By: Phoebe Lemin I never saw myself as someone who was that good at using technology. Certainly, I didn’t feel qualified to take on the task of digital history with my skills in technology. However, through my experience as a Public Humanities Fellows Student and after taking a Cybersecurity class, I felt like I could … Continue reading From Past to Pixels, Mira Lloyd Dock and the City Beautiful Movement
One evening, in my excitement (and haste) to search for a placed-based digitization project, I came across the title “Pennsylvania State Lunatic Hospital.” Immediately, its history captivated me, and my research on Harrisburg State Hospital and its creation in Harrisburg thus began. For two days, I had the opportunity to practice careful research at the … Continue reading Harrisburg’s Once “Lunatic Hospital” and Two Archive Visits Later…
In my first semester as a Fellow at the Center of Public Humanities, I’m working on editing and finalizing previous students’ stories for Harrisburg Historical's website and mobile app and beginning to research my own story. Many of the stories for Harrisburg Historical were nearly ready to be published before I joined the CPH. My … Continue reading Stories of Resistance: Reflections on the Fall Semester
Jake Kocher: October 17th, 2024 This semester I have the privilege of working with the Center for Public Humanities at Messiah University on a project to develop an immersive walking tour that brings to life significant historical places in Downtown Harrisburg. The project I’m working on is Harrisburg Historical, a mobile and web app that … Continue reading Bringing History to Life: Developing an Immersive Walking Tour for Downtown Harrisburg’s Civil Rights Legacy
It's hard to believe that we've just finished fall break here at Messiah University and will soon be sprinting to the end of the term. I think my last general update about our work on the Digital Harrisburg Initiative was fall 2022 (read that here), which makes this update well overdue. While we've been silent … Continue reading Digital Harrisburg: Fall 2024
Starting this semester-long journey working with Digital Harrisburg has been a fascinating experience that has improved my knowledge of the rich history of this city and sharpened my storytelling abilities on social media. Throughout the semester, my main emphasis was creating engaging content for Digital Harrisburg's Facebook and Instagram pages. I tried to capture the … Continue reading Social Media Semester Recap
This semester as part of the Center for Public Humanities, I returned to the ongoing work of writing stories in place for the new Harrisburg Historical tour site which is the latest part of the Digital Harrisburg Initiative. More specifically, my work was on the story of the Black laborers who built Fort Couch during … Continue reading Reflecting on Stories Retold
As this project draws to a close, I wanted to take a moment and reflect on all the opportunities this project has given me and all the things I have learned in the past four months. To me, this project was so much more than the technical aspect of the website editing. In my opinion, … Continue reading Reflections on the Spring Semester
The Chester Way Tour project combines place-based, often forgotten, stories of Harrisburg's history from the 19th to the 20th century that illuminate the civil rights effort of the region. The first story of this tour, which I’m delighted to share, begins with the first European settler of Harrisburg, John Harris, a mulberry tree, and the rumored account … Continue reading Before Harrisburg: John Harris and Hercules
Dominic Gomez This semester, I decided to return to the Center of Public Humanities to contribute another story once again. Roughly a year ago, I began my involvement with the Center as a Fellow working on a Curatescape story for the ongoing series of stories-in-place on the untold narratives of Black History in the Harrisburg … Continue reading The Untold Tale of Fort Couch
Digital Harrisburg 