Guide to the Lon H. Colborn Papers and Photographs c1830-1990
- Repository
- Heinz History Center
- Title
- Lon H. Colborn Papers and Photographs
- Creator
- Colborn, Lon H. (1896-1998)
- Collection Number
- MSS 743
- Extent
- 7.25 linear feet (7 boxes)
- Date
- c1830-1990
- Abstract
- The Lon H. Colborn Papers and Photographs contain personal papers which include news clippings of social announcements and obituaries and correspondence among family members. The photographs are primarily portraits and also depict the Grossman-Moore family farm in Butler County, Pennsylvania. The collection focuses on Lon H. Colborn and the families of his wife, Zena Kathleen Grossman, Grossman and Moore.
- Language
- The material in this collection is in English.
- Sponsor
- This collection has been made accessible as part of an NHPRC-funded Basic Processing grant.
- Publisher
- Heinz History Center
- Address
- 1212 Smallman St.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15222
library@heinzhistorycenter.org
URL: https://www.heinzhistorycenter.org
History
Lon H. Colborn was a high school chemistry teacher in the Pittsburgh area, most notably at Taylor Allderdice High School from 1935 to 1957. Colborn was born in 1896 and graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 1920 with a B.S. in chemical engineering. He worked as a chemical engineer for Standard Chemical Company in Canonsburg, Pa. where he supervised the extraction of elements from ore. He married Zena Kathleen "Katie" Grossman in 1926 and received his masters degree in chemistry from the University of Wisconsin in 1931. He taught at high schools in McKees Rocks, Washington County, and Somerset County before he began teaching at Taylor Allderdice High School, located in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood, in 1932 as a chemistry and qualitative analysis teacher. His qualitative analysis class was designed for a small series of students every semester who had distinguished themselves in his basic chemistry class. Colborn taught 393 students over the course of his career at Allderdice, many of whom went on to receive doctorates and national awards in either chemistry or engineering. In 1956, Lon Colborn became the first public school teacher to receive an honorary masters degree from the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University.) In 1957, the Olin-Mathieson Chemical Company provided a grant to Colborn to teach his qualitative analysis class at Neville High School in Monroe, Louisiana where the company had a fully-equipped laboratory. Colborn stayed there until 1964 and helped the program expand to North Carolina, Illinois, Virginia, and Alabama. While there, Colborn supervised teachers and helped recruit students to the program. In 1964, he became an assistant professor at Slippery Rock State College and from 1969 to 1973 replicated chemistry demonstrations to over 10,000 sixth-graders across Western Pennsylvania.
Lon H. Colborn is related to the Grossman and Moore families through marriage. Colborn's wife, Zena Kathleen "Katie" Grossman, is the daughter of John W. Grossman and Miriam Moore, who had six other children: James Christy, Mary, Sam Linn, John Dean, Eugene Strain, and Henrietta (Pisor).
Kathleen's brother Sam Linn Grossman was the chief of the urology department at Harrisburg Hospital for twenty years. He began his medical practice in Harrisburg in 1932 and then became president of the Harrisburg Academy of Medicine and the Pennsylvania Society for Crippled Children. He served in World War I and received his medical training at Jefferson Medical College before interning at Mercy Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pa. Their brother, Eugene Strain Grossman, was a physician in Cleveland and served as a lieutenant in World War I. Their sister Mary was a school teacher in Butler County.
Lon H. Colborn's mother-in-law, Miriam Moore, was the daughter of Catherine Gibson and John Christy Moore and lived in Slippery Rock, Pa. Miriam Moore's great-great grandfather, James Christy, immigrated from Edinburg, Scotland to the United States in 1755 and settled in Butler County, Pa. Miriam had four siblings; her sisters Henrietta and Sarah Moore served as missionaries in Punjab, India for 40 years for the United Presbyterian Church. Henrietta first arrived in India in 1898 and worked in India at schools in cities and districts. Sarah arrived in India as a missionary in 1917 and died in 1936.
Scope and Content Notes
The Lon H. Colborn Papers and Photographs have been arranged into two series. series I (boxes 1-3) consist of materials relating to Lon H. Colborn's personal life and his career as a chemistry teacher at Taylor Allderdice H. S. as well as his family's genealogical background. Boxes 1 and 2 contain primarily correspondence, publications, photographs, and notebooks. Box 3 contains genealogies of the Hardy and Hanna families from whom Lon Colborn is descended. series II (boxes 4-7) focuses on the Moore and Grossman families, the families of Colborn's wife, Kathleen Grossman. The boxes contain portraits of Kathleen's family, news articles about various family members, and correspondence among family members.
Series I: Lon H. Colborn Papers and Photographs (circa 1935-1996)
Series I is housed in three boxes and contains letters, news articles, photographs, honors and awards, notebooks, and genealogical information on Colborn's ancestors.
Box 1 contains personal and business correspondence between Colborn and his friends, former students, various professors and chemistry department heads, and letters from institutions such as Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh Public Schools, and the American Chemical Society. Many of the letters from former students congratulate Colborn as an honored chemistry teacher and friend. News articles in the collection are mainly from Pittsburgh newspapers such as the Post-Gazette from the 1950s to the 1970s concerning his popularity as a chemistry teacher at Taylor Allderdice High School, his time teaching in Louisiana, and his honorary master's degree from Carnegie Mellon University. There are also letters from middle school students who participated in Colborn's chemistry demonstrations. Photographs are primarily of Colborn and his wife at various dinners, their trip to Hawaii, and their home in Louisiana. The box also contains Lon Colborn's passports and travel log to Austria as well as greeting cards between he and his wife, Kathleen.
