Grant will allow Donora Historical Society to expand its historic photo collection
A grant will allow the Donora Historical Society to make more prints of photographs taken of Donora in its early days by photographer Bruce Dreisbach.
An example of the “women in hats and children with toys” photographs from the Bruce Dreisbach collection belonging to the Donora Historical Society.
An example of the “women in hats and children with toys” photographs from the Bruce Dreisbach collection belonging to the Donora Historical Society.
DONORA – Washington & Jefferson College biology professor Thomas W. Hart visited the Donora Historical Society’s museum before he died last year and he came away impressed by what had been accomplished there by a small number of volunteers.
“He also was a lover of history,” said Washington County Community Foundation President Betsie Trew, whose organization will give the society $1,000 from the Hart fund to create more prints from its collection of glass negatives.
“Those types of projects appeal to us,” said Trew.
The society has nearly 4,000 glass negatives created between 1906 and 1959 by Bruce Dreisbach, who was a quality control and safety inspector at the U.S. Steel plants in the borough. Dreisbach photographed many images at the plant, which was among the first major steel mills to close in the nation, the construction of the historic Cement City housing development and his model wife, Lulu Miller Dreisbach. The society’s collection of his photos has been recognized by the Smithsonian Institution and University of Pittsburgh.
Most of the negatives came into the society’s possession following the 1986 death of the photographer’s wife, who lived in an apartment in the former Mellon Bank Building at Fifth Street and McKean Avenue. Dreisbach, who was a founding member of the historical society, died in 1959 of a heart attack.
Brian Charlton, the society’s archivist, said he has a priority list of other prints he wants to have made from the negatives housed in the Smog Museum at Sixth Street and McKean Avenue.
“They are so grassroots,” Trew said. “You can’t forget the little guys.”
The Hart grant awarded in August will allow the society to make another 100 Dreisbach prints, Charlton said.
“The Donora Historical Society owes a huge debt of gratitude to Dreisbach in helping us understand the way things appeared during the early days of Donora,” the society states on its website.
In this round of prints, Charlton said, the society will select images to be made of women in hats and children with toys to add to the collection of 511 Dreisbach prints.
Charlton also said he plans to do research on Dreisbach this year to coincide with the society’s 70th birthday.
The museum created to honor the deadly Donora smog of October 1948 has no staff and limited hours on Saturdays.