Ohio History Journal

106       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

historical library building at Pittsburgh, though delivered for the

promotion of a purely local enterprise, are so replete with in-

formation and suggestion pertinent to historical libraries in

general, that we take pleasure in producing them in full.

 

 

 

 

WHAT AN HISTORICAL LIBRARY BUILDING SHOULD DO

FOR PITTSBURGH.

 

BY REUBEN GOLD THWAITES, LL. D.

Superintendent of the Wisconsin Historical Society, and Lecturer in

American History in the University of Wisconsin.

 

The immigrant from Europe, no matter how unlettered he may be,

quite generally brings to our shores a fairly accurate knowledge of

the most striking facts in the history of his native land. Its heroes

are his heroes, and the ideals they stood for are, in a measure, quite

apt to be his also. Especially do we find, if we have occasion to ques-

tion him, that the newcomer is conversant with at least the outlines of

the story of his native city or province. He is proud to claim as fellow

citizens those men of past generations whose heads have stood above

the throng. He knows something of the partisan struggles that in

various generations have in his community set neighborhood against

neighborhood, family against family, men against their kin; something

of the long-enduring and often devastating commercial and political con-

tests with other cities; something of the fierce battles that through

successive generations have been waged beneath the crumbling walls

that girt his town.

Sometimes on holidays I have watched groups of these people

wandering through a European art gallery or museum-peasants and

journeymen, with undoubted evidence of their vocations still clinging

to them, yet pausing with awesome although voluble admiration be-

fore some great historical canvas that eloquently sets forth a chapter

in the story of their country's past; or commenting intelligently upon a

skillful grouping of museum articles illustrative of the life, manners,

methods in vogue among men and women who trod this municipal

stage long generations ago.

When schools are in session, one cannot tarry long at any historic

shrine in Europe without encountering a schoolmaster or a school-

mistress having in charge an enthusiastic bevy of boys and girls who,

either resident or from a neighboring town, have come to see the house

connected with the career of some notable citizen, or to study in much

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Ohio Valley Hist. Ass'n, Fifth Annual Meeting.        107

 

detail the cathedral, the castle, the municipal building-or whatever other

relics of bygone days bring pilgrims to that place. Small wonder is it,

with these object lessons and the persistency of this youthful drilling,

if the European appreciates that his country has a past, of which he

is the logical outcome, and concerning which he must be informed.

He migrates to America. No adult with whom he is liable to

be thrown in social contact apparently knows anything whatever about

American history, much less does he hear it talked about. His children

obtain in the public schools a meagre and often badly-taught smatter-

ing of our national annals, but practically nothing whatever of that

state or local history in which they should especially be well-grounded.

We cannot be surprised if our immigrant comes to think that America

has no history worth the telling, at least no state or city heroes worthy

of the name; that America never stood for or meant anything, but is a

land that "just grew up," like Topsy of old-a land in which there is

opportunity to earn dollars.

Can we hope to make American patriots out of men coming to

us with such ideas, and finding no reason for changing them?   Can

a man love his country or his state or city unless he knows that here

great deeds have been done, that here high ideals are cherished? How

is the foreigner to know these things if we do not teach them to him?

Are even our boys and girls being made into the same sort of patriots

that they rear abroad?

Possibly the annals of our nation may in time be cared for, in this

connection. Certainly, the school texts are fast improving; more and

more is it being understood by teachers and public that instruction in

American history lies very close to the roots of civic patriotism. Com-

memorative celebrations like the present have had a marked influence

in stimulating popular interest in certain phases of our country's story.

The Centennial at Philadelphia, for example, gave a considerable impetus

to the study of the causes and conduct of the Revolution. The World's

Fair at Chicago brought home to our people a genuine appreciation of

the stirring romance of that great period of maritime exploration,

brought to a glorious climax by Columbus, when on that fateful Octo-

ber morning he doubled the known area of the world. The Buffalo

Exposition renewed and vivified our knowledge of and sympathy with

the careers of the Latin American republics. During the St. Louis

Exposition tens of thousands of Americans read earnestly and probably

for the first time, of the Louisiana Purchase, and gave some heed to

what resulted from it. At Portland, our thoughts as a nation were

closely connected with the ever-memorable story of Lewis and Clark's

triumphant exploration from the Mississippi to the Northwest coast.

The Pittsburgh sesquicentennial reawakened popular interest in the his-

tory of this locality. Again, during the present week, there is unrolled

before us the panorama of early trans-Alleghany settlement, and fresh

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108        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

concern is being manifested by the nation in the glowing tale of the

Ohio River when it was the broad highway to the virgin prairies and

primeval woodlands of the West.

