Andy Masich, Heinz History Center: Sharing the Stories of People

"People are interested in the stories of people..."

"David McCullough, America's favorite historian, Pulitzer Prize winner, Adams, Truman, the Johnstown Flood, he used to say, he was actually quoting the librarian of Congress when he said trying to build a future without understanding the past is like trying to plant cut flowers. You know, it's just not gonna happen. So I think that those roots are important and it's up to us to show that younger generation how they're connected to the past. And young people, the thing that they're interested in are the same things that we were interested in, and that is people. People are interested in the stories of people, and whether you show them that in a book, a film, a performance, an exhibition, or a podcast, it really doesn't matter. It's the stories, the engaging stories of people, the inspiring stories of people that we need to focus on as museum professionals and educators."

Andy Masich bio

 Masich is President and CEO of the Smithsonian-affiliated Senator John Heinz History Center, recently recognized by USA TODAY as America’s #1 History Museum three years in a row. The History Center has also been named Pittsburgh’s Best Museum by readers of Pittsburgh Magazine for five consecutive years. 

 Since 1998, he has led Pittsburgh’s 370,000 square-foot Heinz History Center and family of museums, which includes the Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum; Meadowcroft Rockshelter and Historic Village (the oldest site of human habitation in North America) located in Avella, Pa.; and the Fort Pitt Museum.

 Under Masich’s leadership, the History Center has earned national recognition for its award-winning exhibitions and innovative educational programs that focus on the American experience with a Western Pennsylvania connection.

 A respected authority on American history and Western Pennsylvania’s heritage and culture, Masich is a trusted expert for national media outlets, including the Associated Press, New York Times, the Travel Channel, the History Channel, CNN, and more. Masich is the host of the popular “Time Capsules” history podcast on KDKA-AM radio and is a monthly contributor to KDKA-TV’s morning show, “Pittsburgh Today Live.”

 Masich has also authored or co-authored award-winning books on a wide range of subjects and is an adjunct professor of history at Carnegie Mellon University.

 Masich currently serves as a commissioner (and former chairman) of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC); and on the America250PA Commission, which is charged with developing commemorative programs leading up to the nation’s 250th anniversary in 2026. 

 https://www.heinzhistorycenter.org/

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:00

Welcome to We Love PA History, the podcast where we explore the stories, people, and moments that shaped Pennsylvania and helped shape America. I'm Connie Doebele, and each episode we'll uncover a piece of our shared past, from famous events you thought you knew to hidden stories waiting to be rediscovered right here in the Keystone State. So let's jump into today's story. Andy Masich, thank you so much for being one of our inaugural guests for We Love PA History.

Speaker 0:35

I'm glad to be with you. I love talking history, especially with people who really care.

Speaker 1 0:41

And you're a podcast guy, right?

Speaker 0:44

Well, I've been doing television and radio and podcasting my whole career. I feel that those media are important to reaching large audiences. We in the museum business can't expect everyone to come to us, so we need to go to them.

Speaker 1 1:05

So this podcast is all about stories. So I want to start out with a story. Give me your favorite Pennsylvania historical person who is not well known.

Speaker 1:19

Wow. That's an interesting question. You know, I guess the people that I'm interested in are people here in Western Pennsylvania that changed the world in some way and yet may not be well known. People like Thomas Jackson Rodman. He's the guy who was the head of the Allegheny arsenal just prior to the Civil War, and he invented a new process for casting large cannons, casting them of iron. Before Rodman came along, big cannons tended to be brittle and they blew up, in some cases, killing their crews. And in one case, in 1847, when a new warship was being christened, the President and the Secretary of the Navy, and everyone came out to see the blast from this giant cannon, and it exploded and killed the Secretary of the Navy and injured many of the dignitaries present. Well, Rodman saw this and said, wait, we've got to be able to do better than that. And he invented a process whereby large cannons could be cast and cooled from the inside out by running a core plug and water down through the center of the casting. It would cool from the inside out. That made it hard and dense in the interior where it needed to be strongest. And the Rodman process came just in time for the Civil War. And most of the large cannons cast during the Civil War used his process. Well, he was a lieutenant when he patented that process. He patented it personally because the war department said, we don't think that has much merit. So knock yourself out if you want to patent that. Well, he did, and he made a small fortune during the Civil War because he got paid a royalty by the pound, by the pound of cannon. And we're talking about 80-ton cannons being cast using his process. So young Thomas Jackson Rodman, a young army officer who had a big idea and had that spirit of innovation, that can do spirit that I think epitomizes people here in Pittsburgh and western Pennsylvania.

