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What Difference Thirty Years Can Make: Harrisburg’s Transformation from 1900 to 1930

Posted on by Digital Harrisburg

Recently, our class has been looking at census data dealing with information from 1900 to 1930. Our census data includes information about each person who lived in Harrisburg during those thirty years. From records, we can learn the first name, last name, address, gender, race, age, birth year, literacy, birthplace, occupation, immigration status, etc. for … Continue reading What Difference Thirty Years Can Make: Harrisburg’s Transformation from 1900 to 1930

Searching for floods in the Archives

Posted on by Digital Harrisburg

As a first time visitor to an archive, I really did not know what to expect. I thought that it would be similar to a library but much bigger. Images of clustered shelves with dusty papers came to mind. Of the two archives that we visited, the Pennsylvania State Archives could not have been further … Continue reading Searching for floods in the Archives

Digitizing City Beautiful: Remaking Harrisburg and its History

Posted on by Molly Elspas

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

The Kipona Club and a Day in the Archives

Posted on by Digital Harrisburg

Last Thursday our Digital History class took a field trip to two archives in Harrisburg, the Pennsylvania State Archives and the Historical Society of Dauphin County to research for our first projects. Our first project is to create an Omeka exhibit about a component of the City Beautiful Movement. When I arrived at the Historical Society … Continue reading The Kipona Club and a Day in the Archives

Digitally Archiving Harrisburg

Posted on by Digital Harrisburg

This week, Digital History pivoted on two topics, digitization/archiving and Harrisburg's City Beautiful movement. At the beginning of the week we broadly explored these topics; by the end of the week, we practiced archiving techniques in the Pennsylvania State Archives and Dauphin County Archives on our own individual class project. The City Beautiful movement was … Continue reading Digitally Archiving Harrisburg

Encountering Digital History

Posted on by Digital Harrisburg

Hello everyone, I'm Mike Ritter, and I am a junior history major at Messiah College. I grew up in the Washington DC area, and I currently live in Falls Church, Virginia. I transferred to Messiah after studying for two years at Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts. I was first drawn to history reading the non-fiction … Continue reading Encountering Digital History

Digitization in the Real World

Posted on by Digital Harrisburg

The primary sources about Harrisburg and the City Beautiful movement are mostly physical copies in archives. Since we are learning about City Beautiful in the context of digital history, our first project focuses on digitizing a selection of these items relating to each of our specific themes. That’s why we spent almost seven hours on … Continue reading Digitization in the Real World

The Quest to Discover more about Harrisburg’s City Beautiful Movement

Posted on by Digital Harrisburg

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

Expanding the Narrative of a Beautiful City

Posted on by Rachel Williams

When our class began to discuss Harrisburg history and digitization, I thought I would be ready for the onset of information. Of course, there is so much more to learn, but I knew thousands of early 20th-century Harrisburg residents by name and worked comprehensively with digitizing historical Harrisburg. That's a good base, right? Similar to … Continue reading Expanding the Narrative of a Beautiful City

Digital History: The Transformation of Historical Methodology

Posted on by Digital Harrisburg

Experimentation with Digital History is a central theme for me this academic school year. Traditional forms of historical research are taught to all historians in the Messiah History Department yet bits of digital history, its themes, and procedures, find their way into the curriculum of multiple classrooms. We have the privilege in Historical Methods, Messiah's … Continue reading Digital History: The Transformation of Historical Methodology