Please help us spread the word about this opportunity: On Wednesday, November 9, starting at 3:30 p.m., the Historical Society of Pennsylvania will host an Act 48 Professional Development workshop, “Workshop of the World.” Building upon the newest essay in The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia, this workshop is free and offers 3 hours of Act 48 credits. Learn more about Philadelphia’s industries and the people who worked in them, and consider new ways to introduce the topics to students. The program will include an opportunity to get up close with rarely exhibited artifacts and documents and to discuss with peers creative and relevant means of including industrialization in your curriculum. Co-sponsored with The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia in partnership with the Philadelphia History Museum at the Atwater Kent, National Constitution Center, National Archives at Philadelphia, and Independence National Historical Park. Advance registration is required – go to http://www.hsp.org/node/2311 .
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Northeast Philly Spreads the Word
We’re pleased to see a report of the Greater Philadelphia Roundtable program, “Workshop of the World,” on NortheastPhilly.com. Thanks for joining us for this discussion, and we hope you’ll join us again for the “Corrupt and Contented” discussion on November 15.
Added Features for This Week’s Roundtable, “Workshop of the World”
We’re looking forward to our next program in the Greater Philadelphia Roundtable series — “Workshop of the World,” coming up this Wednesday, October 19, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at the Tacony branch of the Free Library. Registration is open on our events page, and our new essay on this theme, written by Walter Licht of the University of Pennsylvania, is now published on our web site.
For those who are attending Wednesday, we are pleased to let you know of a couple of added features for the event. First, light refreshments will be available prior to the program, so feel free to arrive anytime after 6 p.m. and enjoy some food and informal conversation prior to the program. Also, we will conclude the evening with the short film about Tacony, “Bridging Yesterday with Tomorrow,” which was produced as part of Scribe Video Center’s Precious Places Community History Project. Looking forward to another informative, enlightening, and enjoyable discussion of Philadelphia’s history and experience!
“City of Scholarly Love”
The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia project appears in the Works in Progress section of the Autumn 2011 issue of The American Scholar, the magazine published by the Phi Beta Kappa Society. Writer Chloe Taft calls attention to our project’s widespread public participation and to our web site as a growing gateway to the region’s digital resources.
A Full Slate of Fall Events
We began the fall with a full house at the “Athens of America” roundtable at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Please join us also for the following events:
This Saturday, October 1, we are a co-sponsor for the Association of Philadelphia Tour Guides’ second annual “Great Twelve-Hour Tour” of Philadelphia. It’s a River to River, Pine to Vine, Rain or Shine event, and it’s free – join any segment or spend the day. For more information, go to: http://www.phillyguides.org/great-tour-2011.aspx .
Registration is open now for the next two programs of the Greater Philadelphia Roundtable discussion series:
- “Workshop of the World” on Wednesday, October 19, 6:30-8 p.m., at the Tacony branch of the Free Library.
- “Corrupt and Contented” on Tuesday, November 15, 6:30-8 p.m. at Philadelphia Media Network Headquarters (the Inquirer Building, 400 N. Broad Street).
For information and advance registration – strongly advised! – go to: https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/events
Teachers, an additional educators’ workshop will be offered on the theme of “Workshop of the World” on Tuesday, November 9, 3:30-6:30 p.m. at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. To sign up for this free workshop, go to: http://www.hsp.org/node/2311
We are so pleased by your interest and participation in creating The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia. Thank you!
“Cradle of Liberty” Program Featured on C-SPAN
This spring more than 400 people in the Philadelphia area participated in the Greater Philadelphia Roundtable, our series of public programs to help shape The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia. The Encyclopedia team and our partners at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania organized this year-long series of programs focusing on major themes in Philadelphia’s history. With funding from the Pennsylvania Humanities Council, each program is preceded by an essay published in The Philadelphia Inquirer and on the web site of WHYY’s Newsworks.org. The June 23 program on the theme “Cradle of Liberty,” held at the National Constitution Center, was taped by C-Span and is now available for viewing online in the C-SPAN Video Library.
“William Penn’s Vision for Philadelphia”
When we first announced plans for an educators’ workshop, little did we know that it would fill up with 30 teachers in less than two days, with a sizable waiting list besides! We have now expanded the “Penn’s Vision” workshop on June 23 to accommodate 10 more educators from the waiting list, and we encourage others to consider attending the evening program, “Cradle of Liberty,” that same evening at the National Constitution Center. The evening program also offers 1.5 hours of Act 48 credit for teachers. For information and to register for “Cradle of Liberty,” visit our events page, or register with the National Constitution Center.
Additional educators’ workshops will be organized, and one way to be sure you receive information promptly is to sign up for our list-serv. Thanks to our partners in this effort, including the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia History Museum at Atwater Kent, the National Archives in Philadelphia, the National Constitution Center, and Independence National Historical Park.
National Attention for the Encyclopedia Project
The latest issue of the newsletter of the National Council on Public History includes a report on our civic engagement activities. Link to the newsletter here and scroll to Page 7.
“Augmented Reality” Cell Phone App Launches
We’re proud to be involved in the prototype augmented-reality cell phone application for phillyhistory.org, the online database of historic photographs and maps from the City Archives, the Water Department, the Office of the City Representative, the Free Library, and the Library Company of Philadelphia, originally built by Azavea Inc. The app is available at no cost for both iPhone and Android smart phones. The Encyclopedia’s editors participated as advisers to the project and coordinated text for a group of photographs, with Doreen Skala researching and writing the text.
Green Country Town: Imagining the Future
One of our goals in the Encyclopedia project is to connect the past with the present, and another is to inspire forward-looking responses to public issues. These goals certainly were evident at our May 10 roundtable program on “The Green Country Town,” which began with this phrase from William Penn but also generated a lively discussion of ideas for the future. In addition to the topic suggestions we received for the Encyclopedia (now posted with our other topics nominations), our comment cards yielded a number of suggestions for city parks. Among them:
- Use parks to teach horticultural plant care.
- Make Logan Circle a pedestrian park again.
- Redesign Independence Mall.
- Use vacant land for temporary sculptures and parks.
- Close Kelly Drive to traffic.
- Connect green spaces in the city with signage or deliberate planting or physical connections between green/open spaces.
These are just a few of the ideas that emerged from the audience of nearly 100 people who attended the program, held at the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. Watch for a complete summary of the evening’s discussion to be posted later this month — and visit our Events page to register for the next opportunity to help shape the Encyclopedia project. Thanks to all who made the “Green Country Town” roundtable such a great success.