Recently in Adams County Category

I've heard the theory that entertainment does well in a period of recession because people want to escape for just a little while. York County's many movie theaters were certainly showing a great variety of films in September 1938, when America was just starting to come out of the Great Depression.

As shown below, some theaters even added an extra incentive--free snacks. Others advertised that the films they were showing provided clues to a nationwide $250,000 contest being run by the motion picture industry.

What was playing?

William Holmes McGuffey (1800-1873) was a professor of languages at Miami University in Ohio when he developed a series of enduring readers for children.

Truman and Smith, a small Cincinnati publishing firm, brought out the First Reader in 1836, followed by the Second Reader in 1837. The Third and Fourth were published in 1837. These volumes were used to teach untold numbers of children the basics of reading, writing, arithmetic, and other subjects up through the end of grammar school. McGuffey's brother Alexander was the compiler of the Fifth Reader (1844) and the Sixth (1855) for students of a higher level.

Click here for the Library of Congress zoomable 1751 Fry-Jefferson map.

I recently wrote about York County residents being recruited to move to Virginia in the 1870s. Click here to read that post.

There were several paths, following very early roads, from South Central Pennsylvania to less populated lands.

Prosperity seems to have come to the York County of 140 years ago, if the ads in the December 31, 1867 issue of the York Gazette are any indication.

Entrepreneurs and agents from New York, Philadelphia, Maryland, and Adams County were offering investment opportunities.

Real estate was enticingly offered by New Oxford Agent J. C. Zouck as an appeal to:

“CAPITALISTS
LOOK TO YOUR INTEREST!”