The 2024 Hammer-In Festival

By Lynne Squilla, Contributing Writer

Step back in time to the age of blacksmiths and local machine shops at the annual Hammer-In Festival in Greene County, about an hour south of Pittsburgh. Set in the charming town of Rices Landing, overlooking a rural stretch of the Monongahela River, the festival takes place in and around the wonderfully restored W.A. Young & Sons Foundry and Machine Shop. The event traditionally happens the third Saturday of April and promises something for everyone.

The interior of the front shop, featuring the machines and the line shaft system. Image by Richard Kelly Photography.

“This is a must-see attraction! And it’s surprising in this quiet neighborhood to have this amazing marker of our industrial heritage,” says Greene County Tourism Director JoAnne Marshall.

Approaching the 123-year-old shop with its red-barn clapboard exterior, the clang of hammers on anvils greets the ears. Tristate area blacksmiths will be demonstrating their artistry for the public to enjoy inside this National Historic Landmark. Metal casting, copper working, and a tour of the facility and its machines are also part of the experience, along with an auction, food, and a first-ever local crafts market.

“The Hammer-In has been going for 36 years (with two years off during COVID times),” T.J. Porfeli, Rivers of Steel’s historic site coordinator, explained. “It’s a rare chance to have access to blacksmiths. Here you’re surrounded by multiple blacksmiths with a variety of skill sets.”

Blacksmiths from Pittsburgh Area Artist Blacksmiths Association (PAABA) and the Appalachian Blacksmiths Association (ABA) will be crafting things such as hooks, kitchen utensils, animal and botanical forms, and more. A different smith will demonstrate every hour, taking questions, and describing this age-old process of heating and hammering iron into versatile, attractive, and functional items. It is a chance for craftsmen to meet and collaborate with one another, as well as to offer their skills for public hire. The event has become an immersive and educational way to keep the trade of blacksmithing alive and evolving.

A small crowd observes a blacksmithing demonstration during the 2023 Hammer-In Festival.

Chris Holt, secretary and editor of PAABA, who is also a blacksmith, describes the fascination of watching her fellow artisans at work: “Instead of mass-produced stuff, people like to see the beauty of hand-crafted items. And if we don’t teach and use this skill, we’re going to lose it.”

The blacksmiths will also present some of their original craftworks that day at a public auction during the festival.

“There will be hooting and hollering as the auctioneer engages the public to open up their wallets to benefit the site,” says Porfeli. “There’s always amazing stuff there.”

Proceeds of the auction will go to PAABA and ABA and toward the continuing restoration of this local treasure—efforts led by Rivers of Steel after taking ownership of the unique facility in 2008. Funds from Save America’s Treasures and four Keystone Historic Preservation Construction grants helped restore the building itself.

The restored exterior of the W.A. Young & Sons Foundry and Machine Shop, Rices Landing, PA. Photo by Richard Kelly Photography.

Ron Baraff, director of historic resources and facilities for Rivers of Steel, elaborates: “We have been able to replace the roof and repair the gutters and clapboard walls and windows and stabilize the building. If you lose that shell, you lose everything.”

“There is no other site like it, in terms of beauty of place and being completely untouched, and that’s largely because—and this is a good thing—it’s on the way to nowhere, in this cute little hamlet where time stood still,” Baraff shares. He goes on to say that the machines themselves were well maintained by the Young family and subsequent owners while the shop was open. “It’s also fortunate that it had and will continue to have neighbors and volunteers who are really interested in preserving and protecting this site. They’ve kept an eye on it for many years.”

Young & Sons is the nation’s last of the “small job” machine and metal-working shops that once supported local communities and industry. Before the early twentieth-century move to mass-production machining facilities, workers at Young & Sons would repair and make replacement parts for anything from bikes and automobiles to steamboat, coal mine, and small factory equipment. Unlike other such shops around the country, Young’s did not upgrade its late-1800s technology, except to switch its power sources over the decades—from steam to Bessemer gas to electricity. A period-accurate Bessemer engine will be on display at the event.

“This place is the epitome of being like the workers went to lunch and never came back,” according to Baraff. “Everything is just like it was when the last machine was turned off and more: every invoice was there, every chewed pencil. Everything was preserved, even the hardware store upstairs with all the little drawers and screws and bolts.”

