History Commons^™

Caring For The Family Tree: Helping Patrons Select Genealogy Software, Beth Transue, Rob Lesher

Library Staff Presentations & Publications

Caring for the Family Tree: Helping Patrons Select Genealogy Software

Presentation by: Rob Lesher, PA Library Association PA Forward Manager and Beth Transue, Messiah University Information Literacy Librarian

Presented at the PA Library Association annual conference, October 2023, Kalahari Resort, Poconos, PA

Objectives:

• Help patrons determine genealogy research goals and budget parameters
• Explore genealogy software options
• Assist patrons to select genealogy software options based on research goals and budget parameters

This Civic & Social Literacy focused presentation will help librarians work with patrons to select genealogy software. As the hobby of genealogy grows in popularity, there is a multitude of …

Walking In The Steps Of The Emperors: Exploring Beijing's Forbidden City And Surrounding Hutong Neighborhoods, Beth Transue

Library Staff Presentations & Publications

A photographic exploration of Beijing's Forbidden City as told by a Messiah University librarian. Beth Transue has visited China three times, two of which were university cross-cultural courses for undergraduate students.

Shadow Of Culloden: The Political Legacy Of The 1745 Jacobite Rebellion, Autumn Miller

History, Politics & International Relations Student Scholarship

Legacies change over time, and the Battle of Culloden is no different, especially depending on who is seeking out election in Westminster. Often, the Jacobite failure is used to garner political gain during nationalistic movements; while others included when Westminster needed to push back against the Scottish people to keep them subdued. The catastrophic failure of the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion led to changing political legacies over the next two hundred years, which has permeated modern-day United Kingdom politics with the result of a Scottish referendum in 2014. With a close analysis of stateless nations theory, as well as Wales as …

Access Your Ancestors: Introduction To Free Online Genealogy Resources, Sarah Myers

Library Staff Presentations & Publications

Wednesday, March 10, 202110:00 am - 11:00 am

Virtual on Zoom

Are you interested in finding out about your family history and climbing your family tree? This course will be an introduction to online genealogy resources that are free to use and easily accessible to anyone with internet access. Find census, birth, marriage, military, and death records with ease and without spending a dime. This class will energize you to make discoveries on what makes your family unique, special, and downright interesting.

All participants will receive a resource packet to organize and keep track of their findings. In addition to …

2021 Virtual Humanities Symposium: A Conversation On Freedom, Messiah University

Humanities Symposium

Keynote Lecture: Troubling the Narratives of a Democratic Nation: "Whose Stories Are These?" Jacqueline Jones Royster

Date: Thursday, March 4th, 2021

In 2020, the Center for Public Humanities had the remarkable opportunity to join “The Commonwealth Monument project,” a coalition of citizens, organizations, educators, and legislators dedicated to establishing a new bronze monument on the Pennsylvania State Capitol that honors Harrisburg’s rich African American history and pays tribute to the U.S. Constitution’s 15th and 19th amendments, which secured the vote for African Americans and for women. The dedication of this new monument, “A Gathering at the Crossroads” (pictured above) took …

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 …

History And Memory Of The Old Eighth Ward, Rachel Williams

Student Scholarship

The City Beautiful movement in Harrisburg brought many improve- ments to the capital city, but it also brought destruction to the diverse neighborhood directly east of the capitol building, known today as the “Old Eighth Ward.” Even though this community no longer exists, newspaper accounts of its razing and digital mapping of the families of the Old Eighth Ward preserve this story of displacement within public memory.

Review: M.B.B. Biskupski, The United States And The Rebirth Of Poland, 1914-1918, Robin Lauermann

Educator Scholarship

By the turn of the 20th century, a significant wave of immigrants from Poland had fled their homeland as it marked over one hundred years under partition rule by the Austro-Hungarian, German and Russian empires. As they resettled in diaspora, including a significant number in the United States, they formed a significant base of political activity to influence other nations’ foreign policies In this scrupulously detailed work, M.B.B. Biskupski characterizes the activities by various civic associations of Polonia and their leaders to raise American consciousness, first for relief and military support of the war-ravaged lands of Poland and then for …

Seeking Shalom In The Old Eighth Ward - With Biography Of Dr. Rabbi Nachman Heller, Drew Hermeling, Digital Harrisburg

Look Up, Look Out

The Old Eighth Ward was the center of Harrisburg’s Litvak–or Lithuanian Jewish–community prior to the Capitol expansion. While an older German Jewish population was already thriving in the city, the newly arriving Litvak found it difficult to integrate with the pre-existing community. Two synagogues were therefore founded in the ward, Kesher Israel and Chisuk Emuna. The presence of both of these congregations serves not only as a testament to the vibrancy of the Jewish community, but also the diversity among these co-religionists.

