American Revolution Bicentennial of Lancaster County Collection (MG-20)
Description
This collection gives information on the activities of the 200th celebration of the American Revolution in the Lancaster area. Folders 32 to 41 cover the celebration in Greater Lancaster. Folders 42 to 51 touch upon the activities of Lititz, Solanco, Lampeter-Strasburg, Elizabethtown, Cocalico, Columbia, New Holland, Pequea Valley, Washington Boro, Penn Manor, Millersville, and Marietta. The collection contains minutes, programs, photos, financial vouchers and newspaper clippings, audio tapes. The six volumes that make up the Bicentennial Celebration, April 1971- February 1977 scrapbooks are a compilation of published materials such as newspaper articles, magazine articles, broadsides, brochures and pamphlets. The materials relay information about the actions of the Lancaster County Bicentennial Committee including meetings, mailings and events. The committee chose the "Hands of Liberty" theme for the committee and upcoming celebration. The theme was present on every mailing sent out by the committee and can be found on most of the materials within the scrapbooks.
Collection contains correspondence, poetry, and newspaper articles.
Admin/Biographical History
Blanche Nevin (1841-1925), artist and poet, was born in Mercersburg, Franklin County, Pennsylvania. She was the daughter of John Williamson Nevin, a theologian, teacher, and minister, and Martha Jenkins, daughter of the politician and iron master at Windsor Forges, Robert Jenkins. When Dr. Nevin became the president of Franklin & Marshall College in 1855, he moved the family to Lancaster. They moved to Windsor Forges (or Windsor Place) from 1856 to 1858, while Dr. Nevin acted as executor of his mother-in-law's estate, and then moved permanently to Caernarvon Place on Columbia Avenue (the present site of Degel Israel Synagogue). The Nevin children were well-educated and cultivated for society, as their parents had been.
Blanche was the nation's first noteworthy sculptress. In 1889, she sculpted the statue of Revolutionary War General Peter Muhlenberg, which stands in the National Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol. She also sculpted the bust of President Woodrow Wilson. Lancastrians are most familiar with her Lion in the Park (1905) at Reservoir Park and her horse drinking fountain (1898) at the intersection of Columbia Avenue and West Orange Street. Blanche composed a number of poems and set several to music; many were inspired by Lancaster County, her travels, and family and friends. Her poems include: "Great-Grandma's Looking-Glass" (1895), "One Usual Day" (1916), and "To My Door" (1921).
She bought Windsor Place in Caernarvon Twp. in 1897, restored the mansion house and the name Windsor Forges, and added a studio. Furniture and other influences from her travels adorned the house and grounds. She also owned a house in Manasquan, New Jersey; spent time with friends in New York and Philadelphia; and traveled a great deal, especially during the winter.
Her obituary in a Lancaster County newspaper states, "The simple, unpretentious neighbors of Miss Nevin never questioned her foreign ideas and eccentricities, but accepted her for the true, human qualities which she so abundantly possessed."
