Joseph Thomas and his wife Marian lived in the 8th Ward of Harrisburg at the time of the 1900 census. Their home (see cyan dot on map below) was smack dab in the middle of where the current Capitol Fountain exists today. Joseph was an undertaker and he and his wife had two boarders, a … Continue reading Beneath the Capitol Fountain
A small team of faculty and students is putting together a presentation and paper for Saturday’s digital conference at Bucknell University. The presentation is titled “Harrisburg’s City Beautiful Movement: Mapping the Growth and Transformation of the Pennsylvania State Capital” and details the collaboration between GIS and History faculty and students from Harrisburg University and Messiah … Continue reading Connecting the Dots
After the flurry of activity on this site last winter and spring, it may have come as a surprise that activity at this site would drop so abruptly in May. Behind the scenes, however, the Digital Harrisburg initiative has continued to develop and expand over the last sixth months in new and exciting ways. I’ve … Continue reading Digital Harrisburg Reboot
I never wanted to take this class. I stood outside, as my last class ended at the end of the fall semester, talking to my fellow History majors in regards to this course. I squished and squirmed about the possibility that I could learn anything from taking a course titled "Digital History." "What kind of … Continue reading Digital History, an experiment.
Messiah College offered its first Digital History class in the Spring of 2014. The digital history class was helpful not only with providing us particular computer skills, but it changed the way we as students think about the study of history. In the class, we focused on GIS, collecting data from census records, archiving and much … Continue reading Digital History Wrap Up
Digital History is opening my eyes to the different avenues that students can use to understand history. As an aspiring Social Studies teacher, this course has given me a new way to make history more enjoyable for both middle and high school students. Two weeks ago, some fellow students and I gave presentations about other digital … Continue reading Local History Taught Through Digital Harrisburg
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
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
This morning, I gave students in my Digital History class a very brief overview of Geographic Information Systems. While Digital History students have been working on keying US census data, GIS students at Harrisburg University and Messiah College have been busy finding different ways to relate our data to digitized maps (see Step 4 of … Continue reading City Digital: The View from 7,000 Feet
As students have noted recently (here, here, and here), everyone feels a sense of accomplishment and relief in bringing to completion the “City Social” U.S. Census data project for the digital history class. What students have been able to accomplish in the last six weeks is truly remarkable both on an historical and logistical level. … Continue reading Harrisburg on the Map: An Update on the US Census Project
Digital Harrisburg 