A family tours the Machine Shop during the 2023 Hammer-In.

The Young & Sons interior is both quaint and impressive, with its twenty-five line shaft-driven machines that fill the front shop, animated by a web of pulleys and belts that whirl and dance when switched on to run the old drill presses, lathes, pipe and bolt threaders, and milling machines. Currently, a lawnmower engine powers the entire system of functional machines.

Chris Holt reflects: “To see it all oiled and moving and gracefully doing its task . . . it’s amazing.  It’s a whole ballet of machines happening in unison!”

The floor of the forge room is earthen, to prevent fire from flying metal sparks and the small smithing furnaces in the past. It makes a perfect setting for modern-day blacksmiths to ply their old-time trade.

The fact that time has not touched this gem of a workshop, which opened in 1900 and shut down in 1965, has been an asset for Greene County and all those who love industrial history and nostalgia in general. It has become a meaningful backdrop for the visiting blacksmiths, too.

“Other than how people are dressed, it could all be seventy, eighty years ago. The sounds, the sights, the smells. The volunteers and blacksmiths—they’ve breathed new life into this intimate space,” observes Baraff.

Chris Holt agrees: “The whole environment, the river, the machines. You can just imagine a paddle wheeler coming up the river, docking to get parts repaired. It’s this amazing frozen spot in time. It has to be seen to be believed!”

A moment from an aluminum pour demonstration during the 2023 Hammer-In Festival.

Rounding out the Hammer-In experience will be a first for the festival: a copper raising demonstration (hammering flat sheets of metal to create a vessel or tools) paired with the popular molten aluminum pour demonstration. Spearheaded by T.J. Porfeli, there will also be a first-ever makers’ marketplace, where local craftspeople will display their goods for sale to the public. The Boy Scouts will be selling food, and proceeds will benefit their organization.

“This place contributed to the economy of the region, and it’s still here and doing that,” says JoAnne Marshall. “I make sure I attend every year. You just never see blacksmithing like this. And then the crafts and the people . . . it just makes for a wonderful day.”

This family-friendly event happens on April 20, 2024. It is free to the public, and donations are always appreciated. Festivities begin at 9:00 a.m., with a welcoming ceremony at noon, followed by the auction at 1:00 p.m. and an aluminum pour. Don’t miss this opportunity to watch the past come alive!

Lynne Squilla is a skilled and creative storyteller. She honed her craft as a writer and producer / director of original scripts, documentaries, articles, web content, stage, and other live presentations. While her work has taken her across the globe, she’s rooted in the Mt. Washington neighborhood of Pittsburgh, and has a passion for sharing stories about our region’s past.

Check out Lynne’s previous article on the Intercollegiate Iron Pour.

Coral Penelope Lambert works with five students to pour iron from a smaller ladle while two more students observe during last Saturday’s inaugural Intercollegiate Iron Pour at the Carrie Blast Furnaces.

The Inaugural Intercollegiate Iron Pour

By Lynne Squilla, Contributing Writer

With Carrie’s majestic Blast Furnace #6 towering behind them, thirty college students and mentoring artists gathered on a brisk March weekend to pour their own iron creations and forge ongoing connections among the metal arts community.

Rivers of Steel’s first Intercollegiate Iron Pour drew students from Carnegie Mellon University, Alfred University in New York, Shepherd University in West Virginia, SUNY Cortland in New York, Seton Hill Greensburg, Chicago Art Institute, and NYU, who were joined by seasoned Rivers of Steel staff and alumni from past iron-pouring events hosted at the National Historic Landmark. Suited up in protective leather aprons and chaps, spats, boots, gloves, masks, and safety glasses, the students put their faces near the fire for a one-of-a-kind encounter with iron casting, sharing their passion for working with this challenging but captivating medium.

The crew of the first Intercollegiate Iron Pour.

“It’s just brilliant,” said Alfred University’s Coral Penelope Lambert, professor of sculpture dimensional studies and director of the National Casting Center Foundry. “This place is a sacred site, almost like Stonehenge. The grounds we walked on have this spirit of the industrial past, and that is a really rich thing for artists.” Lambert has been coming to Carrie since 2017, and her own work, called Gushers, was cast on site and now permanently graces the Iron Garden on the eastern side of the landmark site. For this pilot intercollegiate pour, she brought one undergrad and one graduate student from Alfred’s School of Art and Design, Sculpture Dimensional Studies Division, plus two Alfred alumni.