Speaker 1 4:03

How long have you been president and CEO of the Heinz History Center?

Speaker 4:07

I arrived on the scene here, moved my family from Denver, Colorado in 1998 to take over the Heinz History Center.

Speaker 1 4:16

So 27, 28 years?

Speaker 4:18

Yeah. And the the hiring committee, they were lovely people, and they're still my friends today. They didn't know that I had deep family roots in western Pennsylvania before I arrived.

Speaker 1 4:33

What are those?

Speaker 4:34

Well, my family moved here in 1784, and they were Scots-Irish farmers, and, matter of fact, all my grandparents for five generations are buried around Pittsburgh. But my generation was the first not to be born here. So I was born in Yonkers, New York, and my father died when I was very young, and my mother remarried, and my stepfather wanted to retire. He was a school principal, and he said, let's go to Arizona. And so the whole family picked up and left New York and went to Tucson, Arizona, which was great for me. I could ride and shoot and be outside and do all things boys love to do in nature. And I started my museum career there with the Arizona Historical Society. And I loved the Civil War. And I wanted to read a book about the Civil War in Arizona. What happened out there? Well, there wasn't a book. So I ended up writing the book on the Civil War in Arizona. And I started my family. I married my high school sweetheart, seniors in high school, Debbie, and we started our family there. Went on to Colorado, where I was the vice president of the Colorado State Historical Society, and then got recruited to come to Pittsburgh. And they didn't know that I had deep Pittsburgh roots. And I loved Pittsburgh the moment I saw it. And it was the people I fell in love with. They are down-to-earth, they're hardworking, they're innovative. You know, because Pittsburgh is in this kind of peculiar place. It's not East Coast, it's not Midwest, it's not Appalachia, it's their own pocket of people here that had once been surrounded by mountains that kind of cut them off from the rest of the world. And so they had to make do and learn to invent and innovate. And they're still like that today. It's a unique culture here that I just love.

Speaker 1 7:05

So as you look back at Arizona and Colorado and can compare it with coming to Pennsylvania, what is it about history in Pennsylvania? And do you find Pennsylvania's more interested in history than what you found in the past and what you see in other places?

Speaker 7:24

When I compare Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh to the West, since I have lived in Arizona and Colorado, spent time in California and the state of Washington doing archaeology. I think that the people here have a sense of their history and roots that is different than Westerners. Westerners are on the move. When I grew up there, most people I encountered hadn't been born there or hadn't been there for more than one generation. Here in Pittsburgh, people have been here for five generations and in some cases live on the same block where their grandparents lived. And there's a continuity here and a sense of community here in Pittsburgh. And I think in Pennsylvania, that is unlike what we see in many of the Western states. So it's not that we love our history any more, but I think we have a sense of rootedness here and continuity that I think some of the Westerners envy.

Speaker 1 8:40

How old is the Heinz History Center?

Speaker 8:43

Well, the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania started in 1879, and it's the oldest cultural institution here in Pittsburgh. And in 1996, it changed its name to the Senator John Heinz History Center. So it's the old historical society of Western Pennsylvania that morphed or evolved into the Senator John Heinz History Center. And you probably recognize that name, Heinz . Yes, it's it's the ketchup people. H.J. Heinz , Henry John Heinz started that business in 1869. And then successive generations Heinz ran that business and parlayed it into the largest food empire in the world. Senator John Heinz was the great-grandson of that Heinz who started the company. And he was the first family member who didn't run the company. The family got out of the food business. And Senator John Heinz went into politics. And he was beloved, I have to say, by both Democrats and Republicans. He was a caring, thoughtful, insightful person that I think could have been president of the United States, but was tragically killed in a plane crash in Philadelphia. So I think just about that time in the early 1990s, when this institution was rebranding itself and remaking itself, moving from Oakland, which is just over the hill from downtown Pittsburgh. It moved to the old Chautauqua Lake Ice Company warehouse, this seven-story brick building built in 1898. And at that time, the name was changed from Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania to the Senator John Heinz History Center. So that's a long way of answering your question. The History Center by that name has only been around for 30 years or so, but the Historical Society has deep roots.

Speaker 1 11:10

How big are you?

