{"id":2573,"date":"2016-09-26T02:36:14","date_gmt":"2016-09-26T02:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-204pinsker\/?p=2573"},"modified":"2016-10-03T00:28:17","modified_gmt":"2016-10-03T00:28:17","slug":"henry-harmans-view-of-19th-century-college-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-204pinsker\/2016\/09\/26\/henry-harmans-view-of-19th-century-college-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Henry Harman’s View of 19th Century College Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

While researching members of the class of 1848 I stumbled across an interesting item related to Dr. Henry Martyn Harman.\u00a0 On the Dickinson College Archives website (“archives website”) I found a letter written by Dr.\u00a0Harman to his father, Andrew Harman under the search results for Henry Harman.\u00a0 This letter gave an eye opening glimpse into college life in the 19th<\/sup> century.\u00a0 In the same file as Dr. Harman\u2019s letter, I found a letter written by Richard N. Edwards to Gilbert Malcolm at Dickinson.\u00a0 This letter explained the reason that Mr. Edwards possessed and sent Dr. Harman\u2019s letter to Dickinson.<\/p>\n

My original item was an obituary of Mrs. Anna M. Thomas, wife of Reverend Thomas Snowden Thomas (class of 1848).\u00a0 The obituary, found in the January 29, 1885 issue of The Christian Advocate<\/em> was interesting in that I learned about her life.\u00a0 Mrs. Thomas was a devoted Methodist who actively tried to work throughout the week in order to\u00a0rest on the Sabbath.\u00a0 With her husband, she taught her children Christian values even on her death bed.<\/p>\n

I lacked interest in this obituary because Mrs. Thomas was not a member of the class of 1848.\u00a0 I decided to research a different item from the archives.\u00a0 That was when I remembered that while researching Dr. Harman, I found a letter that he wrote to his father while at Dickinson in 1846.\u00a0 This was more interesting because Dr. Harman graduated in 1848, and students still write\u00a0home (actually maybe today we\u00a0just call\u00a0and text home).<\/p>\n

\"This<\/a><\/p>\n

I decided to transcribe\u00a0Dr. Harman’s Letter<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0his father.\u00a0 Even though there was already a transcription in the archives, I thought that it would be good practice for me to transcribe this document.\u00a0 Furthermore, I wanted to compare my transcription with the transcription already in the archives. \u00a0The sections that are transcribed in bold\u00a0<\/strong>are transcriptions where I relied on help from the original transcription. \u00a0The sections that are transcribed in\u00a0italics<\/em> are transcriptions where I believe that my transcription was\u00a0correct and the original transcription was\u00a0incorrect.<\/p>\n

I went farther and transcribed\u00a0the envelope<\/a>\u00a0that carried the letter from Dr. Harman to his father.\u00a0 However, this proved a little more difficult as there appeared to be scribbling that I could not read and scribbling\u00a0that did not make much sense.<\/p>\n

\"This<\/a>

This is a picture of the envelope that held Dr. Harman’s letter. (Archives, photographer-Greg Parker)<\/p><\/div>\n

The contents of Dr. Harman\u2019s letter were an interesting glimpse into the affairs of a student in the 19th<\/sup> century.\u00a0 Dr. Harman described his academic successes in his freshman year (supposedly the first semester of the 1845-1846 school year).\u00a0 In his freshman year, he took Algebra and Greek.\u00a0 The 1845-1846 college catalogue confirmed that freshman took Algebra and Geometry as part of their\u00a0Mathematics requirement.\u00a0 The catalogue also confirmed that freshman took Greek and read Xenophon and Homer in that class.<\/p>\n

\"This<\/a>

This photo from the 1845-1846 catalogue shows the course load for freshman. (Archives, photographer-Greg Parker)<\/p><\/div>\n

Interestingly, on the catalogue\u2019s roster of freshman, I found no other names from the 1905 Alumni Record\u2019s roster.\u00a0 That could be because Dr. Harman graduated from Dickinson in three years because he was a freshman in the fall semester of 1845 and a sophomore in the spring semester of 1846.\u00a0 When I looked at the 1847-1848 catalogue, I found many familiar names on the senior roster including John Andrew Jackson Creswell, William Ing, and John Ogden Winner.<\/p>\n

\"This<\/a>

This page from the 1847-1848 catalogue lists the senior class at Dickinson. (Archives, photographer-Greg Parker)<\/p><\/div>\n

Dr. Harman’s letter was not in great shape. \u00a0There were strands of tape criss-crossing the page. \u00a0However, both the letter and the envelope\u00a0were in protective sheets to preserve them. \u00a0The letter and envelope were not faded, yet the handwriting was hard to read. \u00a0Both contents also were complete.<\/p>\n