Political Life In The Old Eighth Ward - With Biography Of Anne Amos, Drew Hermeling, Digital Harrisburg

Look Up, Look Out

The Old Eighth Ward was a very politically active community. Many citizens were actively involved in a variety of civic organizations to bring about political change in the community. Voting was prominent topic of discussion, especially among black men in the community. Prior to 1838, men of color enjoyed voting privileges in Harrisburg and throughout the state of Pennsylvania, but in 1838, the Pennsylvanian Constitutional Convention disallowed the African American men in Harrisburg the ability to vote. The vote was reinstated for African American men across the country with the passing of the fifteenth amendment in February of 1870. Although …

Church Communities Of The Old Eighth Ward - With Biography Of Jacob Compton, Drew Hermeling, Digital Harrisburg

Look Up, Look Out

The churches of the Old Eighth Ward were more than just houses of worship. They served as sites of community cohesion, provided primary schooling for many of the ward’s children, and hosted organizers, politicians, and abolitionists.

Wesley Union AME Zion Church was in many ways the heart of the African-American community in the Old Eighth Ward. Originally established in a log cabin at Third and Mulberry streets, the larger brick church at the corner of Tanner Alley and South Street was built in 1839. The Rev. David Stevens grew the early congregation, overseeing an expansion of their property. The Rev. …

City Beautiful & Capitol Extension - With Biography Of Dr. William H. Jones, Drew Hermeling, Digital Harrisburg

Look Up, Look Out

At the turn of the century, Harrisburg was at a crossroads. The city was physically deteriorating and had lost its prestige as a thriving steel and railroad center. The rest of America moved on from its industrial boom, and Harrisburg was left behind. Faced with losing its status as a capital city, a change had to be made. Many civic reformers began to speak up about the drastic need for better health conditions in the city. After delivering a rallying speech to the Harrisburg Board of Trade in December 1900, a pivotal local leader, Mira Lloyd Dock ignited an …

Making A Home In The Old Eighth Ward - With Biography Of Hannah Braxton Jones, Drew Hermeling, Digital Harrisburg

Look Up, Look Out

According to the 1900 census, just over 50,000 people called Harrisburg their home. Of these 50,000 people, 4,435 lived in the Old Eighth Ward. The eighth ward was disproportionately occupied by African-American residents. A total of 1,507 African Americans lived in the Old Eighth Ward, which comprised about 34% of the population of this ward. This percentage is quite large in comparison to other wards in the city. Second to the eighth ward, the ward with the largest African American population was the second ward; African Americans comprising about 11% of the population. In contrast, the tenth ward was …

The Old Eighth: Gateway To The Capitol - With Biography Of Gwendolyn Bennett, Drew Hermeling, Digital Harrisburg

Look Up, Look Out

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Harrisburg began to develop as an industrial center. Railroad steel, cigars, flour, shoes, and many other businesses thrived, especially in the Eighth Ward. A large thoroughfare was required in order to accommodate the movement of raw materials throughout the city for processing. Like most industrial societies, Harrisburg utilized water as a means of transportation, with the Susquehanna River flowing alongside the southern border of the city. The Harrisburg canal system was started in a similar manner as the City Beautiful movement– through internal efforts. In 1822, the Harrisburg Canal, Fire Insurance and Water …

Educational Reform In The Old Eighth Ward - With Biography Of William Howard Day, Drew Hermeling, Digital Harrisburg

Look Up, Look Out

In the early days of the Old Eighth Ward, education was segregated and the responsibility of church communities. Thomas Dorsey founded a school for “colored children, both free and bound,” in 1817 in the Wesley Union AME Zion church building. Eventually, a three story building, located between the Jennings Foundry and the Wesley Union church, known as “Franklin Hall” became the primary educational home of the Ward’s pupils. However, Franklin Hall was poorly suited for educating children. J. Howard Wert, writing in the Patriot, described the conditions there, stating that they

