Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
THE WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA HISTORICAL MAGAZINE Volume 44 December 1961 Number 4 OUR MAGAZINE Alfred P. James K 8 thetne 5t0lxstory otof mankind,manl(in6, Ki5tol^history 18is monumental in botnboth 3i2esize an6and character. Its proportions are known to those who have read "* r% \u2666-! s4«4«"* A « « O T^O AsHlr4/4widelyAl^r and\u25a0*\u25a0! dug evenATfA«i modestly\u2666V^.i^\r4 r*4*I v in4-*^ its4" voluminousirr\ll4«V11t1A14H records.**^^%/*\\u2666• C1 Its most striking character, not universally realized, is that it is me- morialistic. Memorial building is a feature of normal successful life. His- torical societies and historical museums are an aspect of this human desire. Inmemorialism they have their major function and accom- plishment. Like all historical societies and museums the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania is fundamentally monumental. Its building is a monument to regional history. Its library, like all historical libraries, is essentially memorialistic as indicated by the selection and nature of its books. Its manuscript collection is definitely me- morial. So also is its museum. Portraits, pictures, and artifacts, however artistic some of them may be, are mainly memorialistic. Memorialism as a purpose and function, features the meetings, addresses, tours, and numerous other activities of the Society. The publications of an historical society are its most important and probably its most enduring aspect of monumentalism tinged with memorialism. Short of the destruction of man and his civilization nothing can greatly alter this fact. The main direct publication of this Society has been its maga- zine, The Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine. What is the nature, the worth of this publication, considered here as the most important and probably most enduring monument of the His- Written in August, 1961, during the annual vacation month, by Dr. James, who is at work on a cumulative single volume index of our maga- zine.—Ed. 310 ALFRED P. JAMES DECEMBER torical Society of Western Pennsylvania? Whether by fate or by Providence, the attempt to answer .the question has been assumed by the writer. Explanation of the assumption is that he has been continuously in touch with the magazine from its first appearance in 1918, that he was its editor in its second five years, that he has long been on its editorial board, that he has written articles and submitted articles by his graduate students and recently has either indexed or re-indexed the volumes which have hitherto appeared. Whimsically, he is the only person who has read all of it once, most of it twice, much of it three times and some of it no less than six times. It may well be added that familiarity here has not bred contempt. The proclamation of the merit and value of our magazine is the aim of this endeavor. It may be said that the evaluation herein made is resultant rather than pre-determined, though the influence of association and other factors cannot be ignored. The fullyears of publication of the magazine run from 1918 to 1960. Itis numbered, in volumes, from Ito XLIII. Owing to cir- cumstances, some favorable, others unfavorable, the size of individual volumes varies greatly. For the first twenty-four years the size of the volume varied only slightly. Not including indexes which averaged 12 pages per volume the average volume was of 280 pages, or 70 pages in length per quarterly issue. The troubled decade following the panic of 1929 had no visible effect, for the burden fell partly upon the Western Pennsylvania Historical Survey. At the end of the five year survey project, things became more critical and on the outbreak of war in late 1942, issues were telescoped and the size of the volume reduced by about 40 per cent. Again excluding indexes, the average volume was of only 155 pages or only 40 pages per number or issue. Such reduction lasted for nearly a decade, with the result that forty-three volumes (by number) are the equiva- lent of only about thirty-eight volumes of normal proportions. Since 1955 the size of the average volume has been enlarged. Omitting an index of 24 pages, the average size per volume has been about 378 pages or 94 pages per number or issue. Omitting the printed indexes, all the volumes of the magazine contain about 11,110 pages. By estimation, when due consideration is given to much small print scattered widely in issues and volumes, they contain 5,500,000 words. There are many publications with more words inprint but certainly there is here no lack of monumen- talism in size. 1961 OUR MAGAZINE 311 The memorialization in the words and pages of the magazine is much more impressive. To this matter attention willbe largely con- fined. As already stated, this memorialization is highly variegated, for an historical magazine is something like an omnibus and its load may have many if not all the colors of Joseph's coat. About fifty years ago a high official of a large textbook publishing house