Category: What’s New?

The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia is extending its call for authors to include new subject categories. You can join more than 150 leading and emerging scholars who have already contributed to this peer-reviewed, digital-first project. Authors will have the opportunity
to select feasible deadlines and will have the option of volunteering or receiving modest stipends. Prospective authors must have expertise
in their chosen subjects demonstrated by previous publications and/or advanced training in historical research. For a list of available assignments see: https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/summer-2015-expansion-new-assignments-available/[1]

the Princeton-Mellon Initiative in Architecture, Urbanism, and the Humanities in its inaugural year. We are excited to enter our sophomore year and are in the process of devising opportunities for graduate student participation. We are soliciting interest from the graduate student community for participation in our Research Forum, informal works in progress series, and skill building workshops, both over the summer and during the 2015-16 academic year. Summer 2015 Workshops – We are planning either a daylong event, or a series of shorter sessions, where graduate students will have a chance to discuss and get feedback on their work. This program should of particular interest to those working on dissertation proposals this summer, but is open to all. Works in Progress, 2015-16 – Held roughly twice a month in the fall and spring semesters, this workshop provides students and faculty have the opportunity to get feedback on their work (chapters, articles, conference papers, job talks, and book proposals) – at all levels of progress –in a relaxed and informal setting. All disciplines are welcome. Skill-building workshops, 2015-16 – We plan to organize a series of seminars on subjects including mapping and data visualization throughout the 2015-16 academic year. Mellon Forum for Research on the Urban Environment – The intellectual core of the Princeton-Mellon Initiative, the Mellon Forum is an ongoing, flexible colloquium for the discussion and critique of faculty and graduate student research that engages urban topics across disciplines. Faculty and students are given the opportunity to present their research to the Princeton-Mellon community, whether a design, model, film chapter, performance, or particular source or problem for discussion. If you have research that you’d like to present, we are accepting presentation proposals for our 2015-16 Research Forum on the Built Environment on the theme of City as Home. We encourage a broad understanding of “Home” that may include issues and themes ranging from Property, Form, Belonging, and Family, to Housing, Habitation, and Futures, among others. These are only a fraction of the programs and opportunities we have planned for students and emerging scholars in the coming academic year. If you have an interest in participating in one or more of these programs, please fill out the following web form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1jXFYHBgJQj9eEKuwFgsCKQJm-2fahNfBmaj8hUuqctM/viewform

It has been a busy spring for our graduate students. Mikaela Maria and Matthew White gave a presentation on “Commuters and Communities” about our digital work about the relationship between Camden and Rutgers University Camden at the National Council of Public History meeting in Nashville. Matt White also gave presentations at the ALHFAM meeting entitled “Do You Guys Own Slaves: A Case Study of a High-Minded Living History Event” and a paper at the CUNY EARS conference entitled “‘Mexico…Will Reward All of Our Hopes’: the End of the Civil War, Slavery, and Colonization in Mexico.”

Two of our graduate students, Leslie Peck & Lewis Whilden, presented papers at the Barnes Club Conference in Philadelphia this year. Their presentations are described below. Women and Poverty in the Progressive Era: The Story of Sarah and Nellie Tiffany. by Leslie Peck Poverty, and the issues that surround it have long been a part of American political, cultural, and religious discourse. But as theologians, civic leaders, and charity organizers debated about the causes of poverty and what should be done about it women struggled to earn a living, provide for dependent children, and balance culture and gender norms in a society that has often left them unsupported and on the margins. This paper follows the lives of two such women: Sarah and Nellie Tiffany. It follows their stories through newspapers, orphan asylum records, census records, personal correspondence, and family lore. In addition, it places their experiences in the larger context of women’s issues in the early twentieth century. But this is also a family story, and demonstrates that family history can be treated as – history. It also reminds us that old family stories can teach powerful lessons. “Reimagining Communities in the Image of Righteousness: The “Friends of Education” and the Fight for Public Instruction in New Jersey” by Lewis Whilden Inspired by a job imitating a 19th century schoolmaster for children, my Barnes conference presentation explored the early history of the fight for public education in the state of New Jersey. What emerged from the documents was a popular, upper middle class Antebellum activist movement called the “Friends of Education,” who used public meetings and newspapers to compel the New Jersey Assembly to pass a limited law in 1829, “An Act to Establish Common Schools.” Steeped in the language of moral reform and the Second Great Awakening, the Friends sought to remake the world in their own image, showing as much concern for the preponderance of drunken schoolmasters as they did for the illiteracy of the poor. As Jacksonians swept the statehouse in the 1830s, the Friends 1829 law would be repealed, but their actions established a thriving “common school lobby,” whose efforts eventually led to publicly funded instruction for all children in New Jersey.