When looking\u00a0through the file containing Dr. Harman\u2019s letter in the archives, I also found a letter written by Richard N. Edwards, dated 1946.\u00a0 Although dated a century after Dr. Harman\u2019s letter and ninety-eight years after Dr. Harman graduated, this letter was\u00a0relevant to Dr. Harman\u2019s letter.\u00a0 Mr. Edwards sent this letter with Dr. Harman\u2019s letter to Dickinson in April 1946.\u00a0 In the letter, Mr. Edwards explained the provenance of Dr. Harman\u2019s letter.\u00a0 There was no transcription of Mr. Edwards\u2019 letter at the archives.\u00a0 I took it upon myself to\u00a0transcribe\u00a0the letter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"This<\/a>

This is the front of the letter that Mr. Edwards sent with Dr. Harman’s letter to Mr. Malcolm. (Archives, photographer-Greg Parker)<\/p><\/div>\n

Mr. Edwards’ letter was in much better shape than Dr. Harman’s. \u00a0Maybe it was in better shape because it was a century younger than Dr. Harman’s letter. \u00a0It was not fragile and it was legible and a little more readable than Dr. Harman’s letter.<\/p>\n

Dr. Harman\u2019s letter passed many hands.\u00a0 Dr. Harman\u2019s father kept the letter in his family.\u00a0 Then someone in the Harman family gave the letter to a Presbyterian Minister who had a close relationship with the Harmans.\u00a0 That same minister gave the letter to Mr. Edwards, one of Dr. Harman\u2019s Bible students, with the \u201cthought that [Mr. Edwards] would value it more than he,” and Mr. Edwards claimed that he valued it greatly.<\/p>\n

It appeared that Mr. Edwards\u2019 brother, John, also went to Dickinson.\u00a0 After some time researching on the archives website, I found that Mr. Edwards was a member of the class of 1897.\u00a0 I also found that a John Edwards graduated in 1897 too, which contradicted the letter that said John \u201c[was] among [Dr. Harman’s]\u00a0graduates [in 1896]\u201d.\u00a0 I do not know which source is correct, the archives website or Mr. Edwards\u2019 letter.\u00a0 I hope that the archives website would have correct information about Dickinson alums; likewise, I hope that Mr. Edwards knows the year that his brother graduated.<\/p>\n

I could not assume that John and Richard were twins, so I checked Ancestry.com (\u201cancestry\u201d).\u00a0 The most promising record of John and Richard being related showed Richard Edwards\u2019 birth in England (possible and plausible).\u00a0 It also showed Richard\u2019s birth taking place in 1874, and John\u2019s in 1871.\u00a0 This did\u00a0not give me all that much confidence that Richard and John Edwards were brothers; however, it proved to be the only Richard Nicholas Edwards result on ancestry that showed a birth in the 1870s with a brother John.\u00a0 Based on this result, Richard was John\u2019s younger brother.<\/p>\n

Mr. Richard Edwards’ letter talked about one Bishop Richardson.\u00a0 He said\u00a0that Bishop Richardson was supposed to\u00a0come to Dickinson for the commencement in 1946.\u00a0 Based on the archives website, Bishop Ernest Richardson (class of 1896) returned to Dickinson for a thirty-year reunion in 1926, and gave a matriculation sermon in 1927.\u00a0 If Bishop Richardson was at the 1946 commencement, he did\u00a0not speak at it, otherwise the archives website would say that he delivered a commencement speech in 1946.<\/p>\n

I found this archives project very interesting.\u00a0 I learned a lot about college life in the middle of the 19th<\/sup> century.\u00a0 Beyond that, I also learned how to research in the archives and how to transcribe letters that are multiple decades and centuries old.<\/p>\n

Bibliography of Archive Items:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Todd, R.W. “Mrs. Anna M. Thomas” in January 29, 1885 issue of\u00a0The Christian Advocate<\/em>, Archives and Special Collections, Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA.<\/p>\n

Harman, Henry Martyn, to Andrew Harman, Carlisle, 3 January, 1846, Edwards Collection, Archives and Special Collections, Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA.<\/p>\n

Edwards, Richard Nicholas, to Gilbert Malcolm, Baltimore, 24 April, 1946, Edwards Collection, Archives and Special Collections, Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA.<\/p>\n

Greg Parker<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While researching members of the class of 1848 I stumbled across an interesting item related to Dr. Henry Martyn Harman.\u00a0 On the Dickinson College Archives website (“archives website”) I found a letter written by Dr.\u00a0Harman to his father, Andrew Harman under the search results for Henry Harman.\u00a0 This letter gave an eye opening glimpse into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3241,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-204pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-204pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-204pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-204pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3241"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-204pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-204pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2573\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-204pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-204pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-204pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}