Chris McGinnis, Rivers of Steel’s director of arts, leads students through the Iron Garden. Coral Lambert’s sculpture is visible to the right of Chris.

“The ‘big sell’ here is you’re going to meet people who will become part of your network after college. It shows what can happen outside of academia and in the future,” Lambert continued.

Josiah Shuman, a junior studying Materials Science and Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, brought nine fellow engineering students to the event; eight are members of a group he founded, called The CMU Forge Club. Shuman and his friends started with an interest in learning how to create sword and knife blades, and Josiah has been to the Carrie Blast Furnaces for blacksmithing workshops. But, he pointed out, he and his colleagues are more steeped in metallurgical theory, as well as research in such technologies as electronic high-density storage materials and capacitors. Most of them had never witnessed this centuries-old technology—a glowing mass of molten iron smelted and poured.

“It was truly awesome,” said Shuman, “and when it sparked, the staff yelled ‘Turtle!’ and you hunch up your shoulders and tuck your face mask in to protect yourself.”

“Everyone working with the students was so organized and enthusiastic and so helpful,” Shuman continued. “Engineers, and I guess a lot of artists, are really kinda shy and not really outgoing types, but as soon as you make connections, you go out of your way to talk to others at this event, which was a little out of our comfort zone. But I think we’ll maintain a lot of these relationships in the future.”

The crew pours iron from the primary ladle.

Building a community in the metal arts is the Pour’s primary objective. Chris McGinnis, Rivers of Steel’s director of arts, explains the inspiration behind this new event: “Rivers of Steel is part of a small but fierce community of people who are passionate about metal casting. And we want to grow that community to more people outside of that fray, to get students excited about metal and the trades and handwork, and share the history of Carrie that they may not know about.”

Carrie provides a truly unique experience for students of metal arts, where 300 to 500 pounds of iron can be melted and poured. The portable furnace used for the event is a scale version of the two giant early twentieth-century blast furnaces that dominate the site, providing a setting unlike any commercial or university campus foundry.

Rivers of Steel has hosted public pours at Carrie, including at the Festival of Combustion and an Iron Casting Spectator Event, but this is the first program focused specifically for university-level students to give them a sense of the history of iron-making in this region and to keep interest and these time-honored technical skills alive.

The scaled-down furnace at this pour is named “Bumblepig” and was designed and built by two of Coral Lambert’s past students, Paige Henry and Kay Dartt. While both are artists, Henry is now Rivers of Steel’s metal arts technician, and Dartt is a professor of art at Shepherd University. Ed Parrish, the metal arts coordinator for Rivers of Steel, who organized and supervised this event, elaborates: “Her full name is Frannie van Bumblepig [local blast furnaces were traditionally named after women from prominent mill families], and she’s an intermittent cupola-style furnace, which means we plug a tap hole with clay, and when the well is full of molten metal, you tap out 300 pounds. We poured a total of about 3,000 pounds of iron at this event.”

The iron is all recycled scrap from such things as old bathtubs, brake rotors, or radiators, combined with limestone and coking coal, heated by propane and then forced air. It duplicates, in scale, the same process that the Carrie Furnaces employed from 1907 through 1978, with the exception that hematite and taconite (iron ore pellets) were used rather than scrap iron.

Experienced artists and those seeing iron poured for the first time all got an up-close, hands-on experience, whether suiting up and actually poking the tap hole and ladling the 2,500-degree liquid iron, or standing by with essential tools.

Students prepared to participate in the pour.

“All those who wanted to were given a chance to pour,” Parrish said. “It’s hard work, and it’s a team process. Very orchestrated and controlled. But everyone is generally in awe because it’s very dramatic; there’s a natural theater to this process.” The molten iron was poured into resin, sand-packed molds that many of the students premade and brought with them.

Along with the spectacular visual elements, there was the steady hum of people communicating during the intricate process, the clang of pulley chains as the ladle was hoisted, the hiss of sparks, and the bang-bang as cooled metal was knocked off the poke-hole lance. It was all a faint reminder of the heat, glowing skies, and steady noise that emanated from the massive furnaces #6 and #7 at Carrie, along with up to 1,250 tons of iron daily that each of those two produced in their heyday . . . the entire site produced up to 9,000 tons a day!