But important as are these celebrations, they are necessarily spas-

modic. At best, they hold the slender attention of the public for a few

weeks or months. We stand in need of permanent instrumentalities for

the development, especially, of popular taste for state and local history.

Ours is a period remarkable for earnest popular demands for purer

and more efficient local government-for the increase and improvement

of public parks and play-grounds, for the development of the public

library through branches that shall reach out to the citizen upon the

farthermost confine of the municipality, for the use of schoolhouses

for lectures to the people and as meeting places for neighborhood bet-

terment clubs. The time is propitious for taking advantage of this

widespread civic re-awakening, for redeeming our cities from the familiar

taunt of the foreigner, that American towns are historically barren.

The study of local history is closely akin in object and method

to the study of nature, of which so much account is taken, and justly

taken, in our public schools. The child who becomes familiar with the

habits and characteristics of animals, birds, flowers, trees, and clouds,

finds that the great earth is teeming with interesting neighbors of man,

with whom it is worth while becoming intimately acquainted. He walks

thereafter in a broader and more inviting land than is known to his

untutored fellows who neither see nor hear the sights and sounds that

make beautiful this world of ours.

Exactly in the same way and for the same purpose should the

child acquire an intimate knowledge of the history of his locality. The

career, for instance, of a prairie community may seem at first to afford

few incidents of distinction. But surely some incidents there be that

may arouse attention. Merely answering the why of the town's location

often involves much research, and sometimes yields interesting facts.

Quite possibly it may lead the inquirer back to the aboriginal village

that in our West frequently preceded the white town; and this opens

up the field of local Indian archaeology, which is sure to attract a

considerable group of students.  Perhaps the first white to visit the

region was a fur-trader; if so, this fact suggests picturesque possi-

bilities. Worthy of our earnest attention is a study of the first agri-

cultural settler, his origin, and why and how he came; perhaps afoot

across country, or in a "prairie schooner," or on a flat-boat.

The story of the gradual growth and development of a town around

this nucleus of the first settler is food for the economist and the sociolo-

gist as well as the historian. What reason was there for the coming of

these people? What induced them to stay, when once they had arrived?

What social and civic institutions were first established, and where?-

the first schoolhouse, with its teachers and pupils; the first church, its

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Ohio Valley Hist. Ass'n, Fifth Annual Meeting.         109

 

pastors and its congregation; the first village, town, or city hall, and

the first public officials chosen; the creation of clubs, societies, fraternal

organizations.  Then there is the question of the beginnings of com-

mercial and industrial establishments; the building of plank roads or

"gravelled" turnpikes, the construction of bridges, the coming of steam-

boats or railroads.  The smallest and apparently the least interesting

or American communities presents abundant problems for the local his-

torian or other student of life and manners.

But particularly fortunate in this regard is Pittsburgh. Here, two

pulsing streams combine to form yonder giant river, which long served

as the principal pathway to the interior of a great continent. Few Am-

erican towns have a history like unto this. In the beginning, its traditions

throb with the varied incidents of a strenuous aboriginal life-for here

at "The Forks", from time immemorial, were held great councils and

intertribal markets; from here were controlled the savages of a broad

area of wilderness; from here went war parties, hideous in paint and

gay in feathers, softly treading the warriors' paths that everywhere

streaked this storied land. The Forks played a large part in the pro-

tracted drama of French and English rivalry for the mastery of North

America, and with this particular scene Washington's name will always

closely be associated. About The Forks was waged the continued struggle

for territorial possession between Pennsylvania and Virginia-one of its

episodes being that fateful colonial war to which has been given the

name of Lord Dunmore. During the Revolution, the garrison of Fort

Pitt was chiefly concerned in protecting the Kentuckians from Indian

raids. Here really began the expedition of George Rogers Clark, that

won the Northwest for the United States. From here set forth that

little band of Marietta pilgrims who had won their Western lands by

fighting under Washington and Lafayette.  Here, through many years

were built and launched those fleets of picturesque pirogues, flat-boats,

keel-boats, "arks," and "broad-horns," that carried teeming cargoes of

pioneers and their chattels for the founding of American homes along

the banks of the Ohio and its far-stretching tributaries. Here set forth

that strange, machine-paddled craft which was soon to revolutionize the

West, and which gave occasion for our commemorative exercises today.

From that time to this, Pittsburgh has remained an important gateway

to the West; her history is in large measure a synopsis of Western

history.

