Big Horn River, was the greatest victory the Plains Indians ever had over the U. S. Army. Led by Lt. Col. George A. Custer, the 7th U.S. Cavalry attacked a large village of Sioux and Northern Cheyenne Indians resulting in the deaths of 265 cavalrymen. Outnumbered, the soldiers were also plagued by obsolete firearms, the inability to replenish ammunition and the divided elements of the regiment. Ironically, the Indian victory proved to be the Indians’ Last Stand.


Rob Dunbar has been fascinated by the events of Custer’s Last Stand since he was a child. Numerous trips to Little Bighorn Battlefield have only increased his curiosity. He is a member of Custer Battlefield Historical and Museum Association and serves on the board of directors of the Little Big Horn Associates. A 1971 Avonworth graduate, he also graduated from the Pennsylvania State University where he majored in history. Rob is employed as a Financial Advisor with RBC Wealth Management. He and his wife live in Franklin Park and enjoy traveling with their two sons to visit various historical sites.



PAST EVENTS



Tuesday, October 11, 2022 | 7:00 p.m.



Western Penitentiary:
“The Wall” Houses Over
130 Years of Pennsylvania’s Corrections History

Speaker: Retired Colonel
Joel Dickson





Anchor and Anvil Coffee Bar
7221 Church Avenue
Ben Avon, PA 15202


Retired Colonel Joel Dickson, a 1965 Avonworth graduate who served 26 years in Army active duty with the Military Police and ten years at the State Correctional Institutions in both Pittsburgh and at Rockview as Deputy Superintendent and Superintendent, will present an interesting insider’s view of the Western Penitentiary. Born and raised in Emsworth, Colonel Dickson holds a BS degree in Rehabilitation Education and a Master of Education from Pennsylvania State University. He also has a Master of Administration of Justice degree from Wichita State University.


Very few were aware of what took place behind the walls of “Western” and most did not really care— “out of sight, out of mind.” In reality, it was a bustling and active city within the city. “Camp Skippy” as it was nicknamed, was a self-sustaining environment that for most of its history housed the most heinous and infamous criminals the Commonwealth produced!


This presentation endeavors to present an inside look at life behind “The Wall,” both as a maximum-security institution and its rebirth as a minimum/medium custody facility. The history of SCI-Pittsburgh, in conjunction with changing correctional philosophy, will also be explored.



Tuesday, August 21, 2022 | 7:00 p.m.



Daguerreotypes—
Photography’s Beginning

Speaker: Mark S. Johnson





Anchor and Anvil Coffee Bar
7221 Church Avenue
Ben Avon, PA 15202


When, in 1839, the French government bought the secret of how daguerreotypes were made, and then gifted that secret to the world, the new art form took the world by storm. These first photographs, popular from 1839 until the mid-1850s, would quickly lead to the creation of an empire of practitioners throughout the world. Within two years, “daguerreotypists” were in every city, town and village; and some artists made extra income by becoming “professors” and teaching wannabes---for a fee. Daguerreotypists were quickly supported by a broad network of suppliers of cameras, silver plates and chemicals. Coming at a time of severe economic recession, its “job” potential was quickly realized and the daguerreotype became the basis of a new industry. For some of its practitioners, fame and fortune followed.


Speaker Mark S. Johnson is past President of the international Daguerreian Society and editor of the scholarly journal, “The Daguerreian Annual” from 1997 through 2015. As President for fifteen years, he moved the Daguerreian Society to Pittsburgh and, in 2001, established for it a new headquarters in Dormont. The society’s gallery was host to three world-class exhibitions before the facility closed in 2006.



Tuesday, June 21, 2022 | 7:00 p.m.