Stay, 2023, aluminum and bronze, by Clark Clark of Shepherd University.

In addition to the big pour on Saturday, students also participated in a pop-up suitcase exhibition on Friday, where they shared “suitcase-sized” works they had created at their schools or studios. Displayed on 55-gallon drum pedestals inside the AC Power House on the grounds of the Carrie Blast Furnaces, there were a variety of cast metal pieces, sculptures, and even a work in neon.

Participants also had a chance to make their own Doodle Bowl, a popular workshop offered at Carrie where molten metal is poured into small molds that can be custom designed by carving out shapes and patterns in a preformed resin bowl. For this premier student event, the bowls were cast in iron, rather than the usual aluminum used during The Doodle Bowl Experience, the publicly offered version of the workshop.

Josiah Shuman and his fellow CMU students cast preformed 4×4-inch tiles as well as the Doodle Bowls. “As engineers, we were laughing, like, ‘We have to get creative now!’ But it was a great chance to explore our artistic side that engineering doesn’t always allow.”

Ed Parrish adds, “Teaching creativity no matter what your field is can be one of the most important things in your toolbox. There’s always a give-and-take with the students, too. I learn as much from them as they do from me.”

Participants were also given a tour of the Carrie grounds and part of furnace #6. Shuman, who had been to a Rivers of Steel’s Blacksmithing Basics: Hooks and Hairpins program in the past, gained even more insight from this event: “Before this weekend, I knew little of iron and steelmaking in Pittsburgh. [On the tour], you could imagine yourself as one of these iron makers decades ago all day, every day, year after year, pouring heaps of hot metal. You feel small next to those furnaces.”

Chris McGinnis, left, led the students through the historic furnaces. Here, they posed for a photo on the stove deck.On Sunday, once the molten iron had sufficiently cooled overnight, Rivers of Steel’s metal arts staff and crew broke the students’ cast pieces out of their molds. The works ranged from very intricate, lacy designs to solid mountain-like forms. “They came out perfect,” said Coral Lambert, who helped with this final stage.

An anatomical heart was one of the items cast.

For mentors like Lambert, the Intercollegiate Iron Pour goes well beyond academics and what can be learned in a classroom. “This is just a melting pot of information that you can be part of and can help shape it for the future. It’s not just the technical stuff, but the important interactions and relationships created.”

Students like Josiah Shuman hope to return to Carrie to work again with staff and other artists. “I’d love to do more of these pours and see what other collaborations—like even a bladesmithing workshop—could come out of it.”

“The connections sparked at this event will serve these artists and engineers well as they complete their schooling and pursue their careers,” said Chris McGinnis. “We hope to see them all again soon!”

Lynne Squilla is a skilled and creative storyteller. She honed her craft as a writer and producer / director of original scripts, documentaries, articles, web content, stage, and other live presentations. While her work has taken her across the globe, she’s rooted in the Mt. Washington neighborhood of Pittsburgh, and has a passion for sharing stories about our region’s past.

Check out the metal arts programs offered by Rivers of Steel.

Washington County Historical Society’s LeMoyne House represents an important part of southwestern Pennsylvania’s rich history. The National Park Service states that the LeMoyne House is one of six NPS-recognized Underground Railroad sites in Pennsylvania—and it is the only one of these six located west of the Allegheny Mountains.

The Underground Railroad in Southwestern Pennsylvania

Guest Contribution by Washington County Historical Society

Every year, Black History Month invites us to view the tapestry of American history a little differently— through the lens of the African-American experience. While we rightly celebrate Black excellence in familiar fields—from business and academia to the arts, sports, and modern era civil rights activism—it also offers an occasion to explore lesser known stories. One such narrative is the pivotal role African Americans played in the formation of our nation’s first civil rights movement: abolitionism and its practical arm—the Underground Railroad.

Free Black Communities, Religion, and the Origins of the Underground Railroad

In the decade following the War of 1812, free Black communities began to lay the tracks of what later became the Underground Railroad. To understand how these communities helped initiate the Underground Railroad in southwestern Pennsylvania, one must look back to colonial times. Settlers from Maryland and Virginia brought enslaved individuals to the region, and while slavery did not take root as firmly in Pennsylvania as in other colonies, its presence loomed large, particularly in pre-revolutionary Westmoreland County (from which the counties of Washington, Fayette, Allegheny, Somerset, and Greene were later formed). In this way, African Americans were among the earliest settlers and contributed significantly to the early economic growth of the area.

Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery

The Pennsylvania General Assembly’s “Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery” was adopted in 1780.

The age of slavery in Pennsylvania began to recede in 1780 with the passage of the “Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery,” heralding a new era of hope for enslaved African Americans. Though not an immediate emancipation decree, the Act ensured that future generations would be born into freedom, marking a significant step toward the eventual abolition of slavery in Pennsylvania. Children born after the passage of the Act became the first generation to gain full freedom in the years prior to the War of 1812. Additionally, some enslaved people born prior to the Act’s adoption would ultimately attain their freedom in Pennsylvania through individual emancipations or through legal challenges of an enslaver’s compliance with the Act. Thus, painfully slow as it was, slavery’s ultimate demise in Pennsylvania was set into motion.

Religion Aides Community Organization

Religion had served as a cornerstone of Black communities, offering solace and solidarity amidst the trials of slavery. During the 1780s, Baptist and Methodist churches began to draw the religious interest of many African Americans. As years passed, especially within Methodism, unresolved issues of slavery and inequality began to divide some of these congregations—and Black congregants began considering alternatives. In Philadelphia, the first African Americans left St. George’s Methodist Church in 1787 to form independent congregations offering a path to spiritual autonomy and equality. One of these became Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, founded by Rev. Richard Allen in 1794. By 1816, Rev. Allen and others led the formation of the African Methodist Episcopal Church conference as an entirely independent denomination. Within a few short years, the influence of this new A.M.E. denomination grew and attracted attention in southwestern Pennsylvania.

In Washington County, a local Black barber and Methodist class leader named George Boler wrote to A.M.E. leaders in Philadelphia in 1818 requesting support in formating a new Black congregation in Washington, PA. Rev. David Smith of the A.M.E. church came west in 1820 to help Boler complete this effort. With Rev. Smith’s support, George Boler led a concerted exodus of Black congregants out of the First Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington and into a new society that would later become St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church.

“I then proceeded to open the doors of the (new) Church, and forty-eight persons came forward and joined the A.M.E. Connection.” – Rev. David Smith on founding the A.M.E. church in Washington, PA. – Biography of Rev. David Smith of the A.M.E. church, 1881.

As members of the First Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington, PA, George Boler, Benjamin Dorsey, Betcy Philips, Cloe Warfield, and others formed a new society between 1818 and 1820 that would later become St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Rev. David Smith and George Boler soon replicated their success in Washington by helping establish new A.M.E. churches in Brownsville and Uniontown. In other towns along the National Road and elsewhere in the region, new Black congregations were founded within the A.M.E. and A.M.E. Zion denominations. Ties among congregants and between congregations strengthened in the region. Trusted networks were formed. These networks served a dual purpose: not only did they support the congregants and their churches, but they also provided aid to those in dire need—freedom seekers making their way into southwestern Pennsylvania from the depths of slavery in Maryland or Virginia, as well as those who escaped while in transit on the National Road.

By the late 1820s, these networks, anchored by religious ties, became a lifeline for freedom seekers. They offered more than just spiritual support; they provided practical assistance such as meals, places to rest, and guidance to the next safe house. As the 1830s unfolded, radical white abolitionists in the region, including Dr. Francis Julius LeMoyne of Washington, PA, grew increasingly frustrated with the limitations of their efforts to combat slavery through “moral suasion” and shifted their focus to a more pragmatic form of abolition—direct aid to freedom seekers. Through this collaboration across traditional racial, social, and religious divides, the “friends of freedom” formed a broader decentralized network dedicated to helping those seeking liberty. This collective effort against slavery, characterized by everyday acts of kindness and occasional acts of heroism, would become the Underground Railroad in southwestern Pennsylvania.

