The Digital Harrisburg Initiative in Fall 2025

Fall semester 2025 at Messiah University began six weeks ago and our students have been busy working on a number of projects related to the history of Harrisburg. As the coordinator for digital humanities with Messiah University's Center for Public Humanities (CPH), I'm excited about what our students will accomplish this term in collaboration with … Continue reading The Digital Harrisburg Initiative in Fall 2025

Harrisburg Historical: A New Mobile App for Exploring the History of the Capital Region

Yesterday marked a significant milestone in our ongoing efforts to make the rich history of Pennsylvania’s capital region more accessible to the public. After two years of dedicated work by students, faculty, and community partners, Messiah University’s Center for Public Humanities officially launched Harrisburg Historical, a free website and mobile app that brings to life … Continue reading Harrisburg Historical: A New Mobile App for Exploring the History of the Capital Region

Concluding Fall Semester 2024: An Update on Student Activities

It's the final week of fall semester at Messiah University and as I type this, students are working hard to finish their projects and practicums in digital public humanities as well as a variety of exams, presentations, and projects for other classes. Earlier in the semester I noted here that students were then working on … Continue reading Concluding Fall Semester 2024: An Update on Student Activities

Revitilizing Social Media

In this current semester, I am engaging in a project as part of a humanities projects course, Humanities Projects 1, where I have taken on the responsibility of managing the Instagram and Facebook accounts for Digital Harrisburg. Digital Harrisburg is a website platform dedicated to preserving and showcasing the rich history of Harrisburg, focusing on … Continue reading Revitilizing Social Media

Encountering History in the Digital Age

By Derek M. Murphy Greetings! Photo by author Prior to the Digital History course with Dr. David Pettegrew, I had little knowledge of the digital humanities, especially pertaining to history. My main exposure to digital history was through another course at Messiah University, Public History. In this class we discussed some of the ways history, … Continue reading Encountering History in the Digital Age

Digital Harrisburg Initiative: March 2020 Update

Messiah College Center for Public Humanities students meet with members of the Commonwealth Monument Project

It's been some time since our last general update on the Digital Harrisburg Initiative, but that is not for lack of trying. Over the last year, in fact, our operation at Messiah College has grown, and our teams have been buzzing in activities, projects, digital tools, meetings, research, and public collaborations with community partners. It's … Continue reading Digital Harrisburg Initiative: March 2020 Update

Digital Harrisburg Initiative: A New Year Update

While this website has generated only a few posts over the last year, our team has been hard at work in developing datasets and researching the history and culture of Harrisburg. Beginning next week, I will be teaching a three-week intensive course in Digital History, which will focus on Harrisburg. As our 9 students explore … Continue reading Digital Harrisburg Initiative: A New Year Update

Digital Harrisburg: Winter 2017 Update

It has been a long time since our last update on the work of the Digital Harrisburg Initiative, so long that visitors may have concluded this is a dead project. Our work in fact has continued on a number of fronts and has continued to expand in ways we could not have anticipated when we initiated these projects in … Continue reading Digital Harrisburg: Winter 2017 Update

Digital Harrisburg Project: A Fall Update

The rapid pace of a new semester at Messiah College and the good things happening with the Digital Harrisburg Initiative have left not a single moment to write an update about our collective work in the Digital Harrisburg Initiative. At mid-semester, I've finally got a moment to give readers a sense of the growing energy of the new initiative. 1. Digital History Course Student … Continue reading Digital Harrisburg Project: A Fall Update