Marketing the Presidency —
A Visual Tour of 125 Years of Presidential Artifacts

Speaker: Steve Mihaly





Anchor and Anvil Coffee Bar
7221 Church Avenue
Ben Avon, PA 15202


Mr. Mihaly has been a collector of presidential memorabilia for over 50 years and holds one of the largest privately held collections in the country. He and his collection have been featured numerous times in magazines and newspapers throughout the country, as well as appearances on radio and TV. The presentation is a 50-minute visual tour of the often odd, as well as, creative items candidates have produced to entice people to vote for them. You’ll see everything from a Teddy Roosevelt “Big Stick” to glow-in-the-dark Franklin Roosevelt stove pot covers to a Richard Nixon shower head where the water comes streaming from his mouth! Please join us for a fun and historical evening of reliving campaigns, candidates and their artifacts!



Monday, May 9, 2022 | 7:00 pm



Sixty Years of Innovation in Cardiovascular Medicine & Surgery at Allegheny General Hospital

Speaker: Dr. George Magovern, Jr.





Community Presbyterian Church of Ben Avon
7501 Church Avenue, Ben Avon, PA 15202


Although World War II led to dramatic advancements and innovations in science, technology, and business efficiency, the diagnosis and treatment of heart disease well into the 1960s was, for most patients, bed rest, words of encouragement, and the use of a stethoscope. Advancements in cardiovascular surgery beginning in the early 1950s at Johns Hopkins Hospital, the University of Minnesota, and Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas led to some early success in patients suffering from rheumatic fever or congenital heart defects. Importantly, Pittsburgh’s Allegheny General Hospital, in the early 1950s under the direction of Edward Kent, MD, and his protégé George J. Magovern, MD, also developed many new successful operations for heart disease patients referred from all over western Pennsylvania.


In 2016, Dr. George Magovern, Jr., Institute Chief of the Allegheny Cardiovascular Institute and Chairman of Allegheny General Hospital’s Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, discovered two decades of hospital records, operative notes, and letters to referring physicians, from 1950-1970, which had been kept in storage, documenting cardiovascular surgery and medicine at Allegheny General Hospital. Dr. Magovern’s presentation will highlight many of these historical documents illustrating early operations on the heart and great arteries with frank discussions from Dr. Kent and Dr. Magovern concerning operative mortality, the early use of the heart/lung machine, the early years of coronary bypass surgery, valve surgery, and heart transplantation. Dr. Magovern will highlight financial records from the 1950s demonstrating physician fee schedules, professional overhead costs, hospital room charges, x-ray and laboratory service charges, etc. Importantly, Dr. Magovern will also highlight his father’s innovations in heart surgery with the invention of the Magovern Valve, a nuclear powered pacemaker, and his collaboration with Gerald McGinnis in starting the Respironics Company in Pittsburgh making a device for the treatment of sleep apnea.


In summary, this is a rare opportunity to learn and gain insights into the remarkable success of cardiovascular surgery and medicine at Allegheny General Hospital, dating back to the early 1950s.



CURRENTLY CANCELLED PENDING THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS...



Bygone Buildings
of the North Boros

Speaker: Tracy Ferguson





Anchor and Anvil Coffee Bar
7221 Church Avenue
Ben Avon, PA 15202


Take a seated, historical tour of the North Boros through old photographs. Behold Victorian mansions, original school and church buildings, businesses and homes for the needy that no longer exist. Recall entertainment venues that have been shuttered for years, but left fond memories. View once-popular transportation means that have passed into nostalgic treasures. This lecture will give you a fresh insight into our local communities.



CURRENTLY CANCELLED PENDING THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS...



Avonworth School Building 50th Anniversary

Speaker: Tom Steiner





Anchor and Anvil Coffee Bar
7221 Church Avenue
Ben Avon, PA 15202








Tuesday, February 11, 2020 | 7:00 pm



Lincoln Assassination

Speaker: Robert Dunbar





Anchor and Anvil Coffee Bar
7221 Church Avenue
Ben Avon, PA 15202


On February 11, 2020 Rob Dunbar will present The Lincoln Assassination. The talk details the tragic death of the sixteenth president and the events that led to the capture and trial of the conspirators. On April 14, 1865 John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln in Ford’s Theater in Washington DC. Other assassins were assigned to kill Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William H. Seward. This would lead to the capture, trial, conviction and hanging of four conspirators and the death of Booth. Rob Dunbar is a 1971 graduate of Avonworth High School and majored in history at the Pennsylvania State University. In addition to his interest in the Civil War, he has a passion for World War II and Custer’s Last Stand. A resident of Franklin Park, Rob is married and has two sons and works for RBC Wealth Management.



