page_title: Catholic Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania
section_title: Foundation and early enthusiasm
hierarchical_section_title: Catholic Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania / History / Foundation and early enthusiasm
caption_attribution_description: English: A 1914 photograph of Catholic priest and historian Andrew Arnold Lambing (1842–1918).
context_page_description: The Catholic Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania is a historical society based in western Pennsylvania. The mission of the CHSWP is to teach and disseminate knowledge of the history of the Catholic Church in western Pennsylvania and the United States, while also working to preserve documents, records, and artifacts related to that history. The Society was founded in 1940 and publishes an annual journal, Gathered Fragments.
context_section_description: As the Diocese of Pittsburgh prepared to celebrate its centenary in 1943, interest in the Catholic history of western Pennsylvania was finally great enough to inspire the foundation of a new historical society in the pattern of Msgr. Lambing's short-lived project. The founding meeting of the Catholic Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania was held on May 27, 1940 at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe. An initial public meeting followed at Mount Mercy College in Pittsburgh on July 8 of the same year. This first meeting drew a crowd of more than 500 people and was presided over by Bishop Hugh Boyle.
  In the years after its founding, the Society hosted a variety of events throughout the Catholic dioceses of western Pennsylvania, including "regular lectures, field tours, radio addresses (and later TV interviews), essay contests and lectures in schools, public exhibits, special religious ceremonies, oral history interviews, and workshops."
  On October 8, 1950, an archive facility was founded at Duquesne University to house the documents and collections of the CHSWP. Soon after the dedication of this space, the Society began work on preserving past issues of the Pittsburgh Catholic in microfilm. Today, this collection has been digitized and is available online through the website of Duquesne University's Gumberg Library.
caption: Msgr. A. A. Lambing (1842–1918), the founder of the Ohio Valley Catholic Historical Society and prominent historian of the Catholic Church in Western Pennsylvania
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