Digital History: Learning to Gather, Preserve, and Present J. Horace McFarland and the Harrisburg Park Commission

Posted on by se1231

By; Sam Erikson According to historians Daniel Cohn and Roy Rosenzweig, digital history is the process of “gathering, preserving, and presenting the past on the web.” It sounds simple, yet complex. However, if you utilize the historical tools and platforms that work for you, the possibilities for conducting digital historical work are endless.  Going into … Continue reading Digital History: Learning to Gather, Preserve, and Present J. Horace McFarland and the Harrisburg Park Commission

Retelling the Story of Harrisburg’s Historic African American Community: My Final Reflections

Posted on by Kelan Amme

- Kelan Amme, Lenwood Sloan (who plays Martin J. Delaney), and Lewis Butts (who plays Jacob T. Compton) discuss project details. Image by Kelan Amme. For part one of this story, click here. For part two of this story, click here. When I first began brainstorming how the Chester Way walking tour, my idea of … Continue reading Retelling the Story of Harrisburg’s Historic African American Community: My Final Reflections

Retelling the story of Harrisburg’s Historic African American Community

Posted on by Kelan Amme

By Kelan Amme This fall, I will be helping to create a video/audio tour of African American History in the city of Harrisburg. In partnership with the Center for Public Humanities at Messiah University, the T. Morris Chester Welcome Center (at the McCormick Public Library), and Mr. Lenwood Sloan of the International Institute for Peace … Continue reading Retelling the story of Harrisburg’s Historic African American Community

Reenergizing the Digital Harrisburg Initiative: A 2022 Update

Posted on by David Pettegrew

by David Pettegrew It was, strangely enough, March 11, 2020, the day everything changed, when I posted the last annual update about the work of the Digital Harrisburg Initiative. Little could I have imagined then how profoundly a pandemic would disrupt and change us over the next two and a half years. But here we … Continue reading Reenergizing the Digital Harrisburg Initiative: A 2022 Update

Closing Out an Eventful Year

Posted on by Ned Kuczmynda

The year has finally come to a close, and I have learned a tremendous amount. When I first began this year, I was but a lowly English major searching for something to diversify my degree a little bit. I stumbled upon Digital Humanities and this led me to several new experiences involving the use of … Continue reading Closing Out an Eventful Year

My Digital Semester

Posted on by kheiser21

Map of Harrisburg boundaries in the early 1900s showing the State Capitol grounds (green) and the Capitol Park Extension that replaced the Old Eighth Ward (dark orange) When I started taking digital history at the beginning of this semester, none of us could have predicted just how much digital learning would impact our semesters. When … Continue reading My Digital Semester

Mapping Harrisburg’s Population from the Old Eighth

Posted on by kheiser21

From the 1900s to 1930s, Harrisburg underwent many transformations that affected its residents.  The City Beautiful Movement was sweeping across the U.S. and was helped along in Harrisburg by the old capitol burning down and a push to move the state capital back to Philadelphia (Williams, 1). The destruction of the old eighth ward and … Continue reading Mapping Harrisburg’s Population from the Old Eighth

Story Mapping Harrisburg’s Old Eighth Ward with ArcGIS

Posted on by Ned Kuczmynda

Last Sunday my friend Andre Frueh and I jumped in the car and drove twenty minutes from Messiah to the steps of the Harrisburg Capitol. We parked on the street by a meter, where parking is free on Sunday. We may be budding historians, but that doesn't mean we aren't on a budget. Our reason … Continue reading Story Mapping Harrisburg’s Old Eighth Ward with ArcGIS

My First Job as a Digital Historian

Posted on by Molly Elspas

At the end of the fall semester of my sophomore year of college, I was told that through my current internship I would be able to research and write for a monument that would later be installed in the Pennsylvania State Capitol Building. Without hesitation I accepted, but as the exhibit developed it became a … Continue reading My First Job as a Digital Historian