Tuesday, December 10, 2019 | 7:00 pm



"Pittsburgh's Mansions"
Author Presentation & Signing

Speaker: Melanie Linn Gutowski





Anchor and Anvil Coffee Bar
7221 Church Avenue
Ben Avon, PA 15202


"Pittsburgh's Mansions," a pictorial history, explores the stately homes of the area's prominent residents from the 1830s through the 1920s. The book's author will highlight several mansions from the book, answer your questions and sign copies.



Tuesday, October 8, 2019 | 7:00 pm



From the Market Basket of Pittsburgh to Industrial Eminent Domain: Will Neville Island Reinvent Herself?

Speaker: Gia Tatone





Anchor and Anvil Coffee Bar
7221 Church Avenue
Ben Avon, PA 15202


Neville Island is not just a story about an island; it harbors hidden treasured stories that have been largely unearthed until the research for Images of America, Neville Island, was conducted. The research for this book includes unraveling the mysteries of how the island transformed, as if falling from grace, from being the Market Basket of Pittsburgh with robust farms that fed the nation's most prominent establishments, to undergoing the fate of eminent domain and rapid industrialization. The research also led to revealing unknown stories such as "Poison Park" along with the history of the early settlers as well as those who remained living on the island generations later. This presentation will discuss the island's concealed, yet treasured history, as well as efforts currently being done to help return it to glory.



Tuesday, August 13, 2019 | 7:00 pm



The History of West View Park

Speaker: Tom Steiner





Anchor and Anvil Coffee Bar
7221 Church Avenue
Ben Avon, PA 15202


Many locals will remember West View Park, a local amusement park located in neighborhood of West View. The park ran for 71 seasons from 1906 through 1977. It was eventually torn down in 1980. Tom Steiner will cover the history and aspects of the park that made it a special place for many generations.




Tuesday, June 11, 2019 | 7:00 pm



Allegheny Burning:
The 240th Anniversary of the Brodhead Campaign of 1779

Speaker: Brady Crytzer





Anchor and Anvil Coffee Bar
7221 Church Avenue
Ben Avon, PA 15202


In 1779 George Washington launched what would be his most successful campaign of the entire American Revolution: the destruction of Iroquoia. A three pronged attack from all directions, the Sullivan-Clinton-Brodhead Campaigns reduced the Haudenosaunee world to ashes and ended a centuries' old way of life.




Tuesday, April 9, 2019 | 7:00 pm



The Mysterious Liberty
Township Explored

Speakers: Tom Powers
& Jim Wudarczyk





Anchor and Anvil Coffee Bar
7221 Church Avenue
Ben Avon, PA 15202


Tom Powers and Jim Wudarczyk of the Lawrenceville Historical Society will explore the search for the short-lived “Mysterious Liberty Township,” which encompassed part of East Liberty, Bloomfield, Shadyside, Point Breeze, and Squirrel Hill. Powers and Wudarczyk will also highlight some of the prominent residents of Liberty Township..




Tuesday, February 12, 2019 | 7:00 pm



A Cultural Landscape Report: Beaver, Pennsylvania and its Central Public Squares

Speaker: Rebekah Johnston





Anchor and Anvil Coffee Bar
7221 Church Avenue
Ben Avon, PA 15202

​

Rebekah graduated from Chatham University, May 2012 with a Masters Degree in Landscape Architecture. She received her Bachelors of Science in Communications Design from La Roche College in May of 1999. She has written a HALS report on Arsenal Park, a Master’s thesis on Beaver, Pennsylvania and its Central Public Squares, and a Cultural Landscape Report for a historic property in Shaler Township. She has had an article of her thesis published in the online PAST which is a publication issued by the International Society for Landscape, Place and Material Culture.


