Blog

For the second year in the row, Penn State Behrend marketing students have worked on a project to write marketing plans for the museum to attract visitors under the age of 30. This is a demographic the museum staff knew hasn’t been effectively reached. 

And there will be more exhibits to come!     

Clara Petrat diary was written on brown bag paper.  She was a member of a German immigrant family and lived at 313 W. 17 St. She was a student at Erie High School Class of 1904. The diary begins in March.  Since you will see the diary exactly as she wrote it, her punctuation and capitalization mistakes improve as she goes to English Class.  The first few pages of the diary are fragmented and some of the script is missing.

Museum Educator, Jeff Sherry discusses a typical uniform of a Sailor from the War of 1812.

We all “play favorites”, don’t we?  I have favorite collections at the Museum (Griswold cast iron, women’s clothing and hand embroideries).  We have favorite colors, sports teams and Presidential candidates (we won’t go there, I promise).  Well, I have a favorite monument in Perry Square downtown.  Once a working water fountain, this 6 -foot -tall carved piece of granite is located behind the Civil War monument if you are coming from the West.  It has seen a little wear over the years.  The “cups” on each corner had a brass tube coming from above for water and one is even labeled “ice water”.  Years of rough winters have made the inscribed writing a little hard to read but upon closer inspection, you can make out: “Presented to the City of Erie May 30, 1883 by Geo. D. Selden”.  I had to research who George Selden was and why he would give a fountain to the city. 

The story of Erie and the 1918-19 Spanish flu pandemic. 

Written by Valerie Myers of Erie Times News.

It’s almost open!  The new exhibit building will be open in July 2020! 

Completion of the building has been a multi-year process.  After securing an exhibit of national significance for Erie in 2017, a building was planned in 2018 and built in 2019.  Now the first floor of the building and the major exhibit will be unveiled in 2020.  

The first floor of the new exhibit building will feature two galleries, including the exhibit of national significance and Erie and the American Dream.   Both will open in July. 

Today’s stunning AND delicious #SundayRecipe comes from the Cast Iron Casseroles magazine, published in 2018 by Hoffman Media and was baked in a well-loved family heirloom.

Every Saturday, we will  feature a blog post From the Archives.   This Saturday we feature diary excerpts from Clara Petrat, daughter to German immigrants who moved to Erie.  In her diary, Clara talks about her mom falling ill and having to miss commencement.  Something so many people are experiencing now. 

Join Hagen History Center Museum Educator, Jeff Sherry, as he discusses the standard field uniform of an Union Corporal.