Speaker 11:12

Well, the building is about 325,000 square feet with about 150 staff people and about a $15 million annual budget. But we're adding another 92,000 square feet. We just started construction. We're wrapping up an $80 million capital campaign that will allow us to add an auditorium, new exhibit galleries, Mr. Rogers, The Three Rivers, Innovation and Industry, a new cafe, classrooms for kids, outdoor terraces for events and programs. So that's on our horizon. And in 18 months, we we will weigh in at more than 400,000 square feet of museum encompassing an entire city block here in downtown Pittsburgh, right next to the convention center between the strip district and the cultural district. And for your listeners who are not familiar with Pittsburgh, the strip district, it's not something sordid. It's the strip of land at the base of the hill district, right along the Allegheny River. And the cultural district is where our theaters, the symphony, and others perform. So we are kind of a link between the food district, the strip district, and the cultural district.

Speaker 1 12:56

I want to ask you if you can give me three examples of why the Heinz History Center gets national accolades. What is it that you do that other museums either don't do as well or don't see as important?

Speaker 13:20

I think the reason that we have been so successful is that we really focus on our audiences. That we live in the community, certainly. That's not unusual, but we stay connected with our audience and try to figure out how they learn, what they like, what we could do to engage them in meaningful ways. One of the things we hit upon early as we develop this new history center in the strip district is that we wanted every exhibit that do to be meaningful for kids and adults at the same time. So, I mean, that's easier said than done. But how do you do an exhibit that kids will find engaging and their parents will be equally engaged and not just feel like they're babysitting the kids or the kids tugging on the sleeve of their parents saying, Come on, I want to go to the kids' discovery area. So each exhibit that we do has interpretation on multiple levels. So they're in the French and Indian War exhibit, for example, we call it the Clash of Empires. The parents can see original materials from Braddock's Defeat or from Fort Necessity. They can see lifelike figures of young George Washington. And the kids go into a bastion, it's like a fort, with lots of touchable interactives right in the center of the exhibit. So the kids are always in sight of or earshot of their parents. They're engaged at their level while the parents get to look at great art and artifacts and read labels. So that's just one example of ways that we connect with our audiences. Just recently, matter of fact, it was soon after we were recognized by USA Today as the number one history museum in America, we received a grant that was part of our capital campaign that enabled us to make the History Center free for kids. And we're talking 17 and under, kids that are going to be voting next year. And that was kind of a game changer for us, too, in that we saw a 50% increase in youth attendance and a 10% increase in adult attendance. But I think throughout the museum, we try to help people see themselves in our history. And we see ourselves as an American history museum as viewed through a Western Pennsylvania lens. So we deal with big topics that all Americans can relate to, but always we use examples from Pennsylvania or Western Pennsylvania that I think makes it even more relevant to the people living today.

Speaker 1 16:42

I have a quote from you recently that I'd like you to react to. You said, the artifacts are what excites me. Each of those objects from the past can tell us a story if you know how to read it. What do you mean by that?

Speaker 17:02

Well, you know, when I was a boy, I would go to Lake Chautauqua every year with my parents. And my grandparents had a house, an old Victorian house on the lake in this is upstate New York. And I would explore up there in the attic. There were bats up there in the attic. So people didn't go up there. But I braved the bats and found my grandfather's trunk and opened it up, and inside was a cigar box. And in the cigar box were marbles and pen knives and a Civil War bullet. It was a 69-caliber Minié ball, you know, a big conical bullet with a hollow base. And I was fascinated by this thing. And I drew pictures of it, my blue line notebook paper from school, and I sent it to the Smithsonian Institution. And I asked them, what is this thing? Because I wasn't even sure it was a Civil War bullet. My grandfather had been in the First World War, and my grandmother thought, well, maybe it's it's from then. And that didn't sound right to me. This thing was powdery white, you know, from oxidation. And so one of those curators at the Smithsonian, to their credit, wrote back to me. And they said, son, what you have there is a Civil Minié ball. It was invented by Captain Minié of the French army in 1849, and it revolutionized warfare by turning muskets into rifled muskets that made the Civil War the deadliest war in American history. And I was so fascinated by this object that I started collecting Civil War bullets, and I read everything I could on the Civil War, and I converted my boyhood bedroom into a museum. In fact, there were swords made of wood and hats made of paper mache and labels, the Monitor and the Merrimack, which were made out of popsicle sticks. And you had to take a brochure from a rack on my door to gain entry into my boyhood bedroom. So this is when I'm 10 or 11 years old. And I'm still that person today. The objects fascinate me. And whether it's a piece of George Washington's hair that we have in the collection and can use microscopy, you know, electron microscopes to examine those hair follicles and see that his hair was actually deep auburn colored when he was a youth. Or whether it's Mr. Rogers' original sweater that his mother knitted for him. And you can see her missed knots and her crocheting on his sweater. Mr. Rogers, I learned, too, he wore these wild colors of sweaters, you know, reds and yellows and some pretty odd colors. It turns out he was colorblind. He had no idea what color sweater he was wearing. He used to have to ask people on the set, you know, hey, what color is this? In case I'm asked. But I think that all of those objects, you know, it could be a Civil War carbine or rifle that John Brown had at Harper's Ferry that still shows the marks of that conflict on it, the mark that zings across the wooden buttstock where someone got off their horse and scraped it across that stock. Each of those objects tells a story if you know how to how to read it. And that takes some study. And when I began my career, I knew I loved history, but I wasn't sure how to make a job of it. You know, who was going to pay me to do history? And then I realized that I loved the artifacts. And to be an historical archaeologist, literally digging up the past, I did that for a couple of years. And I worked in a conservation lab where we took the objects that came out of the ground and tried to make sense of them. You know, what are those marks on that buckle? What are, you know, who are whose initials are those on that canteen spout? And then I realized that archaeology was a tough job. It was seasonal work, soft money. You couldn't start a family as an archaeologist, I reasoned at the time. And where are the artifacts? They're in the museums. So I gravitated to museums as a volunteer and then was hired to be a curator and then a museum director. And that's how I started. But it all started with that Civil War bullet that I found when I was 10 years old.