Historic landscape preservation, one must look at how to preserve, restore, rehabilitate or reconstruct. In researching the historic landscape preservation of Beaver, Pennsylvania, discussion of Beaver as an intact 18th-century urban form is combined with the use of the land of the four central public squares, Agnew, Irvine, Quay and McIntosh.


Public squares have become the open green spaces of the urban form. Providing at one point a common ground where animals could graze or residents could gather water or weigh their hay, Beaver, Pennsylvania contains a total of eight public squares. The public square’s intention became more than just an open space. Where many towns and cities utilize their public squares for recreational lots or to contain public buildings, Beaver has maintained its public squares for the publics’ use.


Beaver, Pennsylvania is more than just a town or a county seat. The town of Beaver was slow growing, and therefore, expansion never dictated the town to divide and sub-divide the lots, as Philadelphia did to the extreme, that were surveyed in 1793. Beaver’s intact town layout and the use of the public squares indicate that Beaver’s significance in urban form is one that few towns have established.




Tuesday, December 11, 2018 | 7:00 pm



100 years later: What Have We Learned about Influenza?





Anchor and Anvil Coffee Bar
7221 Church Avenue
Ben Avon, PA 15202


Speaker: Marc Itskowitz, M.D., FACP

Associate Professor of Medicine

Temple University School of Medicine

Director, Didactic Education

Allegheny General Hospital

Director, Center for Perioperative Medicine

Allegheny Health Network


The 1918 flu pandemic (January 1918 – December 1920) was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic, the first of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus.It infected 500 million people around the world, including people on remote Pacific islands and in the Arctic, and resulted in the deaths of 50 to 100 million (three to five percent of the world's population), making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history. Marc Itskowitz, M.D. of the Allegheny Health Network will share more about how the flu pandemic started, spread, affected our region, and what we've learned over the last 100 years.



Tuesday, October 9, 2018 | 7:00 pm



Battlefield Medicine
During the Great War





Anchor and Anvil Coffee Bar
7221 Church Avenue
Ben Avon, PA 15202


Speaker: Richard Moore, B.A./History


The Great War was a conflict of unprecedented horror and ferocity. Solders faced new, and more advanced weapons never before known to the battlefield. The medical personnel were confronted with the results of these new and terrifying elements of modern warfare, such as poison gas, flamethrowers and shrapnel, as well as the effects of the soldiers own deplorable living conditions.


Because of the global scale of the conflict, climate and geography also presented unique problems to the medical service. Whether it was the deserts of the Ottoman Front or the mud and filth of the Western Front, care-givers had to adapt and overcome to fulfill their duty of mercy.


The presentation will examine the elements of battlefield medicine over the various fronts of the Great War, such as evacuation, treatment and recovery of the wounded. The main focus will be afforded to the Western Front, where the American Expeditionary Force primarily served. Using photographs, source material and original artifacts from the period, the presentation will examine one of the lesser known components of the “War to End All Wars”. Whether it be the surgeons giving life-saving treatment to the severely wounded, or the brave stretcher bearers who dashed forth into No-Man’s Land to save their injured comrades, their story deserves to be told.



Tuesday, June 12, 2018 | 7:00 pm



Behind Their Lines:
Lost Voices of the Great War





Anchor and Anvil Coffee Bar
7221 Church Avenue
Ben Avon, PA 15202


Speaker: Dr. Connie Ruzich,
Professor of English Studies, Robert Morris University


The First World War has been called America’s forgotten war; this lecture will share photographs, first-hand accounts, and poems that help in understanding the war’s impact on both soldiers and civilians. With a focus on forgotten voices, the presentation will explore stories of men who experienced the trauma of shell shock, women who worked in field hospitals near the front lines, dogs who served alongside the soldiers as mascots, and other accounts of patriotism and sacrifice that demonstrate that there was no single representative experience of the Great War, nor was there a typical response to the conflict.


