page_title: Nationality Rooms
section_title: Welsh
hierarchical_section_title: Nationality Rooms / Classrooms / Welsh
caption_attribution_description: Welsh Nationality Room in the Cathedral of Learning at the University of Pittsburgh This is an image of a place or building that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in the United States of America. Its reference number is 75001608 More images
context_page_description: The Nationality Rooms are a collection of 31 classrooms in the University of Pittsburgh's Cathedral of Learning depicting and donated by the national and ethnic groups that helped build the city of Pittsburgh. The rooms are designated as a Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation historical landmark and are located on the 1st and 3rd floors of the Cathedral of Learning, itself a national historic landmark, on the University of Pittsburgh's main campus in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Although of museum caliber, 29 of the 31 rooms are regularly used as functional classrooms that are utilized daily by University of Pittsburgh faculty and students, while the other two are mostly used as display rooms viewed through glass doors and are otherwise utilized primarily for special events and can only be explored via special guided tour. The Nationality Rooms also serve in a vigorous program of intercultural involvement and exchange in which the original organizing committees for the individual rooms remain as participants and includes a program of annual student scholarship to facilitate study abroad.
context_section_description: The Welsh Classroom, was perhaps the longest in coming, as reservations for a Welsh room were originally requested in the 1930s. The existing room, installed on the third floor of the Cathedral of Learning, is patterned after the Pen-rhiw Chapel at St Fagans National History Museum near Cardiff and represents a traditional 18th-century Welsh capel, or chapel, which often became the center of village social life.  By this period, the English ruled the country and imposed law requiring English as the official language of the courts and churches.  In order to worship and hold church services in their native Welsh language, and spurred on by the non-conformist movement started by the Protestant Reformation, the Welsh people met in secret locations such as barns or homes, as suggested by the simple white walled capel modeled in this Nationality Room.  The minister would live at one end as depicted by the display case with dishes and pottery that would be found in a Welsh kitchen and the long oak case clock seated on a Welsh slate foundation opposite the main blue door.  The clock, considered one of the most important furnishings in a Welsh home, has, instead of numbers, a painted square face that spells out "Richard Thomas" suggesting that he was both the maker and owner of the clock. The bay window serves as the focus of the Welsh chapel worship, including a blue raised pulpit with a view of the entire congregation and two Deacon's benches from which to monitor the actions of the minister and congregation.
  At the other end of the room is a table bearing a lectern, as such worship places would often become a school room for both children and adults during week days.  Above the chalk board is the Lord's Prayer, written in Welsh. Pew benches of pine face the lectern.  Along the wall, larger and more comfortable blue-painted pew boxes with wooden floors, often also serving as barn cattle stalls, would have served wealthier families who would sometimes bring straw, blankets, hot bricks, or dogs to keep them warm. To reflect the simplicity of such meeting places, the ceiling beams are made of poplar and flooring suggests a typical capel dirt floor.  The carved stone dragon over the doorway, the long-time Welsh national symbol, represents the legendary victory of the Red Dragon over the White Dragon of numerous tales of medieval Wales and represents the triumph of Good over Evil.
caption: The Welsh Classroom
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