I occasionally write about Messiah’s Digital Harrisburg Initiative (DHI). My colleague David Pettegrew and his team do an amazing job of serving our local community through public and digital history. I am thrilled to see that the American Association for […]
Digital Harrisburg
“What historians lose when the census questionnaire is short”
As Rachel Basinger notes at Perspectives Daily, historians use the federal census to make sense of the past. I don’t use the census in my own research, but I have asked students to write neighborhood histories of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania based on […]
Harrisburg’s history of racial injustice
Two of my colleagues in the Messiah University history department, Bernardo Michael and David Pettegrew, have an op-ed at PennLive today on their work on the African American communities of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Pettegrew is the director of the university’s Digital […]
Yesterday Trump gave a speech about the suburbs. It sounded very familiar.
Our history students at Messiah University are doing some great work as part of the Digital Harrisburg Initiative. An exhibit on the Home Owner’s Loan Corporation‘s redlining of Harrisburg in 1935-1936, with primary reports of the commission, a list of resources, […]
Do You Know About the Digital Harrisburg Project?
The Digital Harrisburg Initiative continues to roll on at Messiah College. My colleagues are happy to announce the recent publication of an entire issue of Pennsylvania History journal devoted to the project. It contains essays by Messiah College faculty, students, and others […]
Pennsylvania History: The Final Exam!
For the past decade I have been teaching a course on Pennsylvania History at Messiah College. The class meets several requirements. Some history majors take it for a 300-level American history elective. Other history majors take it as part of […]
A Saturday Morning in the Old 8th Ward
I am really enjoying my Pennsylvania History course this semester. As part of the last unit of the course we have been studying Harrisburg’s Old 8th Ward. The ward is referred to as “old” because it no longer exists. The […]
Digital Harrisburg Has a New Website
Check it our here. Drew Dyrli Hermeling, the producer of The Way of Improvement Leads Home Podcast, is behind this impressive new site. Also check out Digital Harrisburg’s “Commonwealth Monument Project.” The team is places monuments at different locations in […]
Bonus Episode: Live at Messiah College Educator’s Day
On May 21, 2018, the Office of the Provost at Messiah College surprised the faculty at their annual Educator’s Day with a live recording of our podcast. Under the theme “Flourishing in a Digital World,” the goal was to highlight […]
How are People Using the Digital Harrisburg Initiative?
Digital Harrisburg is a digital public humanities project created by students and faculty of Messiah College and Harrisburg University of Science and Technology that explores the history and culture of the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania area. Read more about it here. Over […]
Our First Live Episode of The Way of Improvement Leads Home Podcast is in the Books!
This morning we recorded our first live episode of The Way of Improvement Leads Home Podcast before the Community of Educators (faculty and co-curricular educators) at Messiah College. The Community of Educators gathered today at “Educator’s Day,” a tradition in […]
Fair Housing Acts?
Some of my colleagues at work on the Digital Harrisburg Initiative having been exploring 20th-century segregation in the Pennsylvania state capital. I was reminded of their work as I watched this video from National Public Radio: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5FBJyqfoLM&w=560&h=315]
Digital History at Messiah College
Yesterday I was telling the museum professionals at the PA Museum Association annual conference about our Public History Program at Messiah College. Here is what I said: As the chair of the history department, I have also been involved in helping […]
Digital Harrisburg at the 2018 AHA
I just finished chairing a session at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association titled “Placing the American Community: Lessons from the Digital Harrisburg Project.” Here is the session abstract: In spring 2014, students and faculty from Messiah College […]
AHA Bound!
I’m heading to Washington D.C. today for the annual meeting of the American Historical Association. I will be joining thousands of historians in a weekend of presentations, panels, conversations, job-searching, book-browsing, receptions and other history-related activities. As always, we will […]
Our Second “Patron’s Only” Summer Mini-Episode Is Here!
If you are a patron of The Way of Improvement Leads Home Podcast, you have heard from producer Drew Dylri Hermeling this morning about how to access our second patrons-only summer mini-episode. Our guest on the episode is David Pettegrew, Associate Professor of History at […]
Library of Congress Places 25,000 Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps Online
This is huge. We uses these maps for our Digital Harrisburg Project at Messiah College. Here is a taste of the press release: The Library of Congress has placed online nearly 25,000 Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, which depict the structure […]
Why Computer Scientists Should "Stop Hating" the Humanities
This issue keeps coming up. Yesterday during a faculty meeting I listened to a colleague explain digital humanities to a group of more traditional-minded humanists. He discussed the digital humanities as an effort to bridge the divide between computer scientists and humanistic inquiry. […]
What is Going On With Digital Harrisburg?
A lot.I have been on sabbatical this semester so I am not privy to a lot of the day-to-day activity in the Messiah College History Department‘s Digital Harrisburg Initiative. That is why I am thankful for the regular blog updates from the […]
More Good News About the Digital Harrisburg Initiative
As I have written here before, Messiah College hosts the Digital Harrisburg Initiative, a digital project that is trying to understand early 20th-century Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. (Read our coverage here).M. Diane McCormick has written a very thorough piece about the project […]