{"id":146987,"date":"2026-03-24T14:31:21","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T14:31:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/146987\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T14:31:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T14:31:21","slug":"heinz-chapels-women-in-the-windows-tour-highlights-historical-female-leaders-in-sustainability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/146987\/","title":{"rendered":"Heinz Chapel\u2019s \u201cWomen in the Windows\u201d tour highlights historical female leaders in sustainability"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since 2018, the Heinz Memorial Chapel<\/a> has hosted a tour series honoring the women featured in their stained glass windows. The \u201cWomen in the Windows\u201d tours occur annually during Women\u2019s History Month.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The chapel was built to honor H.J. Heinz\u2019s<\/a> mother, Anna Margaretta Heinz, a woman who cared deeply about education and spirituality. The building features over 200 stained glass portraits of women from different backgrounds, including religious, political and artistic figures.<\/p>\n

Chapel and tour director Karen Sebolt selects a group of stained glass depictions based on each year\u2019s Women\u2019s History Month theme set by the National Women\u2019s History Alliance<\/a>. This year\u2019s theme is \u201cLeading the Change: Women Shaping a Sustainable Future.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought sustainability was sort of a modern issue, so I was worried it would be a struggle [to pick women to highlight],\u201d Sebolt said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, she was able to select seven women to feature who she felt connected with sustainability.<\/p>\n

Penn Hills resident Micheal Aubele also commented on the modernity of sustainability.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you think of sustainability, you think about it with a modern twist to it, and it was interesting to hear this historical presentation about how sustainability manifested itself differently throughout the years,\u201d Aubele said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Prior to the tour, a small group of attendees gathered in the pews at sundown, quietly chatting and admiring the stained glass windows as the sun shone through them. Sebolt stood between the pews and handed out binoculars and information sheets to utilize during the tour.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Before starting her presentation on the women featured in the windows, Sebolt gave a brief background on the Chapel\u2019s history. One of the Chapel\u2019s most notable features is its collection of 27 stained glass windows. These windows contain over 400 total portraits of important world figures, featuring men and women equally, and are among the tallest stained glass creations in the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI was a student here for two years and knew nothing about the local buildings, so I think it is very important to have these educational events and teach as many locals as possible,\u201d Aubele said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wedding and event coordinator for the Chapel, Gavi Perez-Swanson, appreciated the gender diversity depicted in the art she saw during the tour.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c[It is] metal the artist included as many women as men in his portraits, especially considering the time period they were created in,\u201d Perez-Swanson said. \u201cI came in hoping to learn, and that is exactly what happened.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Though the Chapel is non-denomenational, the portraits feature a wide selection of Christian religious figures. Sebolt highlighted four abbesses, or nuns who created and run abbeys, and explained their relevance to this year\u2019s theme of sustainability.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When doing research on these abbesses for the tour, Sebolt found that community gardens connect all of these women and their abbeys.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI found that the abbeys were surprisingly self-sustaining and also provided for the towns around them. Their orchards, their vineyards, ponds teeming with fish and water resources were all maintained by women,\u201d Sebolt said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The tour then went on to feature women outside of the religious space, like political figures in Chieffes Kapi\u2019olani of Hawaii, and artists like Emily Dickinson.<\/p>\n

Senior computer science major Joanna Wang visited the Chapel for the first time after she saw the tour being advertised around campus for Women\u2019s History Month.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThese women provide models and examples for the rest of us and help us understand that there are so many possibilities for what our futures can look like,\u201d Wang said.<\/p>\n

As the tour concluded, attendees continued to observe the stained glass windows as the evening light shifted through the Chapel. The women featured in the stained glass \u2014 including abbesses, artists and political figures \u2014 are connected through themes of community involvement, environmental awareness and resource management.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Since 2018, the Heinz Memorial Chapel has hosted a tour series honoring the women featured in their stained…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146988,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[66979,73,75,74,1128,52770],"class_list":["post-146987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-heinz-chapel","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-sustainability","tag-womens-history-month"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}