Speaker 1 22:35

There's a lot written about today about historical illiteracy. And even to the point of, yes, we're celebrating 250th anniversary this year, but how many people actually know what that 250th anniversary is about? How do you, as a museum or just as a person in the history business, how are you going to fight that? Once you get the kids in the door, that's great. But besides, you know, making it free, how do you fight the the historical illiteracy?

Speaker 23:10

Well, first of all, I think it's not the kids' problem. It's - we've failed them if they don't love history. And I think that means that we have to learn how they learn, and we have to understand what they like and what engages their attention. And that means we sometimes have to use the same tools that they use. They were born digital. And so if they're on their iPhone or their iPad or their computer, if they're listening to podcasts or TikTok or social media, we have to go where they are and engage them. And I think we can hook them on wanting to know more, to see the genuine article, to actually see George Washington's hair or Mr. Rogers' sweater once we engage them. So I think it's up to us to do that. But I recognize the fact that the younger generations do seem more disconnected from their past than previous generations. And that's not a good thing. David McCullough, America's favorite historian, Pulitzer Prize winner, Adams, Truman, the Johnstown flood, he used to say, he was actually quoting the librarian of Congress when he said trying to build a future without understanding the past is like trying to plant cut flowers. You know, it's just not gonna happen. So I think that those roots are important and it's up to us to show that younger generation how they're connected to the past. And young people, the thing that they're interested in are the same things that we were interested in, and that is people. People are interested in the stories of people. And whether you show them that in a book, a film, a performance, an exhibition, or a podcast, it really doesn't matter. It's the stories, the engaging stories of people, the inspiring stories of people that we need to focus on as museum professionals and educators.

Speaker 1 25:45

How are you financed? How are you funded?

Speaker 25:48

Well, you know, that actually relates to your previous question about why are we successful here? Why are we connecting with people? You know, 375,000 people a year are coming to our museum. I think it's partly because we are not well endowed. We're a grassroots organization that didn't get a big grant from an endowment or a corporation. We've always been the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania at our heart, which is a grassroots people's kind of museum. And as such, we've had to stay in touch with our audience. We can't take them for granted, and we can't just do things that we curators feel, well, people should know this. We have to have our fingers on the pulse of the community and help share with them things that they are interested in. So that's the way we are today. We earn revenue through the gate, through sales in our shop. We've been building an endowment that we invest. When I arrived, there was no endowment, and we're at about 45 million now. It's still not enough to float this boat, but we're getting closer to where we need to be. We do a lot of events here at the History Center. So we do 90 weddings a year. We do bar mitzvahs and corporate retreats and memorial services and even retirement parties and birthday parties. And I consider these rites of passage for people, life events that they really care about. And so that reinforces our connection to the community in a very personal way. I mean, if you have your wedding here, you're gonna remember this place forever. And hopefully, when it comes time to make a charitable donation, you'll remember us too. So we're funded through contributions from the community. We get all less than 8% of our funding comes from any kind of government grants, whether it's federal, state, or local.

Speaker 1 28:25

You made a commencement address recently.