“were of the poorest; the rooms were destitute of …

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Great Speakers Of The Old Eighth Ward - With Biography Of Frances Harper, Digital Harrisburg, Drew Hermeling

Look Up, Look Out

The Old Eighth Ward was one of Harrisburg’s most diverse neighborhoods in the later 19th and early 20th centuries. The district’s varied ethnic and racial composition was unparalleled elsewhere in the city, and its residents were engaged in a range of occupations. Many were run-of-the-mill laborers who found employment in the nearby railroads and manufacturing facilities. Others represented a variety of professional classes: small business owners, lawyers, preachers, nurses, and teachers, among others. From the period before the Civil War to the opening years of the 20th century, the Old Eighth hosted numerous social events including public speeches from influential …

Vice And Virtue Of The Old Eighth Ward - With Biography Of Joseph L. Thomas, Digital Harrisburg, Drew Hermeling

Look Up, Look Out

One of the most exhaustive resources for studying the Old Eighth Ward is a series of columns published in the Patriot newspaper between 1912 and 1913 penned by local educator and editorialist, J. Howard Wert, titled “Passing of the Old Eighth.” A white Civil War veteran, he was politically progressive for the time, and while he was active in the Harrisburg school system, he was a strident advocate for school integration, often partnering with the African-American educational reformer, William Howard Day. However, Wert was also a staunch advocate for the Capitol expansion project and the City Beautiful movement and …

A Lasting Legacy: E. J. Swalm’S Story Of Conscientious Objection During World War I, Beth Mark

Library Staff Presentations & Publications

Ernest John Swalm, despite being a part of a peace church, was drafted into World War I. In this article, Beth Mark, a librarian from Messiah University, discusses how he has become an symbol for historic peace churches, such as Mennonite and Brethren in Christ, for his experiences as a conscientious objector.

Spaces Of Fear: Race, Housing, And Travel In South Central Pa, Arion Dominique, David Michael

Student Scholarship

Our poster explores the daily experiences of African Americans, and other minorities, in South Central PA, in the 20th century, with regard to housing and travel. It details the various difficulties that these groups encountered in the basic pursuit of equitable housing opportunities and safe travel/temporary lodging – a pursuit mired in socially enforced and legalized segregation and arising from long- standing white anxieties about people of color.

African Americans and other minorities had to learn how to navigate segregated landscapes in ways that their white counterparts were exempt from. Whites not only enjoyed a life free from racial restrictions …

'From Your Loving Isaac': A Nineteenth-Century Courtship, Beth Mark

Library Staff Presentations & Publications

For sixty years a packet of late nineteenth-century love letters were stored away in the attic of the Isaac Swalm farm near Duntroon, Ontario. The letters and a photograph, discovered by Isaac's son, Ernest John (E.J.) Swalm, were written by Isaac to his first love, Minnie Kelly.

These very personal letters of love and faith provide an intimate look at a young man, newly converted to the Brethren in Christ, who is trying to explain his conversion and "plain" lifestyle to his beloved (but Presbyterian) Minnie Kelly. The correspondence is a blend of typical love letters, including declarations of hope …

Maggie Leah Steckley Swalm: A Teacher Of Good Things, Beth Mark, Louann Swalm Walker

Library Staff Presentations & Publications

Maggie Leah Steckley Swalm was born March 6, 1895 in Whitchurch Township near Stouffville, Ontario. She was the eighth children of fourteen. Her father was Bishop Peter Steckley. In January of 1920, Maggie married E.J. Swalm and moved to the farm at Duntrron where she resided until her death on April 15, 1984.

This article appeared in a somewhat shorter form in the third book of Canadian Brethren in Christ biographies, released in August 2006.

Putting The Amish To Work: Mennonites And The Amish Culture Market, 1950-1975, David Weaver-Zercher

Bible & Religion Educator Scholarship

Analyzes Mennonite representations of the Amish during the third quarter of the twentieth century in the United States. Discussion on the culture of Amish and Mennonite communities in Pennsylavania; Views of Grant Stoltzfus, a Mennonite churchman, on the way Amish and Mennonite cultures are depicted by the mass media.