This morning I was watching an episode of The West Wing while working on finishing the database for the 1910 Harrisburg Census and it just so happened to be an episode about the Census. I just can't escape it. But a quote from the episode truly resonated with me and how I feel some days while working on … Continue reading Finishing Up 1910
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The First Greeks of Harrisburg
The Digital Harrisburg Working Group has made major strides in the last six weeks in entering, publicizing, and standardizing data related to the City Social Project. We have had major success especially in our ability to visualize data in GIS. At some point soon, we’ll give a general update of all the recent activities related … Continue reading The First Greeks of Harrisburg
Digital Harrisburg Initiative: A Mid-February Update
About a year ago, a number of faculty and students from several courses at Messiah College and Harrisburg University partnered to launch a new initiative to digitize Harrisburg’s history. It’s incredible how our original vision of the Digital Harrisburg Initiative (DHI) has grown over the last year as we’ve found new partners and begun to … Continue reading Digital Harrisburg Initiative: A Mid-February Update
Explore Harrisburg in 1900: An Interactive Map of Buildings and Population
The Digital Harrisburg working group is pleased to announce a beta version of an interactive map of Harrisburg in 1900/1901 hosted at ArcGIS Online. This map and the data it contains was developed as a collaboration between faculty and students at Messiah College and Harrisburg University of Science and Technology. The Historical Society of Dauphin … Continue reading Explore Harrisburg in 1900: An Interactive Map of Buildings and Population
The Harrisburg City Beautiful Project: A Mid-December Update
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
Beneath the Capitol Fountain
Joseph Thomas and his wife Marian lived in the 8th Ward of Harrisburg at the time of the 1900 census. Their home (see cyan dot on map below) was smack dab in the middle of where the current Capitol Fountain exists today. Joseph was an undertaker and he and his wife had two boarders, a … Continue reading Beneath the Capitol Fountain
Connecting the Dots
A small team of faculty and students is putting together a presentation and paper for Saturday’s digital conference at Bucknell University. The presentation is titled “Harrisburg’s City Beautiful Movement: Mapping the Growth and Transformation of the Pennsylvania State Capital” and details the collaboration between GIS and History faculty and students from Harrisburg University and Messiah … Continue reading Connecting the Dots
Digital Harrisburg Reboot
After the flurry of activity on this site last winter and spring, it may have come as a surprise that activity at this site would drop so abruptly in May. Behind the scenes, however, the Digital Harrisburg initiative has continued to develop and expand over the last sixth months in new and exciting ways. I’ve … Continue reading Digital Harrisburg Reboot
Harrisburg the Beautiful
It is 10:21 AM, and Messiah College’s first Digital History class is now officially ending. During our final meeting time this morning, students have been busily working in groups on final projects. We’re releasing our content to the world now and concluding this first chapter of directing our energies toward a Digital Harrisburg. Here is … Continue reading Harrisburg the Beautiful
Reflecting on Digital History
As our City Beautiful project comes to a close, we reflect on the time we have spent on the project and what we have learned throughout the course. There have been ups and downs, but the course overall has been a great learning experience. Allow me to start off by saying this course was not … Continue reading Reflecting on Digital History
Digital Harrisburg 