History Commons^™

Renaissance Woman: Gwendolyn Bennett, Eva Cunningham-Firkey, Kennesha Kelly-Davis, Janelle Soash, Faith Swarner

Women of the Eighth Ward

Presented on Friday, February 21 as part of Messiah College’s 2020 Humanities Symposium. This exhibit, “Vulnerabilities & Securities in Historic Harrisburg: From Abolition to Suffrage,” was produced by the Center for Public Humanities Student Fellows and Dr. Sarah Myers’s Public History Class.

While she was still an undergraduate, Bennett established her reputation as a poet when her poem “Nocturne” was published in The Crisis (the journal of the NAACP), and her poem “Heritage” was published in Opportunity (a magazine published by National Urban League). Just a year later, Bennett read “To Usward, ” her tribute to novelist Jesse Fauset, at …

The Political Pen: Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Kate Kuc, Melissa Boyer, Chloe Dickson

Women of the Eighth Ward

Presented on Friday, February 21 as part of Messiah College’s 2020 Humanities Symposium. This exhibit, “Vulnerabilities & Securities in Historic Harrisburg: From Abolition to Suffrage,” was produced by the Center for Public Humanities Student Fellows and Dr. Sarah Myers’s Public History Class.

In 1895, Alice Dunbar-Nelson published her first collection of short stories and poems, Violets and Other Tales. She also published a few plays, such as Mine Eyes Have Seen (1918) in The Crisis, the official magazine of the National Association of the Advancement of Colored People. Dunbar-Nelson often used her creative works to address racism and …

Ardent Activist: Anne E. Amos, Anna Strange, Michaela Magners

Women of the Eighth Ward

Presented on Friday, February 21 as part of Messiah College’s 2020 Humanities Symposium. This exhibit, “Vulnerabilities & Securities in Historic Harrisburg: From Abolition to Suffrage,” was produced by the Center for Public Humanities Student Fellows and Dr. Sarah Myers’s Public History Class.

Amos was involved in the temperance movement in Harrisburg. As a founding member of the Independent Order of Daughters of Temperance, she served as the Grand Recording Scribe and District Grand Deputy of the Good Samaritan Council, no. 1. The Council listed under her address on South Avenue functioned as a political hub in the Eighth Ward. Serving …

Review: Corinth In Late Antiquity: A Greek, Roman, And Christian City, By Amelia R. Brown, David Pettegrew

History Educator Scholarship

There are few urban centers so rich in late antique archaeology as Corinth, the city near the Isthmus of Greece. Excavations there since  by staff and students of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens have generated an enormous corpus of information related to the Roman forum and its surroundings. Other major projects in the region carried out by Greeks and Americans especially have shed light on Corinth’s harbors, Isthmian sanctuary, fortifications, Christian basilicas, and rural sites and villas. Collectively, archaeology has produced such rich evidence for Late Antiquity in this region that a barrage of specialized studies …

The Unspoken Demands Of Slavery: The Exploitation Of Female Slaves In The Memphis Slave Trade, Sarah W. Eiland

The Gettysburg College Journal of the Civil War Era

In the antebellum South, exploitation and mistreatment characterized the plight of the female slave. In Memphis, the story remained unchanged. The abusive and exploitative nature of the Memphis slave trade emerges through high prices for particular female slaves, the growth of the mulatto population, and the existence of mulatto children from certain prominent local figures. The survival of slavery depended upon the ability of the domestic slave population to sustain itself through the female slave population. This view of bondswomen as natural breeders and the accessibility of enslaved females in an urban setting, subjected them to sexual violence and exploitation. …

“When This Cruel War Is Over”: The Blurring Of The Confederate Battlefront And Homefront During The Civil War, Sophie Hammond

The Gettysburg College Journal of the Civil War Era

The line dividing the Confederate battlefront and homefront was always extremely blurred, and this blurring, though initially a source of strength, contributed significantly to the South losing the Civil War. While fighting the war, the Confederacy faced a terrible handicap which the Union did not: the vast majority of the war's battles happened on its own soil. At first, this situation galvanized Southerners. But as the war dragged on, concern for their families as well as the very real costs of war—Confederate soldiers were nearly three times as likely to die as Union soldiers—encouraged a total of around 103,000 Confederates …

Gettysburg College Journal Of The Civil War Era 2020

The Gettysburg College Journal of the Civil War Era

No abstract provided.

Ancient Snakebite Literature: The Brooklyn Medical Papyrus And Nicander’S Theriaca, Montgomery Q. Stewart

Publications and Research

The Brooklyn Papyrus is an Egyptian medical treatise on the subject of snakebite cures. It is a part of the Brooklyn Museum’s Charles Edwin Wilbour collection (47.218.48 and 47.218.85). In the 1960s, the papyrus was translated into French by Egyptologist Serge Sauneron. This research paper includes the first full translation of the Brooklyn Papyrus, as well as an introductory essay, which analyzes the structural and religious elements of the work. It also compares the Brooklyn Papyrus to another notable work on snakebites, Nicander of Colophon’s Theriaca.

Exhibit Curriculum For Fighting For Democracy: Unit Two, Sarah Aponte, Martin Toomajian

Open Educational Resources

Exhibit curriculum for the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute exhibit, Fighting for Democracy: Dominican Veterans from World War II.

