SQUIRREL HILL HISTORY
Victorious New Year Newman’s ad. December 23, 1943, Squirrel Hill News, Squirrel Hill Historical Society.
December 21, 1950, Squirrel Hill News, Squirrel Hill Historical Society.
Holiday
TIME MACHINE
By Helen Wilson, Vice-President, Squirrel Hill Historical Society
IN THE PAST, RESEARCHING LOCAL HISTORY WAS
Historic Pittsburgh website, historicpittsburgh.org. The
DIFFICULT AND TEDIOUS. It meant hours of sitting in
newspapers can also be accessed through the SHHS’s
libraries wading through old tomes and fussing with
website, squirrelhillhistory.org.
microfiche reels. Nowadays, a lot of information is readily available online, making searching much easier.
As expected, the December Squirrel Hill News newspapers are full of announcements of holiday events
A case in point is looking into how Squirrel Hill
and religious observances, as well as advertisements to
celebrated winter holidays in the past. A great tool
attract holiday shoppers. Many issues refer to situations
for finding out about the neighborhood’s holiday
in the world beyond Squirrel Hill; for example, some
events is the Squirrel Hill News newspapers, which were
ads during World War II had a patriotic slant. Christian
published from around 1929 to 1979. The newspaper’s
themes dominated the newspaper in December, with
offices were in the Block Building, located where the
references to Hanukkah mentioned mostly in short
Giant Eagle parking lot is now. A fire destroyed the
announcements about events at local synagogues.
building in 1956, taking with it the earliest issues of
Squirrel Hill was never more than 40 percent Jewish,
the newspapers, but someone who had saved most
but its renown as Pittsburgh’s Jewish neighborhood
of the newspapers from 1935 to 1970 donated them
comes from the fact that when over 26,000 people
to the Squirrel Hill Historical Society, which had them
live in Pittsburgh’s largest neighborhood, 40 percent IS
digitized and put on the University of Pittsburgh’s great
significant.
44 | shuc.orgWinter 2023 | 44
