Translingual Inheritance by Elizabeth Kimball

Posted by on Mar 14, 2022 in | Comments Off on Translingual Inheritance by Elizabeth Kimball Translingual Inheritance Language Diversity in Early National Philadelphia by Elizabeth Kimball University of Pittsburgh Press, 211 pp., hardcover $50 At the beginning of this book’s first chapter, the author poses the question, “What if we imagined a United States of America not in English?” This may call to mind the murky (and unfounded) legend about German and English supposedly competing...
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Shippensburg’s Locust Grove Cemetery

Posted by on Dec 31, 2019 in | Comments Off on Shippensburg’s Locust Grove Cemetery The town of Shippensburg, in the heart of the Cumberland Valley, was first settled in the 1730s. Some of the Europeans who moved into the area brought African American slaves with them. The exact number of slaves is unknown; it was not until after Pennsylvania’s 1780 Act for the Gradual Emancipation of Slavery that the numbers of slaves and slaveholders were recorded. Nevertheless, Shippensburg,...
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The Meaning of Old Bethel

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Meaning of Old Bethel One problem with the construction, or reconstruction, of black history is the scarcity of original manuscripts, particularly those from the black church which traditionally has been a center of black activity. Because few records remain, misconceptions about the lives and attitudes of blacks have often led to a distortion of their history. The reason that few records exist, however, is not...
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Religious Freedom: Key to Diversity

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Religious Freedom: Key to Diversity “There can be no reason to persecute any man in this world about anything that belongs to the next.” – William Penn   To describe Pennsylvania’s re­ligious diversity is to present the history of its religious develop­ment. Although many other states be­came religiously heterogeneous during the nineteenth century, Pennsylvania was pluralistic even as a colony within...
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The Black Press in Pennsylvania

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Black Press in Pennsylvania I The Black press in Pennsylvania played a leading role in the struggle for Afro-American freedom in the pre-Civil War period. After the war, Afro-American tabloids in the Commonwealth were among the first newspapers to call for the civil rights and enfranchise­ment of Afro-Americans in the South and North. Fre­quently, editors of these newspapers became elected politicians and they used their...
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Black Cultural Development in Pennsylvania Since 1900

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Black Cultural Development in Pennsylvania Since 1900 The cultural history of Blacks in America is varied and diverse. At the same time, it is deeply inter­woven into the whole of America’s cultural fabric. Yet, the significant cultural contributions of Black Amer­icans have been overlooked. Because of this omission, it was not until the beginning of the twentieth century that the art of Afro-Americans began to receive the recognition it so...
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Black Steelworkers in Western Pennsylvania

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Black Steelworkers in Western Pennsylvania Blacks constituted a sizable core of workers in the iron and steel industry of western Penn­sylvania between 1900 and 1950. Most had migrated to the Pittsburgh vicinity from the agricultural South during the two World Wars in hopes of improving their economic plight by obtaining jobs in area mills and foundries. However, racial discrimination prevented the majority of them from advancing beyond...
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The African-American Clan

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on The African-American Clan Recent publications and media presentations have spurred an unusual interest in genealogical research. This enthusiasm extends from the academic community to large numbers of lay people who are attempting to retrace their roots. As is well known, genealogical research in its simplest form results in the ability to construct a blood-line tree that presents the kinship relationships between people...
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Southern-Born Blacks in Harrisburg, 1920-1950

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Southern-Born Blacks in Harrisburg, 1920-1950 Beginning in 1974, John Bodnar, Chief of the Division of History of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, some six other inter­viewers, and I have been taping the rich store of memories and experience that is the possession of Pennsylvania’s ethnic, minority, and working-class groups. This material can provide answers to some important historical questions, among them the...
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Frankford, Philadelphia: A 19th-Century Urban Black Community

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Frankford, Philadelphia: A 19th-Century Urban Black Community In the last two decades, American historians interested in Black history have focused increasingly on both the slave and free Black communities. These scholars have sought to explain how, in the face of white hostility and, at times because of it, Blacks have managed to create a viable setting for themselves and their children. By examining the web of social relationships and cultural traditions...
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