The City Beautiful Exhibition features student and faculty projects exploring urban improvement in Harrisburg in the early twentieth century. The urban improvement movement began after Mira Lloyd Dock gave a public lecture in December 1900 lamenting the dire state of the city and advocating its potential for rebirth. Ultimately, a group of visionaries rallied the population to vote for a bond issue in 1902 to … Continue reading The City Beautiful
Stories from the Old 8th Ward At the turn of the century, Harrisburg was at a crossroads. The city was physically deteriorating and had lost its prestige as a thriving steel and railroad center. The rest of America moved on from its industrial boom, and Harrisburg was left behind. Faced with losing its status as … Continue reading City Beautiful and the Capitol Extension
A call for contributions to a special issue of Pennsylvania History: “Harrisburg, The City Beautiful: Rethinking Urban Improvement in the Pennsylvania State Capital” edited by James B. LaGrand and David K. Pettegrew Abstract: Harrisburg’s City Beautiful Movement has an important place in the history of urban reform in America. Among the very earliest progressive reform movements, … Continue reading Rethinking Harrisburg, the City Beautiful: Call for Contributions
Harrisburg has been the state capital of Pennsylvania since 1812, but has had its fair share of ups and downs in city appeal. Nearing the end of the 19th century, the town was at a crossroads. After a brief period of industrial boom in the steel business, it had lost its luster and looked nothing … Continue reading Digitizing City Beautiful: Remaking Harrisburg and its History
Over this past week, our class has been studying the City Beautiful movement. The City Beautiful Movement was initiated to bring beauty and life back into the unpolished industrial city of Harrisburg. Harrisburg was made up of railroad industries as well as Iron and Steel developments. Paul Beers, journalist, claims that at one point, Harrisburg … Continue reading The Quest to Discover more about Harrisburg’s City Beautiful Movement
Cities all across America in the early twentieth century pushed for the implementation of parks and other open spaces. This movement is known as “The City Beautiful Movement” and it was a push to beautify and improve American cities. Among these cities was the capital of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg. Vance McCormick, the mayor at the start … Continue reading The City Beautiful Reformers
It’s been an eventful month for our work on the Digital Harrisburg Initiative. About time to round up some of the latest updates: 1. Presentations Since our last update, faculty and students from Messiah College, Harrisburg University of Science and Technology, and Harrisburg Area Community College presented on research related to Harrisburg’s City Beautiful movement. … Continue reading The Harrisburg City Beautiful Project: A Mid-December Update
As other students have mentioned in their posts, our digital history class is coming to an end. This means that we are starting to finish up our City Beautiful projects, and as our class continues to put together their exhibits on Omeka.net, we are able to get a better look at Harrisburg during the late 19th to early … Continue reading City Beautiful Projects
As you know, our time working on the City Beautiful Project is coming to a close. I have been researching Mira Lloyd Dock for my part of the project. My research was fully conducted at the Pennsylvania State Archives. Searching through boxes of personal family papers, journals, reports, speeches and letters, it quickly became apparent that … Continue reading Mira Lloyd Dock Beyond City Beautiful
We have recently wrapped up our work digitizing the 1900 census for Harrisburg and are focusing on creating our Omeka exhibits. However, while we were still digitizing the census it was easy to notice a few connections to the City Beautiful Movement, and therefore to our Omeka exhibits. For example, some students have encountered the … Continue reading The Eighth Ward and the City Beautiful Movement
Digital Harrisburg 