Reimagining Harrisburg's Old Eighth Ward Through Poetry
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Winter 2020
Abstract
This article discusses how poetry helped a digital history project go public. In the spring of 2018 Messiah College's Center for Public Humanities began hosting poetry workshops for Harrisburg middle school students that focused on the vanished community of the Old Eighth Ward. With the help of the 1910 federal census data accessible through the Digital Harrisburg website, students engaged this little-known history of their hometown through field trips followed by poetry workshops. As students imagined the world through the lens of a person in the Old Eighth Ward, they drew on their own experiences and imagination. Published and performed for diverse audiences in different venues, these poems invite a wider public to rethink the City Beautiful movement as they reimagine the once vibrant community.
Recommended Citation
Corey, Jean, "Reimagining Harrisburg's Old Eighth Ward Through Poetry" (2020). Pennsylvania History Articles. 9.
https://mosaic.messiah.edu/pahistory/9
Comments
This edited collection was developed and published in tandem with the IIPT-Commonwealth Monument Project (2018-2020), with support and funding from Messiah University's Center for Public Humanities and the Council of Independent College's Humanities Research for the Public Good Grant Program.
Originally published as:
Corey, Jean Thompson. (2020). Reimagining harrisburg’s old eighth ward through poetry. Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies, 87(1), 192. https://doi.org/10.5325/pennhistory.87.1.0192.