Audio

In 1925, Frances Lester Warner (1888-1971) published a booklet about the holiday season in Pittsburgh. It was strikingly illustrated by Avalon artist Christian J. Walter, president and founding member of the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh.

I’ve always thought this booklet would make a lovely audio story. So here it is, complete with Walter’s illustrations, to mark its centenary in 2025!

A former professor of English literature at Wellesley College, Warner was an accomplished author with an enviable career writing for Atlantic Monthly. She arrived in Pittsburgh in 1922 when her husband Mayo D. Hersey became laboratory chief at the U.S. Bureau of Mines, and the couple left in 1926. Although her time in Pittsburgh was relatively brief, Warner eloquently captured the zeitgeist of the past, present, and future city.

Narrated by Sue Morris
Produced by Julia Maruca
Recorded at Pittsburgh Sound Productions, 2024
Steel and Holly: Christmas in Pittsburgh Published by Riverside Press, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1925

Airplanes were incorporated into every aspect of life in the early 1900s – even Christmas!
On December 9, 1929, a Pittsburgh Press aviation column joked that Santa would land at Bettis Field, the area’s best airport located near Pittsburgh in West Mifflin, on Christmas Eve to help that newspaper’s gift drive for local orphans.

We had fun imagining this short column as an old-fashioned radio show – complete with sound effects! So enjoy this 3 minute “show” that we paired with popular aviation-themed Christmas postcards of the era.

Voiced by Sue Morris, Brian Butko, and Nikolas Butko
Produced by Julia Maruca
Recorded at Pittsburgh Sound Productions

To learn more about Pittsburgh’s early aviation history, read “Bettis: Where Pittsburgh Aviation Took Off” – available now from the Heinz History Center!