Box 2 contains 22 notebooks from 1935 to 1957 which Colborn kept while he taught at Taylor Allderdice. These include students' names, their grades in his chemistry class, the schools they attended afterwards, news articles about them, and letters from them. The box also contains Colborn's honorary master's degree received from Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1956, his bachelor's degree from the University of Pittsburgh, and honors received from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania House of Representatives for his 100th birthday.
Box 3 holds genealogical records and family trees of the Hanna and Colborn families as well as publications on Turkeyfoot Township, where the Colborn family settled after they immigrated from England and lived in New Jersey. The Hanna family are ancestors of Lon Colborn, who immigrated from Ireland to Delaware before settling in Somerset County in 1798.
Series II: Moore-Grossman Family Papers and Photographs (circa 1835-1935)
Series II is housed in four boxes and focuses on the Moore and Grossman families, Lon H. Colborn's in-laws.
Box 4 contains two bound scrapbooks and pages from one unbound scrapbook of various unlabeled family members. Another set of loose scrapbook pages which date from the 1900s and three notebooks from the 1930s belonged to Henrietta Moore (Kathleen's aunt) while she was on her mission in India with the United Presbyterian Church. The photographs and notebooks chronicle her time as a missionary. One set of photographs are taken of the Grossman-Moore family farm house in Butler County, also seen in the oversized family portraits in box 6. The remaining photographs in this box are portraits of family members, including Miriam Moore (Lon's mother-in-law), Henrietta Moore, Sam and Eugene Grossman, Mary Grossman and her schoolchildren, as well as family reunions on the Grossman farm.
Box 5 contains more photographs and portraits, including those of Kathleen Grossman (Lon's wife), and the extended Moore – Grossman family at their farm house in Butler County which was destroyed in the 1940s. Individual portraits feature Henrietta Moore, Catherine Gibson (Kathleen's grandmother), Eugene Grossman (Kathleen's brother), Lon Colborn, and the family home. One folder contains a photograph, news article, and notes from the presentation of the Grossman family bell to the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1951. Miriam Moore Grossman presented the bell to representatives of the General Richard Butler chapter, DAR; the bell was originally hung in a hotel in Butler County and was sold to John Christy Moore (Miriam's father) who used it as the dinner-bell on the family farm. The bell passed to J. C. Moore's son, C.L. Moore and then given to Miriam. Two folders in this box contains tin-types, photographs, and correspondence between family members collected by Lon Colborn. The box also contains glass print negatives.
Box 6 contains primarily personal papers such as land deeds (1835-1908) and family obituaries. Kathleen Grossman Colborn's notebook contains notes on her family history. Correspondence is primarily from Miriam Moore and John W. Grossman and genealogical trees provide outlines of the Grossman, Christy, and Anderson families, the latter two of which were ancestors of the Moore family.
Box 7 houses oversized diplomas and photographs which include Lon Colborn's high school diplomas, bachelor's degree from the University of Pittsburgh (1934), and free-masonry certificate (1923), Kathleen Grossman's public school diplomas, and marriage certificate of Henry Colborn to Emma Hanna (1887). The photographs are series portraits of the Moore-Grossman extended family at their family farm.
Arrangement
The Lon H. Colborn Papers and Photographs are arranged into two series:
Series I: Lon H. Colborn (circa 1935-1996)
Series II: Moore-Grossman Family (circa 1835-1935)
Conditions Governing Access
None
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gift from Leslie Danoff Elkins in 1999.
Received in two accessions: #1999.0112 and #2000.0059.
Preferred Citation
Lon H. Colborn Papers and Photographs, c1830-1990, MSS 0743, Thomas and Katherine Detre Library and Archives, Senator John Heinz History Center
Processing Information
This collection was processed by Sarah Ecklund on 03/28/2012.
Conditions Governing Use
Property rights reside with the Senator John Heinz History Center. Literary rights are retained by the creators of the records and their heirs. For permission to reproduce or publish, please contact the Thomas and Katherine Detre Library and Archives of the Senator John Heinz History Center.
Related Materials
Richard Rosenzweig Collection, 1993-1999, MSS 0742, Thomas and Katherine Detre Library and Archives, Senator John Heinz History Center
Contains photocopied materials from Colborn papers used for Rosenzweig's presentation on Lon Colborn at the History Center Library and Archives in 1999.
Subjects
- Taylor Allderdice High School (Pittsburgh, Pa.)
- Carnegie Institute of Technology (Pittsburgh, Pa.)
- Anderson Family
- Christy Family
- Hanna Family
- Grossman Family
- Moore Family
- Colborn, Lon H. (1896-1998)
- Grossman, John W. (1864-1926)
- Grossman, Miriam Moore (1864-1953)
- Grossman, Sam Linn (1891-1953)
- Moore, Henrietta (1871-1940)
- Slippery Rock (Butler County)
- World War, 1914-1918.
- Immigrants – Scottish -- Pennsylvania -- Pittsburgh.
- Students--Pennsylvania--Pittsburgh.
- Teachers--Chemistry teachers--Pennsylvania--Pittsburgh.
- Pennsylvania--Pittsburgh--Social life and customs.