Students in Global History and U.S. History courses often spend extensive class time studying World War II. Dominicans were involved in virtually every facet of the U.S. war effort. The Dominican Studies Institute's exhibit highlights Dominican veterans who served in both the European and Pacific theaters, in multiple branches of the U.S. armed forces. These same veterans, like other people of color, faced discrimination as soldiers in the U.S. An exploration of these veterans' experiences would be memorable and valuable for secondary …

Racial Integration, White Appropriation, And School Choice: The Demise Of The Colored Schools Of Late Nineteenth Century Brooklyn, Judith R. Kafka, Cici Matheny

Publications and Research

This study examines school desegregation in late-nineteenth-century Brooklyn from a spatial perspective, analyzing enrollment data and policy debates within the context of the shifting racial and geographic contours of the city. We argue that “choice” on the part of black families only partially explains the demise of designated-black schools during this period. White interests also played a role in the closing of these institutions, as white families and developers sought, and ultimately acquired, control over formerly black spaces. This study contributes to a growing body of research on school desegregation in northern U.S. cities by exploring the perceived benefits of …

Patronage Politics In Eastern Kentucky: The Turner Family Of Breathitt County, Frank Allen Fletcher Ii

Theses and Dissertations--History

From the 1930s to the 1970s, the Turner family of Breathitt County held a political and economic monopoly over their rural county in the mountains of eastern Kentucky. They were emblematic of the patronage, clientele, and kinship politics that characterized twentieth century eastern Kentucky. The family rewarded their supporters with jobs and other economic benefits in exchange for continued political support. Ervine Turner served as a state senator during the Great Depression and was later appointed circuit judge over a three-county district, his wife Marie served 38 years as superintendent of Breathitt County schools, and their children later emerged as …

“Distance Learning” In The Ninth Century?: Micro-Cluster Analysis Of The Epistolary Network Of Alcuin After 796, William James Mattingly

Theses and Dissertations--History

Scholars of eighth- and ninth-century education have assumed that intellectuals did not write works of Scriptural interpretation until that intellectual had a firm foundation in the seven liberal arts.This ensured that anyone who embarked on work of Scriptural interpretation would have the required knowledge and methods to read and interpret Scripture correctly. The potential for theological error and the transmission of those errors was too great unless the interpreter had the requisite training. This dissertation employs computistical methods, specifically the techniques of social network mapping and cluster analysis, to study closely the correspondence of Alcuin, a late-eighth- and early-ninth-century scholar …

Hist 380-H02: History Of Public Health (Addendum For Remote Learning), Rosanna Dent

History Syllabi

No abstract provided.

Mary Sachs: Two Types Of Beauty In Harrisburg, Robin Schwarzmann

Student Scholarship

Harrisburg’s City Beautiful Movement presented by historian, William H. Wilson, and journalist, Paul Beers, among others, often focuses too narrowly on the term beauty, leaving other types of beauty out of the narrative. The narrative frequently focuses on men instead of women, policies instead of people, and external beauty rather than internal beauty. However, both types of beauty were crucial in Harrisburg’s City Beautiful Movement.

Mary Sachs was a Russian born immigrant, who came to America with her family at four years old. Sachs began her life in Baltimore, where she worked in a factory as a teenager. However, when …

Friends Of Reform: The Correspondence Of J. Horace Mcfarland And Mira Lloyd Dock, Molly Elspas, Anna Strange

Student Scholarship

The City Beautiful movement in Harrisburg benefited from the part- nership of two key reformers, J. Horace McFarland and Mira Lloyd Dock. A close reading of their correspondence offers insight into the nature of their relationship, their personal views, and reflections on the long-term effects of City Beautiful.

Network Of City Beautiful Reformers: Humanizing Harrisburg’S Influencers, Anna Strange

Student Scholarship

How do we find out information about strangers in our society today? We ask their friends about them, observe their interactions with others, or possibly check their social media. When researching people in the early 20th century, we can uncover clues to people’s character by using archival research. We can study them in their space and place using geospatial and census data. Mira Lloyd Dock, J. Horace McFarland, and Warren H. Manning were three key reformers who rose to prominence during the City Beautiful Movement in Harrisburg, defined broadly as the period of urban development from 1900-1930 . They formed …

Interview With Lowell Gess, Class Of 1942

Macalester Oral Histories

No abstract provided.

Changemakers: Biographies Of African Americans In San Francisco Who Made A Difference, David Donahue

McCarthy Center Student Scholarship

Biographies inspired by San Francisco’s Ella Hill Hutch Community Center murals researched, written, and edited by the University of San Francisco’s Martín-Baró Scholars and Esther Madríz Diversity Scholars

Rules, Tricks And Emancipation, Jessie Allen

Book Chapters

Rules and tricks are generally seen as different things. Rules produce order and control; tricks produce chaos. Rules help us predict how things will work out. Tricks are deceptive and transgressive, built to surprise us and confound our expectations in ways that can be entertaining or devastating. But rules can be tricky. General prohibitions and prescriptions generate surprising results in particular contexts. In some situations, a rule produces results that seem far from what the rule makers expected and antagonistic to the interests the rule is understood to promote. This contradictory aspect of rules is usually framed as a downside …

Insiders And Outsiders On The Gay Community In Weimar Berlin, Jordan Nistendirk

Munn Scholars Awards

The visibility of Berlin’s gay population began following 1871, when Paragraph 175 of

the German penal code outlawed sex between males. The implementation of this statute triggered fervent activism from German homosexuals and scientists fighting for its repeal. By the 1920s, Berlin was viewed as an international “gay capital,” a hotspot for homosexual tourists and other figures seeking to engage with the thriving queer culture that existed there. According to Robert Beachy, Berlin was uniquely suited to become a global epicenter of homosexual culture after the Great War, due to the intersection of advocacy efforts by scientists and self-identified homosexuals, …