Taking the new Digital History course at Messiah College has been an interesting ride. The course had many ups and downs, which can be expected for a brand new course. Both we, the students in the class, and Dr. Pettegrew were trailblazers for a course devoted to learning the new side of history, the digital … Continue reading Becoming Trailblazers
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
One of the exciting outcomes of the class project to key US census records is an enormous database of names, occupations, and demographic attributes for Harrisburg in 1900. As I discussed in a previous post, we keyed 28,397 individuals – about 57% of the total population of the city – into a Microsoft Access table. … Continue reading City Social: The Population of Harrisburg, 1900
As the semester winds down, we are beginning to finalize our Omeka websites. My group is focusing on the Campaign for Improvement, specifically the preliminary stages of the City Beautiful Project in Harrisburg. I am responsible for documenting the harmony and opposition against and/or for this campaign. Most of the primary sources I have discovered came … Continue reading Fairy Tales and Youth: The Campaign for Improvement
Here at Messiah College, the first day of finals starts on May 9th. That leaves our class with only about 2 weeks to finish our City Beautiful project. Although the depletion of time has caught us all a little off guard, we certainly are proud of what we've done. Besides the City Social project, which we … Continue reading We’re Not Done Yet
Growing up in the digital age, my generation has been incredibly spoiled by our computers. After spending some time in the Pennsylvania State and Dauphin County Historical Society archives, I feel as though I have been researching with training wheels all of my life, and while the safety of training wheels is comfortable, researching without … Continue reading Losing the Training Wheels
As part of the new Digital History course offered through the History Department at Messiah College, we recently devoted time to transcribe names of Harrisburg citizens from the 1900 census records. My fellow classmates have discussed earlier just how tedious and hard it is to transcribe these census records. After spending countless hours transcribing and … Continue reading Deciphering Census Records
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
Yesterday morning, the Dean of the School of Humanities and a small contingent from the history department made a presentation to administrators at our school, Messiah College, about Digital Humanities and new initiatives in Digital Harrisburg. It was exciting. Our dean, Peter Powers, gave an overview of new movements, activities, courses, and assignments afoot on … Continue reading Digital Humanities, Information Fluency, and the Digital Harrisburg Project
According to their website, the Civic Club "is a service organization that supports and initiates community projects" and "build[s] a better and greater Harrisburg." The club was formed in the late 1800s as a way to increase good citizenship and social order. With an emphasis on improving and beautifying the city, the club played a … Continue reading Mira Lloyd Dock and the Civic Club
Digital Harrisburg 