Social History Commons^™

Engineering At Gettysburg College, William C. Darrah

College History Publications

This little volume narrates the story of engineering instruction at Gettysburg College, particularly of the Engineering Department that functioned from 1912 to 1940. It includes also an account of the apparently first venture in engineering by an American liberal arts college, undertaken during the brief association of the renowned Herman Haupt with Gettysburg College between 1837 and 1847.

Time dims our memories. Although there are more than fifty living alumni who were graduated from the Engineering Department, many Gettysburgians are unaware of its existence and accomplishments. The purpose of this story is to place on record a significant aspect of …

Yonder Beautiful And Stately College Edifice : A History Of Pennsylvania Hall (Old Dorm), Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Charles H. Glatfelter, Michael J. Birkner

Gettysburg College Faculty Books

On January 21, 1834 Thaddeus Stevens, a freshman member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from Adams County, rose in that body to speak in favor of a bill appropriating a sum of money to the new college at Gettysburg in whose fortunes he had become deeply interested. After answering the arguments of his colleague from Adams County, who had just spoken against the bill, Stevens undertook to explain in a few words the predicament in which the fledgling college found itself: It has been chartered two years ; and organized about eighteen months. It has now ninety-eight students, without …

4. The Enlightenment Again Under Attack, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XIX: An Analysis of the Contemporary World’s Search for Meaning

Until recently, and especially in the United States, Western Civilization has been dominated by Enlightenment thought, tempered by the criticisms of the nineteenth century. One of the current questions is whether this strand of thought is adequate to cope with the problems of the age of anxiety. Those who believe that the Enlightenment ideas are still basically sound suggest the giving up of transcendent or long-term goals in favor of more immediate aims. Equality and freedom are, in such a context better when they apply to more people than when they apply to fewer. According to this way of thinking, …

8. Road To World War Ii (1931-1939), Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XVIII: The Western World in the Twentieth Century: The Historical Setting

In the history of international relations, the 1920's are characterized by tidying up after the "war to make the world safe for democracy;" the 1930's, by preparations for World War II. In general, the causes of the renewal of global war are the same as those listed earlier for World War I, with several major additions. [excerpt]

1. An Introduction To The Enlightenment, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section X: The Eighteenth Century Enlightenment

The word "Enlightenment" is used to indicate the eighteenth century in the history of ideas of the Western World. It is a word that indicates a sum of ideas about the character of man, his beliefs and activities, and the universe. These ideas have three common assumptions which are at the root of what we mean by the Enlightenment. The thinkers and writers of this period assumed that reason and knowledge will reveal an order inherent in the universe; will disclose the truth about religion, economics, politics, morals - every aspect of life; and, that when man discovers the order …

Xi. The Revolutionary Years, 1776-1815, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XI: The Revolutionary Wars, 1776-1815

The intellectual ferment of the eighteenth century gave rise to a popular discontent with the status quo which culminated in two major revolutionary upheavals near the end of that century. We may fully understand the distinctive features of contemporary Western society only as we consider the transformations wrought by the American and French Revolutions. Discontent deep enough to produce widespread resistance to constituted authority is not an infrequent social phenomenon, but rarely has it resulted in movements which so profoundly rent the fabric of society as in the years between 1776 and 1815. A logical fulfillment of the intellectual unrest …

2. The French Revolution, 1789-1815, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XI: The Revolutionary Wars, 1776-1815

"A torch lighted in the forests of America set all Europe in conflagration." Thus Voltaire had written concerning the impact of the American Revolution on the Old World. French intellectuals had long admired Newtonian science and Lockean political theory. The successful revolutions in England in 1688 and in America a century later emphasized the anachronistic nature of the status quo in eighteenth century France. It is perhaps not entirely coincidental that in the year when Americans completed their revolution the French began a movement which was to involve practically the entire European continent, drastically reshape its social and political institutions, …

1. The American Revolution, 1776-1789, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XI: The Revolutionary Wars, 1776-1815

The long-range causes for the American Revolution may be found in the different social environment developing in England and America during previous decades. John Adams once wrote: "The Revolution was effected before the war commenced, in the minds and hearts of the people." For over a century and a half English colonists in North America had been transforming their Old World culture into something greatly different. The wilderness conditions of the new land generally promoted wider economic opportunity. England's colonial administration allowed extensive experience in self-government in her American possessions. Together these two developments introduced a high degree of social …

5. Some Social Effects Of The Industrial Revolution, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XIV: The Industrial Revolution, Classical Economics, and Economic Liberalism

The demands made by industrialization upon the worker were often severe, whether in England or France, Russia or the United States. He had to give up the somewhat desultory habits of work which had usually sufficed him and his ancestors from the beginnings of time. Significantly enough, one of Arkwright's first steps after establishing his factory was to draw up a code of discipline designed to keep his employees steadily on the job. The worker also gave up the ownership of his tools, if he had not already done so under the domestic system, and was thus left a proletarian, …

