Blog Category: News, page 2

The deadline for comments to our Knight News Challenge proposal has been extended to March 29. Please see the links in the next post – it only takes two clicks to “like” us, and we also welcome comments, suggestions, and questions. This week we have more than doubled our “likes” – thank you! This is vital to our chances of moving to the next round of consideration.

We’re delighted to see our recently published essay about Admiral Wilson Boulevard, by Bart Everts, featured in the New Jersey edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Learn more about the author and the surprising history of the highway in Kevin Riordan’s column, “Camden’s Boulevard of Unfulfilled Dreams.”

The author of our essay about St. Patrick’s Day, Mikaela Maria, appeared on CBS3 news on March 17 to provide historical background about the holiday. Reporter David Spunt posted a portion of the interview and his additional tracking of St. Patrick’s Day in Philadelphia on the CBS3 website. (Reporters, contact us any time you need to reach our expert authors, and follow the @Backgrounders Twitter feed for additional context to the news.)

Congratulations to Inga Saffron of The Philadelphia Inquirer, who is the 2014 recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for criticism. Inga helped us launch the Encyclopedia with her theme essay on “Green Country Town,” which now anchors our growing coverage of topics related to the natural and built environment.

Join us at the Philadelphia History Museum on Thursday, September 22, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. as we co-sponsor a conversation about the history and significance of Philadelphia’s Jewelers Row.  Speakers will include Paul Steinke, Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia; Hy Goldberg, Jewelers Row Business Association; Bob Skiba, Association of Philadelphia Tour Guides; and representatives from Visit Philadelphia.  The program is free, but registration is required. 

We are pleased to announce the creation of a list-serv to build and sustain the growing community of interest in The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia. Anyone who would like to receive periodic updates about the project is invited to join the list. To join, send an e-mail to Howard Gillette at hfg@camden.rutgers.edu or add a comment expressing your interest to this post.

We are pleased to welcome the National Constitution Center to our Civic Advisory Board.  These important partners provide guidance to assure that The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia project creates civic benefits and meets community needs.  To learn more about the National Constitution Center, visit the web site http://www.constitutioncenter.org .

Our project reached an important milestone this week with the awarding of a two-year, $300,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. We are so grateful to the many organizations and individuals who have brought our project to this point: more than thirty partner organizations, more than 150 authors and editors, our digital publishing team and colleagues at our home base at Rutgers-Camden, and of course the users of the encyclopedia who attend our events, offer valuable suggestions, and use this resource every day. The NEH funds will support the next two-year period of accelerated content development, especially topics that span the Greater Philadelphia region.  Check the site often and watch us grow!

Teachers, please join us on Wednesday, November 2, at 4:30 p.m. for a free webinar tutorial with our education outreach coordinator, Melissa Callahan. The webinar will provide an overview of the resources available from The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia and offer ways in which students might use those resources to create an outstanding National History Day project. Once you sign up for the webinar you will receive a confirmation email.

The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia is expanding and opening new subject categories with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Mayor’s Fund for Philadelphia, and Poor Richard’s Charitable Trust. To join more than one hundred leading and emerging scholars who have already contributed to this peer-reviewed, digital-first project, let us know your choice of topics.

To see the list of topics available link here.

The scope of the project includes the city of Philadelphia and the surrounding region of southeastern Pennsylvania, South Jersey, and northern Delaware. Prospective authors must have expertise in their chosen subjects demonstrated by previous publications and/or advanced training in historical research. Authors will have the opportunity to select feasible deadlines and will have the option of volunteering or receiving modest stipends. To express interest, please send an email describing your qualifications and specifying topics of interest to the editor-in-chief, Charlene Mires, cmires@camden.rutgers.edu. No attachments, please. Graduate students, please include the name and email address of an academic reference.

Guidelines for writers:
https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/about/guidelines-for-writers/

Roster of authors:
https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/category/authors/

Editors and staff:
https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/about/editors/

We’re pleased to call attention to a new documentary produced by area high school and college students under the direction of one of the Encyclopedia project’s advisers, Professor Amy Hillier at the University of Pennsylvania.  Legacy of Courage: W.E.B. DuBois and The Philadelphia Negro, was created as part of the Mapping DuBois Project.

To commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Thirteenth Amendment and the abolition of slavery, local cultural institutions will host screenings of clips from Created Equal: America’s Civil Rights Struggle.  The African American Museum in Philadelphia (AAMP), Historical Society of Pennsylvania (HSP), the National Constitution Center (NCC), and the Philadelphia History Museum (PHM) have also developed programming using these video clips to launch larger explorations of whether or not equality is ensured with the passage of new laws or amendments.  For details about these free events, which are co-sponsored by The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia, please visit our events page.

These four documentaries feature riveting new footage illustrating the history of civil rights in America. Each film tells remarkable stories of individuals who challenged the social and legal status quo of deeply rooted institutions, from slavery to segregation. Abolitionists, Slavery by Another Name, The Loving Story, and Freedom Riders include dramatic scenes of incidents in the 150-year effort to achieve equal rights for all. Presentations and discussions featured in the AAMP, HSP, NCC, and PHM programs will focus on the specific themes and subjects of the documentary series.

“We are thankful to the NEH and Gilder Lehrman Institute for the ability to bring these programs to Philadelphia. It is an opportune time to be having these conversations,” said Beth Twiss Houting, HSP’s Senior Director of Programs and Services.

Educators will also be able to receive ACT 48/CEU credits at each Created Equal? event. A teacher workshop on February 28 will also focus on civil rights struggles.

The Created Equal film set and public programs have been made possible by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, as part of its Bridging Cultures initiative, in partnership with the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.

We are pleased to announce new financial support for The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia project.  From The Mayor’s Fund for Philadelphia, the project has received a grant of $25,000. In addition, Poor Richard’s Charitable Trust has contributed $2,500.  These much-needed awards will help us to continue to expand the Encyclopedia’s content, especially in ways that serve the needs of the region’s students and teachers. We extend our thanks to these valued partners as we continue fund-raising efforts among individuals, corporations, and foundations.

We are pleased to share the news of a new book by Silas Chamberlin, author of the essay about recreational trails in The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia.  His book, On the Trail: A History of American Hiking, is a history of American hikers and their role in creating the nation’s trail system.  According to Yale University Press:

In the mid-nineteenth century urban walking clubs emerged in the United States. A little more than a century later, tens of millions of Americans were hiking on trails blazed in every region of the country. This groundbreaking book is the first full account of the unique history of the American hiking community and its rich, nationwide culture.

Delving into unexplored archives, including those of the Appalachian Mountain Club, Sierra Club, Green Mountain Club, and many others, Silas Chamberlin recounts the activities of hikers who over many decades formed clubs, built trails, and advocated for environmental protection. He also discusses the shifting attitudes of the late 1960s and early 1970s when ideas about traditional volunteerism shifted and new hikers came to see trail blazing and maintenance as government responsibilities. Chamberlin explores the implications for hiking groups, future club leaders, and the millions of others who find happiness, inspiration, and better health on America’s trails.

Chamberlin will discuss and sign his book at the Penn Book Center, 130 S. Thirty-Fourth Street, Philadelphia, on Thursday, December 8, at 6:30 p.m.  For more information, link here.

It’s been a busy year since we launched the Encyclopedia project with a Civic Partnership and Planning Workshop in April 2009.  To summarize our progress and challenges, we have prepared a brief annual report.  Thanks to all of our partners and the new friends we are making at branch libraries and through the Greater Philadelphia Roundtable.  Please continue to add to these discussions on our Events page and join us for our additional programs this spring.

Welcome to the newly enhanced Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia! As you explore our website, you will discover an array of new features and pathways for exploring our growing project. This enhanced digital platform builds upon suggestions from our users and partners, and it will allow us to continue to expand and take greater advantage of the capabilities of digital publishing.  Take a look around!

Browse by geography. Explore topics through maps of sections of Philadelphia and counties in the region.

Browse by time period. Go to the timeline and link to any of our nine time periods. For each, you’ll find related topics as well as a more detailed timeline, an image gallery, topics on a map, links, and a related reading list.

Connect headlines and history. We have partnered with WHYY NewsWorks to make connections with the news through the Backgrounders feature on our home page and on individual topic pages.