Speaker 28:28

I did. I was a commencement speaker at Chatham University, which is one of our great old institutions here in Pittsburgh. It's where Rachel Carson, the mother of the modern environmental movement, she graduated from Chatham. And I was very honored to be among these young people who were graduating, and most of them were 21 years old. And so I told them a story about some other 21-year-olds who made history. I told them about young George Washington, who was a six feet, two and a half inch tall, red-haired, gangly Virginia youth when he arrived at the forks of the Ohio. That's what we call the confluence of the three rivers here in Pittsburgh. He was 21 years old and he had been sent by the governor of Virginia to confront the French and tell them to cease and desist building any forts here in the Ohio country, as they called it then. Well, he he kept failing in his missions. He was captured by the French. He nearly drowned in the Allegheny River the next year. He was captured with his whole command at Fort Necessity a year later. He was the only surviving officer who wasn't killed or wounded with General Braddock at Braddock's defeat. So he kept running into adversity, but he kept coming back until finally in 1758 he arrived with General Forbes at the smoldering ruins of Fort Duquesne, the French fort at the confluence, and helped name Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh. That's why Pittsburgh has an H on it to this day. It's a Scottish "Borough" rather than a German "burg". And so he was a 21-year-old. And then I mentioned to the students that Rosie the Riveter was one of those characters who helped build this nation. And during World War II, these young women went into the workforce and took the place of the men, their husbands and brothers and fathers who were in uniform. And those 50,000 Pennsylvania women who became Rosie the Riveter changed the world. They're all young women. And I told them about Nellie Bly. Nellie Bly was 21-year-old who became the world's greatest traveler, but that was only after she became the first investigative reporter, got herself thrown into a madhouse on Blackwells Island in New York City, and Joseph Pulitzer at the New York World kind of put her up to this or sponsored her. And she blew the lid off the abuses in mental health care, and she became nationally famous, and then she went around the world all by herself with one grip, small valise with a change of underwear in it. She went around the world in 72 days. Nobody thought that could be done. This is in 1889 when there were no airplanes. She had to take boats and locomotives and bicycles and camels and on foot, on horseback, around the world in 72 days. Jules Verne had imagined in his fictional Around the World in 80 Days that that was crazy. Nobody could do such a thing for real. Well, Nellie Bly did it. And then I mentioned Franco Harris. Franco Harris was a young graduate from Penn State University. He was 21 years old when he arrived here in Pittsburgh and joined the Pittsburgh Steelers. And in those days, they called the Steelers the lovable losers. They had never won a playoff game. But Franco Harris comes along, and with Joe Green and other Steelers greats, they built this team that got into the playoffs and then later that decade won four Super Bowls. That had never been done before. And this half Italian, half African American young man who people embraced and loved at a time, we're talking about 1972. That's the same year the Ku Klux Klan marched down Grant Street in downtown Pittsburgh, and people, you know, accepted it as something that happens in America. Well, Franco Harris helped change the way Pittsburghers saw people. And wow, that's world-changing. So when I got my honorary doctorate at Chatham University, I talked to the 21-year-olds and said, now it's your time. It's your time to go out and make history.

Speaker 1 33:55

Our time is up. I can't believe it. It went so fast. Tell me where people can go on the internet to find out more information about the Heinz Center and whether you're on social media.

Speaker 34:07

Well, we are on every social media platform that you can imagine. We try to go to where the people are. But if you go to Heinz HistoryCenter.org, you can find a robust website and you can find some of our podcasts and radio spots and see some of our collections. We digitized many of our collections. And we have a million photographs and books, maps, manuscripts, sound recordings. These are all available to you here at the Heinz History Center.

Speaker 1 34:43

Thank you so much for your time.

Speaker 34:46

Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 34:51

And that's today's story from We Love PA History. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and share it with someone who loves Pennsylvania as much as you do. You can help others discover these stories by leaving a quick rating or review. It really makes a difference. The We Love PA History podcast is produced by Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation, a nonprofit organization that advances awareness, understanding, and appreciation of Pennsylvania's history and heritage. The Markosky Engineering Group, Incorporated is a proud sponsor of the Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation, which carries out its mission on behalf of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission and the citizens of Pennsylvania. Markosky is pleased to sponsor the We Love PA History Podcast. For more information about Markosky and its commitment to Pennsylvania history, visit Markosky.com. That's M-A-R-K-O-S-K-Y.com. To learn more, see photos and explore the places we talked about today, visit us at paheritage.org or follow us on Facebook at Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation. I'm Connie Doebele. Thanks for listening. And until next time, keep exploring Pennsylvania's past. Because Pennsylvania history isn't just history, it's our story.