The Digital Harrisburg Initiative is a collaboration of Messiah University, Harrisburg University of Science and Technology, and a number of community partners devoted to exploring the history, society, and culture of Pennsylvania’s state capital. Our goals are to provide a public resource for learning about and understanding Harrisburg, build community and institutional connections across the region, and deepen student knowledge of local history, the humanities, and digital technology.
This website is the public outlet and portal for the products and processes of our work, which include a series of student digital projects and exhibits, interactive maps, datasets, publications & presentations, interviews, and blog posts created by the students and faculty between 2014 and the present.
The Digital Harrisburg Initiative began in spring 2014 through four classes. Professor David Pettegrew’s Digital History class used the site to report on student archival research related to Harrisburg’s successful City Beautiful Movement and to outline the digitization of federal census data for the city in 1900 and a contemporary historical atlas of the city. Professor Jeff Erikson of Messiah and Professor Albert Sarvis of Harrisburg University worked with their GIS courses to begin digitizing the 1901 atlas and relate census data to geocoded addresses in GIS. Dr. John Fea and his students in Pennsylvania History conducted archival research related to the region’s churches, cultural and religious organizations, and African-American history. These courses populated this site with new material, spawned an Omeka website devoted to City Beautiful, created a database of information about half the population of the city in 1900, and digitized several of the wards in GIS.
Since this initial burst of activity, our initiative has grown and expanded to embrace an array of collaborative digital and public humanities activities. We have maintained energy through courses in digital history and geospatial technology, work study positions and internships at both institutions, a faculty-student working group, and the Center for Public Humanities Student Fellows Program at Messiah (directed by Dr. Jean Corey, Associate Professor of English and Director of the Center for Public Humanities).
Our activities and projects have included, among others:
- archival research and digitization of documents from the Pennsylvania State Archives
- developing a database of census records for Harrisburg residents in 1900-1930
- creating geocoded digital layers of historical maps and interactive maps of the city
- projects and exhibits exploring Harrisburg’s City Beautiful movement, floods, clothing designers (Mary Sachs), racial redlining, restrictive covenants, the Old Eighth Ward
- poetry workshops with local schools
- the Commonwealth Monument project celebrating Harrisburg’s African American history
- publications in the journal Pennsylvania History and elsewhere
As we have implemented student projects for these courses, we have connected with faculty and students in other courses and institutions, historical societies in the region, community partners, and individuals well-versed in Harrisburg’s history.
We invite you to explore our activities at this site. If you would like to connect with us in 2020-2021, please contact Dr. Jason Renn of Messiah University.
