2024 Events and Projects

Special Events and Projects completed in 2024
  • acquired a 100-year-old Donora Zinc Works sign from a man in Meadville, Pa. who donated it to our museum after reading our Donora Death Fog book (January).
  • helped book author Kathleen Shoop launch her fourth historical fiction book of her Donora Story Collection – Boxing Day (January).
  • helped Pitt professors Jeanne Marie Laskas and Erin Anderson with research accuracy on their Cement City podcast about Donora - www.cementcity.org (March).
  • presented the “1948 Smog” for The Adventure Club (March).
  • presented the “1948 Smog” for the Upper St. Clair Alliance Church (March).
  • presented the “1948 Smog” for a W&J Alumni group (March).
  • presented the “1948 Smog” for a homeschool group (March).
  • hosted Washington & Jefferson professor Dr. Bob East and two visiting women scholars from Indonesia who are both collaborators on W&J’s LIASE (Luce Initiative in Asian Studies and the Environment) Grant (April).
  • provided information and photos on the “1948 Smog” to The Carpetbagger YouTube channel (April).
  • partnered with the Heinz History Center's and PennWest – California/Clarion/ Edinboro's "Digital Storytelling" Honors English class with two groups (April).
  • presented the "1948 Smog" at the Carnegie Library in Carnegie, Pennsylvania for their annual Earth Day Celebration (April).
  • presented the “1948 Smog” for Shaler High School (April).
  • presented the “1948 Smog” for Carlynton High School - Light Initiative (April).
  • conducted our eighth annual Eldora Park Walking Tour – two tours (April).
  • provided information and photos to filmmaker Caroline Friend for her Mary Amdur/1948 Smog film project (June).
  • completed the Developing an Olfactory Media Library for an Atmospheric Commons project with Lindsey French - University of Regina, Saskatchewan and Alex Young – Carnegie Mellon (June).
  • provided information and photos on Stan “The Man” Musial to writer Tim Benz of Tribune Review Sports (June).
  • provided information and photos on the “1948 Smog” to Mark Dixon’s Inversion documentary (July).
  • visited the Donora Senior Center to tell their attendees about the Donora Historical Society and Smog Museum (August).
  • participated in the Washington County Community Foundation – Day of Giving (September).
  • provided information, photos and driving tour on “Stan Musial” to author David Kindred for his 1946 St. Louis Cardinals / Stan Musial book project. Kindred was a former sportswriter for the Sporting News and once appeared on the TV show 60 Minutes in 2021 (September).
  • organized another Monongahela River/Donora Riverfront Cleanup with Allegheny CleanWays that collected 57 tires and 1,655 pounds of trash (September).
  • presented “Eldora Park” for the Naomi Outreach Women's Group in Rostraver at the Cedarbrook Golf Course (September).
  • provided photos on the “1948 Smog” to Pangloss Film - PBS documentary (October).
  • provided information and photos on the “1948 Smog” to Science Friday - a national public radio show about all things science (October).
  • launched a mammoth effort to start to catalog all our artifacts in the Collective Access archiving software (October).
  • conducted our fourteenth annual Cement City Home and Walking Tour - Fall edition over a two-day weekend – two tours (October).
  • provided information and photos to authors for research on the “1948 Smog”, and general Donora history for future books, podcasts, blogs and websites.
  • acquired some great Donora artifacts to our museum.
  • provided research info on the “1948 Smog” for professors and students from various universities such as: Georgia, Wisconsin-Madison, Washington and Jefferson, PennWest California, Dickinson College, Carnegie Mellon and University of Regina - Saskatchewan Canada.
  • helped school groups and teachers from various middle and high schools on 1948 Smog research, both local and out of state, some for National History Day.