Overview The nineteenth century had always been an age of certainties, but by the 1890s, some of the post-Civil War consensus about American civilization and progress was beginning to fragment as it had never quite done before. Populists challenged the distribution…
Category: Education
1880s
Overview As a young teacher at the Hampton Institute in the late 1870s and early 1880s, Booker T. Washington was responsible for helping to instruct and assimilate Native American or Indian men. The complexity of this assignment –a black teacher…
1870s
Overview The term “Reconstruction” has more than one meaning in American history. Usually it refers to the period from 1863 to 1877, as the federal government worked to “reconstruct” or “restore” former Confederate states back in the national system of…
COLLECTION –Their Own Words
The Dickinson Library has digitized over 34,000 pages of text (both published and unpublished) that were written by Dickinsonians from the 18th,19th, and 20th centuries. The wide-ranging collection covers numerous topics, but the collection is especially strong for the following figures:…
COLLECTION –Carlisle Indian School
The Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center is one of the newest and most ambitious primary source collections ever undertaken at Dickinson College. The project, led by co-directors Jim Gerencser, Susan Rose and Malinda Triller,aims to develop a comprehensive searchable database…
EXHIBIT –Remembering America Since 1945
In spring 2015, Dickinson students in History 118 (US Since 1877) conducted oral histories and produced essays with multi-media appendixes (such as podcasts or videos). Several of these extraordinary projects have been featured in this Storify essay summarizing their work.…
ESSAY –Oral History About Kent State
In spring 2015, Dickinson student Matt Pasquali conducted an oral history with Patricia Mackey on the 1970s shootings at Kent State. Mackey was not a student in the Ohio university, but she remembers vividly how the tragedy affected her campus…