The upcoming exhibit entitled Arcs of Freedom, to be completed by the Washington County Historical Society later this year, offers an opportunity to explore the story of the Underground Railroad in southwestern Pennsylvania. Through primary funding from the National Park Service’s Network to Freedom program and the Rivers of Steel mini-grant program, the exhibit seeks to remember the voices of all those involved in the movement, including the freedom seekers themselves. In commemorating their courage and resilience, Arcs of Freedom invites us to reflect on the enduring legacy of the Underground Railroad and its indelible impact on our region’s history.

All images are courtesy of the Washington County Historical Society. 

About the Washington County Historical Society and the Arcs of Freedom Exhibit

The Washington County Historical Society (WCHS) is a center for preservation, research, and education that inspires the discovery and sharing of Washington County’s remarkable history. Central to this mission is WCHS’s administration of the historic Dr. Francis Julius LeMoyne House, an enduring beacon of freedom and social reform, for the benefit of the public.

The LeMoyne House, constructed in 1812, is a National Historic Landmark and a site on the National Park Service’s National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. The upcoming Arcs of Freedom exhibit, created by WCHS under its Waller-McDonald Collection of African American History, will be presented at the LeMoyne House. WCHS is grateful for the efforts of the Arcs of Freedom steering committee that includes historian and author Dr. W. Thomas Mainwaring, historian and author Marlene Bransom, freedom seeker descendant and author Lorraine Walls-Perry, and others.

Inquiries about WCHS, the LeMoyne House, the Arcs of Freedom exhibit, and the Network to Freedom program may be directed to Tom Milhollan, Director of Operations & Development for WCHS, where he also leads WCHS’s study of the Abolitionist Movement and the Underground Railroad.

A relief sculptural panel located on the grounds of the Pump House depicts the events of July 6, 1892.

The Homestead Strike & the Growth of America as an Industrial Power

This summer seventy-two educators from across the country will convene in Pittsburgh for a National Endowment for the Humanities-funded Landmarks of American History and Culture Workshop presented by Rivers of Steel and the Archives & Special Collections Department at the University of Pittsburgh. Entitled The Homestead Strike & the Growth of America as an Industrial Power, the workshop will be offered to two cohorts of thirty-six educators each during the weeks of July 7 – 13 and July 14 – 20, 2024.

The Battle of Homestead is considered the most famous event in American labor history. This workshop will provide educators with a comprehensive look at circumstances that led to the armed conflict and what its lasting impact has been in the United States. Participants will immerse themselves in the battle from both sides by examining primary sources related to Carnegie and Frick’s business practices, worker conditions, the direct aftermath of the battle, and what came in later years as U.S. business took stock of the relationship between management and labor.

Les Standiford, author of Meet You in Hell,  addressed the 2022 cohort at the Pump House.

Suzi Bloom, Rivers of Steel’s director of education reflected on the program, which was first offered to educators in 2022. “My favorite aspect of this workshop is the opportunity for educators to visit the actual sites of the Battle of Homestead and watch them light up with lesson plan ideas as they comb through the ephemera and artifacts in the Rivers of Steel archives and the University of Pittsburgh Library System’s Archives & Special Collections.”

The seven days of programming and research includes extensive discussions and lectures with visiting scholars, along with faculty and staff from the presenting organizations. Daily site visits to relevant historic landmarks and museums, including to the Carrie Blast Furnaces and to Clayton, the home of Henry Clay Frick, will help educators to explore the details and consequences of the Homestead Steel Strike, expanding their insight into these impactful events.

Interpretive specialist Ryan Henderson shows part of the 2022 cohort items from Rivers of Steel’s archives during the visit to the Bost Building.Kelsie Paul, Manager of Interpretation at The Frick Pittsburgh, is excited to welcome everyone to the Frick this summer.  She says, “Working with Rivers of Steel is such a valuable partnership for us. Our work and our sites are inextricably linked, and we always love the opportunity to come together to tell our city’s story. We are really looking forward to sharing that story with the 2024 cohort.”

As noted above, this is the second time that Rivers of Steel and the Archives & Special Collections Department at the University of Pittsburgh are offering this workshop. It was first offered in 2022, when the program hosted sixty-seven teachers from across the United States for a weeklong immersive experience. Divided into two cohorts over two weeks in July, the educators explored the circumstances that led to the 1892 Battle of Homestead and its lasting impact on the United States. To learn more about the 2022 offering read our story, Immersed in the the Battle of Homestead.

To learn more about the 2024 workshop, visit the website for the workshop.