Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com by Alex Shehigian I never considered myself to be technologically inclined growing up. In fact, there was a running joke in high school that I was anti-tech because I never had my school-issued Chromebook on my person and was one of the few students to still take handwritten notes. I … Continue reading More than Just a Website: Stumbling Upon Digital History
by Sam Erikson I have always had an interest in history and for as long as I can remember, I planned to major in History at college to someday become the person working at the museum rather than the curious visitor. Following my first year at Messiah University, I encountered frustration with the course work … Continue reading Encountering History in the Digital Age
Digital History and online learning have taken on a whole new meaning for me and many other students across the county and the world in the past few weeks. Last Thursday we visited the PA state archives and sorted through materials left behind from those living in Harrisburg a hundred years ago. I was looking … Continue reading Digitization and the Demolition of the Eighth Ward
I have been involved with the Digital Harrisburg Initiative since January of 2018 and have had the opportunity to be involved in may different projects. Most of the writing I've been asked to do has been very independent (minus a few edits in post-production). Over the past year, however, I was able to contribute to … Continue reading Learning to “Do History”: Lessons in Collaborative Research and Writing
The team of students and faculty at Messiah College's branch of the Digital Harrisburg Initiative have been hard at work for the past few months on a variety of different projects. Our on-going involvement in the Look Up, Look Out campaign and Commonwealth Monument project allows many different students to lend their voices to important … Continue reading New History: Updates on Digital Harrisburg
Over these past couple of weeks, I have learned a great deal about the City Beautiful Movement as well as what it means to be a digital historian. Digital technologies have developed so quickly over the past couple of decades. In the edited collection, History in the Digital Age, many chapters underscore how technology is used … Continue reading Reflecting on Digital History and Mary Sachs Research
As the culmination of the Digital Harrisburg Class, we, as students, were asked to put together a final project to demonstrate both the digital skills and the knowledge of Harrisburg we had gained through the class. In my case, I followed the early trail of the rather compelling and successful mayor and reformer Vance C. … Continue reading The Month in Reflection
So many people have asked me why in the world I chose to study history. Usually I just take it in stride, tell them that everyone is different, and move on. It wasn't until I spent a month doing intense research, getting very little sleep, trying to understand the changes that occurred in turn of … Continue reading Looking Back on Digital History
Understanding the City Beautiful movement involves understanding change. The actual definition of change from Merriam Webster is “to make different in some particular.” This definition does not encompass the whole reality of change. To change from one thing to another always involves losing something. Sometimes this is losing something bad and gaining something good, but … Continue reading Using Digital Tools to Track Change
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
Digital Harrisburg 