Enhanced topic pages. We have improved our design and added links to additional digital resources so that each essay serves as a topical hub to resources throughout the region.

New theme pages.  Our featured essays on themes such as “City of Brotherly Love” and “Workshop of the World” now have an enhanced presence on pages that also feature related topics, timelines, maps, and image galleries.

Author index. At a glance, this page displays biographical information about our authors and provides links to their essays.

Greater coverage. With the addition of timelines for themes and time periods, we provide a more comprehensive chronology of the region.

Greater accessibility. We have sharpened our typography to make the text more readable for individuals with low vision, and we have implemented other accessibility features.

More to come. Our site also enables browsing through artifacts, and we are working with the Philadelphia History Museum to add objects using virtual-reality photography.  Also watch for additional maps and, of course, more topics as we continue to build The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia. For all of this, we extend thanks for the participation of our users and partners and for the work of our digital publishing team. Implementation of the enhanced website, created in partnership with the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, was made possible by a generous grant from the William Penn Foundation to the Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities (the institutional home of the Encyclopedia). Concept designs, funded by a planning grant to the University of Pennsylvania Press by the Barra Foundation, were created by Brian T. Jacobs with input from participants in THATCamp Philly.

The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia is a project of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities, in cooperation with our numerous civic partners, associate editors, and advisers.  The new mailing address for the project is: The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia, Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities,  Department of History, Rutgers University, Camden, NJ  08102.

We are pleased to present new content and a new look for The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia web site. Thanks to Brian Jacobs at Avencia Inc., our site is more attractive, easier to navigate, and offers more ways to become involved with the project. The site also demonstrates our commitment to highlight the resources of the region by presenting and linking organizations, historic sites, and collections. Our banner images come from the collections of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; the color thumbnail photographs appear by courtesy of ushistory.org; and our home page features historical photographs from the Philadelphia City Archives.

Along with the new look, we introduce the first essays produced for the Encyclopedia.  Each includes links to historic sites and collections, and each offers the opportunity to add stories and offer suggestions or corrections. Watch for new topics as we begin to build The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia!

At the home base of The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities (MARCH) at Rutgers-Camden, students and recent alumni play important roles in producing each new topic. In the process they gain a deeper understanding of regional history and build skills in digital publishing. Read more about these activities and other public humanities news on the MARCH website.

Al Lee, one of the discussion facilitators at the Greater Philadelphia Roundtable program on “Philadelphia, the Place that Loves You Back,” provided us with this report:

If you were showing someone around Philadelphia, where would you take them? Art museums? Restaurants? Historic sites? I posed that question for group discussion during the Greater Philadelphia Roundtable Series “Philadelphia, The Place that Loves you Back.”

Everyone knows that Philadelphia is home to the iconic symbol, the Liberty Bell. But is that all we’re known for? Or is it cheesesteaks and a fictional boxer who served as the ultimate underdog? Maybe it’s none of the above and we’re really packing them in due to our unique shops and independent boutiques. Are they on your “ to do list ?”

Here is what a sample of local Philadelphians said:

“I would definitely recommend talking them to Independence Hall and Society Hill.”

“I don’t think people know how big Philadelphia really is. I would take them to the outskirts such as Chestnut Hill, Germantown and especially Longwood Gardens.

“I would take them where I would like to hang out on weekends. The Reading Terminal Market. Rittenhouse Square. Farmers Markets.  First Fridays. I love the Architectural Walking tours offered by the Preservation Alliance of Greater Philadelphia. College Campuses and whatever events are coming up on the calendar.”

“No question, I would be sure they saw all the art galleries and ethnic neighborhoods including sections of Chinatown, South Philly, and West Philly. We would go on a cultural eating tour and enjoy all the outdoor art in the process.”

From this small survey, many did not even mention seeing the Liberty Bell or having a cheesesteak. Maybe we should change the slogan to “Philadelphia, America’s best kept secret.”

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Thanks to Al and all of our volunteer discussion facilitators!  Don’t miss the next Greater Philadelphia Roundtable – the last in our current series – coming up on March 28.  For information and advance registration, visit https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/events.