Guide to the Brashear Association Records, 1891-1978 AIS.1979.17
Arrangement
Repository
ULS Archives & Special Collections
Title
Brashear Association Records
Creator
Brashear Association
Collection Number
AIS.1979.17
Extent
6.25 Linear Feet(5 boxes)
Date
1891-1978
Abstract
The Brashear Association was founded in 1916, largely through the efforts of Mrs. John Phillips who led the Mother's Club of Carrick in launching a campaign to raise funds for a settlement organization as a monument to the work of her friend, John Brashear. The Association opened formally on April 27, 1917 and was officially chartered April 18, 1920. John and Phoebe Brashear's Holt St. home and workshop were converted to a community center. In addition to recreational activities and skill-building classes for children and adults, the settlement offered Americanization classes for foreigners through its Citizenship Center. The material, spanning the years 1891-1978, falls into three distinct groups: records and publications of the Brashear Association, papers of and pertaining to John Alfred Brashear, the individual in whose memory the Brashear Association was founded, and papers relating to the South Side's history and social conditions.
Language
English
.
Author
Archives Service Center Staff. Revisions occurred to the finding aid as a part of the encoding process in December, 2001.
Publisher
ULS Archives & Special Collections
Address
University of Pittsburgh Library System Archives & Special Collections Website: library.pitt.edu/archives-special-collections Business Number: 412-648-3232 (Thomas) | 412-648-8190 (Hillman) Contact Us: www.library.pitt.edu/ask-archivist URL: http://library.pitt.edu/archives-special-collections
Biography
John Alfred Brashear was born in Brownsville, Pennsylvania, on November 24, 1840, the son of Brown Brashear, a saddler and Julia Smith Brashear, a school teacher. The oldest of seven children, John Brashear attended school in Brownsville through the age of 15 and did not receive further formal education.
Brashear held short-term jobs in Brownsville followed by a three year apprenticeship in mechanics in pattern shops. During this time Brashear also studied to obtain a license as a local Methodist preacher. A subsequent job with the Louisville, Kentucky City Waterworks was interrupted by the Civil War.
Returning to Pennsylvania in 1861, Brashear found employment as a mechanic in a rolling-mill in Pittsburgh.While serving as choirmaster in Pittsburgh's Walton Church, he met Phoebe Stewart, also working at the church, and they were married September 24, 1862.
After his marriage, Brashear pursued his interest in astronomy after work hours, his maternal grandfather, Nathaniel Smith, had encouraged this hobby. At the age of 32, Brashear built his own astronomy workshop next to his house at 3 Holt Street For three years he spent his spare time grinding and polishing, with homemade tools, a telescope lens which was dropped and broken shortly after being completed. A replacement lens was made and Brashear's five-inch refracting telescope was completed in 1876. He contacted Samuel Pierpont Langley, Director of Pittsburgh's Allegheny Observatory, and donated the telescope to the observatory.
Brashear's next project, following a visit to the telescope exhibit at the Centennial Exhibit in Philadelphia, was a 12-inch reflecting telescope.
Although the silvering methods Brashear developed at this time became the industry's standard procedure, he never patented this or any of his inventions or techniques; all were freely shared with other scientists and manufacturers.
Brashear's health was not good, his own projects, drawings, and equipment commissioned by others, in addition to full-time work at the mill, proved too much of a strain for him. Relief came in 1881, when financial support from William Thaw, a friend of Langley's, enabled Brashear to devote all of his time to producing telescope apparatus and designing other scientific instruments, including some for Langley's experiments with time systems and aerodynamics. In 1886, Brashear left his South Side home and moved to Perrysville Ave., where Thaw provided him with a large workshop in an area with air clean enough for studying the stars.
Two years later, Brashear made the first of three trips to Europe, this one financed by Thaw and Henry Phipps. The second trip, in 1892, was a lecture tour underwritten by Andrew Carnegie and Phipps.
In 1894, Brashear became Chairman of the Allegheny Observatory Committee of the Western University of Pennsylvania (now the University of Pittsburgh). He served as Acting Director of the Observatory from 1898-1900. During this time, he was in charge of raising funds and obtaining a site for a new observatory.
In 1896, Brashear became a member of the Board of Trustees of Western University of Pennsylvania. From 1901-1904, he served as Acting Chancellor of the University. Brashear's third trip to Europe, in 1911, was made as the University's delegate to the 500th anniversary of Saint Andrew's University in Scotland.
In 1909, when Henry Clay Frick founded a Commission for the continuing education of public elementary school teachers, he wished to remain anonymous and designated Brashear director of the fund, later to become the Frick Educational Commission. A group of teachers who had benefitted from the study and travel grants provided by the fund formed the Phoebe Brashear Club in 1912, for the purpose of doing settlement work including classes for immigrants.