The story of Pittsburgh has never quite adequately been told-

at least, in such fashion that we can feel the thrill and glamor of this

old town's eventful career. But some day it will be told, let us hope

as the outcome of this Centennial; and then we shall see that that

story is unexcelled in romance and significance by the records of any

other city in the world. Blessed will be the Pittsburgh child who shall

come to his knowledge of it at his mother's knee; for like the European

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110        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

youth, he will come to feel that the traditions and annals of the city of

his birth are a rich heritage which none may gainsay him. He will be-

come a better citizen by far than the lad to whom the town is an un-

meaning checker-board collection of streets, sidewalks, and houses.

The sole excuse for the maintenance of public schools by public

taxes is the fact that education makes intelligent voters, without whom

the republic cannot long exist. A general knowledge of American history

is recognized by every educator as an essential factor in the education

of our people. But the history of his state and locality should be con-

sidered quite as important an element in the intellectual drill of every

child in our common schools, who is being trained to effective citizenship.

"The curriculum is already overcrowded," say the teachers when

this suggestion is made. It is the long-familiar reply to every suggestion

for reform in educational methods. The trouble chiefly lies, I fear, in

the lack of equipment on the part of many of the teachers themselves.

Knowing nothing of local history, and having small concern for it, they

are readily self-convinced that there is no time for this study in the

treadmill of the scholastic day. Another consideration, doubtless, is the

dearth of attractive state or local texts, for undoubtedly among the most

dreary of books on our library shelves are those of the local annalist.

But were school boards to insist that state and local history should be

taught alongside of general American history, incentive would thereby

be offered to text-book writers possessed of attractive literary style, who

at present find but a narrow market for this sort of ware.

But quite apart from class-work in the common schools, there is

needed some other agency for the instruction of all the people in the

history of the town and region. There is no instrument quite so well

adapted or equipped for carrying on this form of popular education as

the historical society-city, regional, or state. Such an organization can

inspire archaeological explorations, accumulate archives, collect reminis-

cences from pioneers, amass data relative to social and economic history

and present conditions, conduct a well-selected historical and ethnological

museum that shall be representative of the locality, arrange for popular

lectures on these subjects, conduct historical pilgrimages and commemor-

ative celebrations, influence school and library boards, interest and in-

struct teachers and librarians, furnish the newspapers with accurate his-

torical data, publish pamphlets and books containing reports of their

discoveries, and in general awaken within the locality which it seeks

to represent an active and enduring historic consciousness.

The legislatures of many of our states in the Mississippi Basin

recognize the importance and necessity of this form of educational

work. Their interest is manifested by more or less liberal subventions

of such societies, and in a few states a somewhat similar duty is per-

formed by official departments of archives and history. But of the

several municipal or regional historical societies, that of Buffalo is, I

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Ohio Valley Hist. Ass'n, Fifth Annual Meeting.           111

 

believe, unique in receiving an annual appropriation ($5,000) from the

city government, to aid in its educational propaganda.

In truth, there is no reason whatever why this example should not

generally be followed by large American cities. Exactly the same argu-

ment used in behalf of the school system can and should be urged for

the historical society. But such a society, state or local, can lay slight

claim to official aid if it be not popular in its organization and methods.

It must perpetually demonstrate its reason for being, by proving its

usefulness to the public. Its directors must heartily believe in the enter-

prise, and be willing to spend freely of their time and effort. Its sal-

aried staff must be headed by some one holding office for the good to

be done-an historical expert, yet at the same time possessed of a knowl-

edge of men and a capacity to influence public opinion in a good cause.

He must be not a mere dry-as-dust antiquarian, living in the world but

not of it, but be imbued with modern ideas and familiar with modern

business management-an earnest, practical man, in whom both scholars

and men of affairs may sefely repose confidence.

It is gratifying to learn that there is a project for the establish-

ment here in Pittsburgh of an institution such as I have described-a

logical fruit of this remarkably successful centennial celebration. Most

sincerely do I trust that the enterprise may from the beginning be well

assured of its financial future. To many of our municipal societies are

weakly and struggling, with means insufficient for virile public service.

Either well endow your society and its proposed historical building, or

make it an acknowledged part of your general educational system, and

place it in keen rivalry with similar institutions elsewhere.

Given such a society, adequately housed, properly supported, and

Pittsburgh may in this matter easily take first rank among the cities

of America. Her rich dowry of local history will then become the com-

mon possession of her people. Every boy and girl within her limits

will be proud to have sprung from such historic soil. Every foreigner

will rejoice to dwell within the gates of a city whose story, known of

all men, can kindle his affection.

 

 

WHAT AN HISTORICAL BUILDING SHOULD DO FOR PITTS-

BURGH.

 

BY CLARENCE S. BRIGHAM,

Librarian American Antiquarian Society.

 

"Among the singular advantages which are enjoyed by the people

of the United States none is more conspicuous than the facility of

tracing the origin and progress of our several plantations. * * With

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