Learn more about the poetry of the war at Dr. Ruzich's blog: http://behindtheirlines.blogspot.com/




Tuesday, April 10, 2018 | 7:00 pm



A Day in the Life of a
World War I Doughboy





Anchor and Anvil Coffee Bar
7221 Church Avenue
Ben Avon, PA 15202


In memory of the 100th anniversary of World War I (1918-2018) Dan Simkins, a board member of the Avonworth Historical Society and WW I re-enactor for 5 years, will discuss what life was like for the doughboys during their time at the front. During Dan's time as a re-enactor, he not only learned the intricate details of what it was to become a doughboy, but also got to experience firsthand many aspects of life in the trenches without the horrendous realities of actual warfare.


People tend to hear about the darker aspects of a soldier’s experiences such as bombardment, “going over the top” and crossing over “no man’s land” to almost certain injury or death. But due to the harsh conditions in the trenches, soldiers were rotated at a much more frequent rate than people realize. Also, battles didn’t happen as frequently either. Much of life in the trenches consisted of passing long periods of time without incident.


Dan will share the ups and downs of what the doughboys experienced living at the front. Included in this lecture will be a reenactor to model the standard uniform and equipment of the standard doughboy.




February 8, 2018

5:30 pm Cash Bar | 6:15 pm Dinner
7:30 pm Program



Avonworth Historical Society Annual Joint Dinner





Shannopin Country Club

1 Windmere Road | Pittsburgh, PA 15202


Guest Speaker: Todd DePastino, will talk about America and World War I. Todd is the founder and executive director of the Veterans Breakfast Club, a 501 non-profit dedicated to sharing veterans’ stories with the public.


The lecture will begin at 7:30 pm on the subject of America’s involvement in World War I. For two-and-a-half years, Americans looked on in horror as the European war killed unprecedented millions. Then, the US joined the fight, and the first American to die in the war would be the 1st Division’s Private Thomas Enright of Pittsburgh, PA. By early 1918, American fighting tipped the balance, broke the stalemate, and the Great War — the War to End All Wars— finally shuddered to a close. What followed was a peace so disastrous that it virtually guaranteed a resumption of war. This “Peace to End All Peace” was known as the Versailles Treaty, which Woodrow Wilson negotiated in 1919. The end result was an impoverished, humiliated, but not entirely broken German, a Soviet Russia, and a newly isolationist United States. The stage was set for another World War far more catastrophic than the first. Come hear how the 20th century was born from this end of World War I



IMAGES FROM THE 2018 ANNUAL JOINT DINNER



Photos provided by Maya Berardi





December 12, 2017 | 7:00 pm



Lecture Series:
The Chief and I—
Len Barcousky Sheds Some Light on Chief Killbuck





The Cabin in Avonworth Community Park

498 Camp Horne Road | Pittsburgh, PA 15237


Speaker: Len Barcousky


The Delaware leader known as Killbuck, or Gelelemend, was an important Native-American chief during the American Revolution. A supporter of the American cause, he became the principal chief of the Lenape in November 1778.


It turns out that Chief Killbuck, for whom our Avonworth community is named, and Ben Avon resident Len Barcousky have quite a bit in common. Len will talk about the links between the Indian leader and himself in a talk for the Avonworth Historical Society he is calling “The Chief and I.”


A journalist for more than 40 years now retired from full-time work, Len continues to write his “Eyewitness” column for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Material from those columns has been collected in several books about local history.



October 2 | 2016



Edwardian Social



These photos show some of the action at our first social. We were encouraged by the number of attendees and their expressed interest, despite the event's new position on calendars and overcast skies. The oldest car present was the Zamba's 1912 Pierce Arrow. We look forward to raising the event's profile in coming years and growing a following for local history.