That same year included the dedication of the new three-tower Allegheny Observatory, housing Brashear's 13-inch refractor telescope along with the Thaw Memorial Telescope and the Keeler Memorial Telescope, both built with equipment from the Brashear Company. In 1915 Brashear was elected President of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, appointed by the Department of State a U.S. delegate to the Pan-American Scientific Congress, and named Pennsylvania's "most distinguished citizen" by Governor Brumbaugh. That year Brashear was present for Alexander Graham Bell's famous trans-continental conversation, and was honored with "Brashear Day" at the Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. Brashear's last few birthdays were recognized by special civic functions. At his 75th, the Western University of Pennsylvania awarded him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws, one of half a dozen honorary degrees he received during his lifetime from various institutions. The next year, after a spectacular birthday celebration, Brashear left on a voyage to the Orient, as the guest of Ambrose Swasey travelling to the dedication of a science building he had donated to Nanking University.
After this trip, Brashear's health deteriorated until his death in 1920. The abundant literature in praise of "Uncle John" attests his status as a Pittsburgh legend even before his death. Coming from a poor family, motivated to educate himself, he symbolized perseverance, self-improvement, and dedication to making and sharing scientific discoveries. The founders of the Brashear Association saw the charitable organization as a monument to these qualities.
History
The Brashear Association was founded in 1916, largely through the efforts of Harriet Duff Phillips (Mrs. John Phillips) who led the Mother's Club of Carrick in launching a campaign to raise funds for a settlement organization as a monument to the work of her friend, John Brashear. The Association opened formally on April 27, 1917 and was officially chartered April 18, 1920. John and Phoebe Brashear's Holt Street home and workshop were converted into a community center. In addition to recreational activities and skill-building classes for children and adults, the settlement offered Americanization classes for foreigners through its Citizenship Center.
The Brashear Association expanded from its original Holt Street location with the acquisition of additional property and buildings donated by prominent Pittsburghers. Joseph G. Trees donated a farm near Zelienople, Pa. for the Claudia Virginia Trees Camp, in memory of his wife. Here the Brashear Association operated a summer camp for settlement families. Former County Commissioner Joseph Armstrong donated his house to the Association, opening in 1936. Two years later, the Martha C. Hoyt House was opened. In 1941, the George Washington Carver House was dedicated by the Association became the location for settlement activities for African Americans.
For the most part, segregation was in effect until the new Brashear Center was built in 1956 at 2005 Sarah Street which centralized the functions of the previously separate locations. Three years later, in an adjacent building, the Brashear Museum and Astronomy-Science Center was completed. The Museum had been operating since its formal dedication in 1940, on the occasion of Brashear's 100th birthday anniversary celebration . The Henry Kaufmann Center at 2201 Salisbury St was completed and dedicated in 1964.
Scope and Content Notes
The material in the collection fall into three distinct groups: records and publications of the Brashear Association; papers of and pertaining to John Alfred Brashear, the individual in whose memory the Brashear Association was founded; and papers relating to the South Side's history and social conditions.
The records and publications of the Brashear Association range from 1890-1978, with the bulk of the material falling between 1915 and 1965. The collection contains executive correspondence, grant proposals, conference reports, extensive scrapbooks, press releases, canceled checks, notices of activities and meetings, brochures, newspaper clippings, building blueprints and equipment specifications, invoices, and photographs. In addition to the records which relate to the Association as a whole, separate folders represent the activities of various individuals or divisions of the Association: the Phoebe Brashear Club, the Brashear Museum and Astronomy-Science Workshop, individual settlement houses, and the Claudia Virginia Trees Camp. With the last two institions named, a large number of photographs document activities and quarters. Many of the photographs bear conflicting dates, or no dates at all and very few identify the individuals pictured.
The papers of and relating to John Brashear span the years 1891 to 1977. Included are incoming and outgoing correspondence, photographs of Brashear and his wife, birthday memorabilia, and a small amount of correspondence pertaining to genealogical queries about the Brashear family. A large proportion of the collection consists of a variety of published and unpublished biographical items and tributes to Brashear: pamphlets, articles in periodicals, books (including Brashear's autobiography), radio and play scripts, newspaper clippings, poems, etc. Other material relating to Brashear held by the Archives Service Center are the Records of the Allegheny Observatory, of which Brashear served as Director Pro Tem from 1898-1900. These records (AIS.1964.22) include "public, private, administrative, and scientific correspondence of former directors" and both incoming and outgoing letters of Brashear's are included. Correspondence of Brashear's friend and scientific colleague, Samuel Langley, Director of the Allegheny Observatory from 1867 to 1887, may also be of interest to the researcher.
Access Restrictions
No restrictions.
Acquisition Information
This collection was donated in 1979.
Existence and Location of Copies
This collection is also available on microfilm in the Archives Service Center (Microfim-cabinet 2, Drawer 8)
Preferred Citation
Brashear Association Records, 1891-1978, AIS.1979.17, Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System
Previous Citation
Brashear Association Records, 1891-1978, AIS.1979.17, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh
Brashear Association, Pittsburgh, Pa., Records, 1891-1978, AIS 79:17, Archives of Industrial Society, University of Pittsburgh Libraries
Processing Information
This collection was processed by Archives Service Center Staff in 1979.
Revision and rearrangement for the encoded version of the finding aid provided by Holly Mengel in December 2001. Information about the collection title and the controlled access terms was extracted from the MARC record in the University of Pittsburgh catalog Voyager ID number: 1436618
Copyright
Permission for publication is given on behalf of the University of Pittsburgh as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained.
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