2. Karl Marx, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XVI: Developments in Socialism, 1848-1914

With the 1840's the socialist heritage underwent profound changes. Most significantly, these may be attributed to the influence of Karl Marx, (1818-1883), in whose person were joined both the intellectual critic and the practical revolutionary. The import of his life, if any one meaning can be drawn from it, lay in the works to which he gave himself with single-minded devotion. All else was assigned lower priority: material comfort, personal welfare, respectability. Even the poverty and suffering of his family, though bitterly and painfully experienced, were not permitted to sway the concentration he felt compelled to bring to his study, …

2. The Postwar Scene, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XVIII: The Western World in the Twentieth Century: The Historical Setting

Turning now from the immediate diplomatic aftermath of World War I, let us examine some major features of Western Civilization during what has been called the long weekend, the two decades between that war and World War II (1919-1939). We will note first the way in which the West generated within itself economic stresses, local and general, which prevented it from realizing the tremendous potential created by continuing technological advances. Then we will note how these economic changes were paralleled by changes in social organization and attitudes. We will see these new attitudes in conflict with each other and with …

5. The Democracies Between The Wars (1919-1939), Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XVIII: The Western World in the Twentieth Century: The Historical Setting

At first glance, the events of World War I seemed to be a triumphant vindication of the spirit of 1848. It was the leading democratic great powers - Britain, France, and the United States - who had emerged the victors. In the political reconstruction of Europe, republics had replaces many monarchies. West of Russia, new and apparently democratic constitutions were established in Germany, Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, and Yugoslavia. Yet the sad truth was that by the outbreak of World War II in 1939 the majority of the once democratic states of central and eastern Europe …

4. The Impact On Society (1919-1939), Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XVIII: The Western World in the Twentieth Century: The Historical Setting

Anything as revolutionary as World War I could not help but convulse the social order. Within each state the sense of community induced by the common war effort did not survive into the postwar world, with its tensions old and new. Demobilized soldiers, trained to fight, found it difficult to adjust themselves to civilian life. The uncertainties of war, revolution, and economic instability undermined confidence among individuals, classes, and states. Only in a very narrow sense did the armistice of 1918 bring peace. [excerpt]

1. Some Major Factors Of The Contemporary Social World: The American Example, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XIX: An Analysis of the Contemporary World’s Search for Meaning

One of the major factors of the contemporary social world is industrialization. Recent industrial developments have moved in two major directions. First, there has been a tremendous increase in technological innovation, reaching the stage which we call automation. The machines which we have developed are doing their work only too well, including some tasks which we had long though could be done only by human hands and heads. Not only the blue-collar worker but also the white-collar worker seems to be faced with the possibility of technological unemployment. [excerpt]

3. Sociology, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XXI: Meaning in the Social Sciences

Sociology is one of the sciences of human behavior that has grown out of Enlightenment thought. In its present method and theory there is substantially nothing that was not anticipated by gifted seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth century thinkers and their intellectual offspring in the Enlightenment tradition. From particular aspects of the grand theoretical syntheses that were characteristic of these centuries, a process of refinement and specialization has produced the sociology of the present day. [excerpt]

5. The Search For Meaning, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XIX: An Analysis of the Contemporary World’s Search for Meaning

It is possible to draw certain parallels between the West's present predicament and similar periods of radical change and the dislocation of values, and so to suggest that this sort of thing has happened before, that man has always come our of such situations and landed on his feet, that history is basically cyclical, and that there is no need to be unduly alarmed about our contemporary situation. While it is possible to make a very convincing case for this argument, there are three major factors which are new today. Thanks to our past territorial expansion and new techniques of …

Xvi. Developments In Socialism, (1848-1914), Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XVI: Developments in Socialism, 1848-1914

The era between the revolutionary upheavals in Europe in 1848 and the opening of World War I was one of immense changes. Encompassing such developments as nationalism, the Industrial Revolution, the growth of political and economic liberalism, and the rise of the social sciences, this period contributed some of the most significant ideas and institutions which characterize contemporary Western Civilization. Their impact. Indeed, now challenges virtually the entire world.

In the same age there arose the phenomenon of socialism, a family name for a group of ideas which received increasing attention in the latter half of the nineteenth century as …

1. Introduction, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XXI: Meaning in the Social Sciences

Vastly increased research and a sounder technique in history in the nineteenth century had two influences on the social sciences. When an enthusiasm for the records of history was combined with the evolutionary perspective, it often resulted in the search for and the imposition of patterns of development on history in general or on the history of particular subject matters such as economics, politics, morals, or religion. Social scientists looked to history for explanations, in the hope of finding inevitable laws, stages of development, or the forces that moved human society. As historians worked out a critical method for their …