PITTSBURGH — Cranberry Township-based Breathe Pennsylvania now has its 100-year-old artifacts preserved in the Heinz History Center.

Originally founded in 1904 as the Tuberculosis League, the organization has kept careful track of its meeting minutes and records, executive director Jack Rupp said.

Wanting to make sure that these artifacts were professionally preserved, and made available to students and researchers, the organization started working with the history center about a year ago, Rupp said.

There are now five boxes of materials stored in the history center and available to anyone for viewing. They were formally turned over May 11 at a ceremony.

The history center ensures that documents are organized and preserved in the proper temperature and humidity, Rupp said.

The records offer an interesting look at the history of tuberculosis and medicine for the region.

“If you are doing medical research and you want to find out what happened with tuberculosis at the turn of the century, they are available,” he said about the artifacts.

Among the contents are scrapbooks containing newspaper clippings, photographs, annual reports, deeds, hospital records, recordings of Christmas Seal League television programs and meeting minutes from 1905 to present.

When the organization was formed, tuberculosis was one of the top public health issues and Pittsburgh’s elite saw treatment as an urgent need.

“The wealthiest, most important people in Pittsburgh were the original board of directors,” Rupp said.

The Pittsburgh Sanatorium opened in 1905 and offered patients rest and fresh air, the only known treatment at the time.

The organization would go on to build another hospital in Pittsburgh which operated from 1928 to 1988, when it moved its headquarters to Cranberry.

It has had several name changes over the years. It was most recently the American Respiratory Alliance of Western Pennsylvania, but rebranded itself in 2014 to Breathe Pennsylvania.

It provides lung health through education, prevention, awareness and direct services.