stated confidentially that of twenty-five manuscripts carefully considered and accepted for publication, only one, as a rule, was highly suc- cessful financially but that fortunately this one carried the other twenty-four. Articles inhistorical magazines are in some degree small books, some of them decidedly embryonic although many are of high quality. The percentage of great success, however, is much larger than four per cent. A somewhat safe estimate is that ten per cent of the major items can be classified as distinct successes inscholarship, style and format. Ifone finds in the forty-three volumes of The Western Penn- sylvania Historical Magazine about four hundred and sixty-six articles (counting serials as only one article) ,it can be expected that about forty-five willbe of the highest quality incontent and presen- tation. Such articles make a more or less permanent contribution to learning and accordingly merit particular notice. A greatly larger number of articles, often short, deserve attention and others of con- siderable merit deserve mention. With some effort and much risk the leading articles might be graded summa cum laude, magna cum laude and cum laude. It is almost inconceivable that an historical magazine can at any time have been without an editor. In large, wealthy and power- ful historical societies a full-time editor is sometimes found. The writer recalls his surprise when a well known historical society director remarked that on the selection of a new editor of its maga- zine, it was stipulated that any overt attention to the administration of the society or the management of its library, manuscripts or mu- seum was strictly prohibited and justification for removal. Very commonly, however, historical societies and associations have part-time editors. This has been the case with the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania. A variation of this situation has been that several directors have been editors, and some editors have been librarians as well. The first editorial regime was that of Charles W. Dahlinger, 312 ALFRED P. JAMES DECEMBER 1918-1922 inclusive. Lawyer, banker and realtor, his part-time editorial duties, though a sidetrack, were a matter to which he gave consideration bordering upon devotion. Reader, researcher, col- lector of books and documents, and scholar, his initial enterprise was indispensable. It seems in retrospect that no one else could possibly have accomplished what he did in the first five years of the magazine. Mr.Dahlinger was in 1918 well known as a writer and author of printed works, notably his Pittsburgh: A Sketch of Its Early Social Life, published in 1916. During his five year editorial regime, he furnished, in monographic articles, edited manu- scripts and short items, more than one-fourth of the literary content of the first five volumes of -the magazine. His well organized and well written monographic articles number about six. An historical magazine, as already stated, is an omnibus of a type. It carries many kinds of passengers and goods. Our maga- zine, in its forty-three volumes, mentions a minimum of thirty-five thousand index items. Most of these are names of persons. Only a small percentage of these items call for index annotation. Names of places are only a little less numerous and they likewise rarely require index annotation. Topical index items are a matter of much more difficulty. There are probably a thousand significant topical items inhistorical magazines and possibly another thousand less sig- nificant topical items. Our magazine undoubtedly refers to more than half of these two thousand items. Mere mention of them in one line will require about ten pages of double column index and since usually they call for annotation, they are likely to require fifty pages. Merely as a sample of significant topical items, in a relatively complete index of our magazine, might be mentioned just fifty of these items, namely, Agriculture, the American Revolution, Archae- ology, Architecture, Armies, Art, Banking, Boots, Breweries, Bridges, Canals, Cattle, Cemeteries, Churches, Civil War, Coal, Colleges, Courts, Distilleries, Education, Ferries, Fires, Forts, French and Indian War, the Frontier, Furs, Glass, Horses, Hotels, Houses, Industries, Internal Improvements, Iron, Labor, Liquor, Lumber, Maps, Medicine, Music, Negroes, Painting, Railroads, Re- ligions, Roads, Ships, Slavery, Steel, Surveying, Transportation and Whiskey. Other topics, such as Aluminum, Coke, Electricity, Engi- neering, Lighting, Oil or Petroleum, and Salt, willquickly come to anyone's mind. 1961 OUR MAGAZINE 313 Of the many articles written by Mr. Dahlinger, at least five can be classified either as with high honor or with the highest honor. They include "OldAllegheny" (1, 161-223), "A Place of Great His- toric Interest— Pittsburgh's First Burying-Ground" (2, 205-236), "The Moravians and Their Missions Among the Indians of the Ohio Valley" (3, 45-67), "Abraham Lincoln in Pittsburgh and the Birth of the Republican Party" (3, 145-192) and "Fort Pitt" (5, 1-44, 87-122).