Friday, December 9, 2016

Pittsburg



Awhile back, I made the decision to post the few remaining unpublished tintypes in my collection.  Now, it's time to put up the last three cabinet cards.  I'm sure at some time in the future there'll be more tintypes and cabinet cards, but for now, I'm leaving the 19th century.

Anyway, I'm sure the sharp eyed viewers have noticed that Pittsburgh is misspelled.  Actually not.  From 1891 to 1911 the city dropped the "H" from the city's name.  It seems that the United States Board of Geographic Names, a department  of the U.S. Geographic Survey, decided to standardize place names and ordered town and cities that used the Scottish spelling, a version of borough, to use the German Burg.  No one pronounces it that way, but technically Pittsburgh should be said like Edinburgh, Scotland, not like Hamburg, Germany.  Oh well, eventually the feds relented, and  Pittsburghers got the "H" back.

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