Program

Panel 1: Past Visions of Pittsburgh’s Future

Chair

• Mary Zaborskis, Penn State Harrisburg

Panelists

• Zachary Brodt, University of Pittsburgh Library System, "Bringing the Columbian Exposition to Pittsburgh"
• David Grinnell, University of Pittsburgh Library System, "Cleaning Up the Renaissance"
• Tim Ziaukas, University of Pittsburgh at Bradford "Steel Bars: The Rise and Fall of Gay Clubs in Pittsburgh"

Panel 2: Clubs and Associations in the Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia Area

Chair

• Lucien Holness, Penn State University-University Park

Panelists

• Katherine Niven, Pennsylvania State University – Harrisburg, "The Union League of Philadelphia: A Proud Heritage"
• Julie Still, Rutgers University, "Bicycle Clubs in Late Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia"
• Bart Everts, Rutgers University, Camden, “First steps of freedom: The Underground Railroad conductors of Delaware County”

Panel 3, Slavery Hiding in Plain 'Site': Philadelphia Historians Build New Understandings of INHP, Cliveden, and the University of Pennsylvania

Chair

• Chair, Kathleen Brown, University of Pennsylvania

Panelists

• Sharon Holt, Pennsylvania State Abington, “Nowhere to Hide: Interpreting Enslavement at The Presidents House”
• Carolyn Wallace, Cliveden of the National Trust, “Philadelphia Conversation and Community at Cliveden”
• VanJessica Gladney, University of Pennsylvania, “The Penn and Slavery Project”

Commentator

• Randall Miller, Saint Joseph’s University

Panel 4 (Roundtable): “Making Pennsylvania History More Timely, Interesting, and Inclusive: The Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office’s Baseline Survey Initiative, 2020-2024”

Chair

• Andrea MacDonald, Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office

Panelists

• Shelby Splain, Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office, "Pennsylvania SHPO’s Baseline Survey of Initiative: How We Did It and Why It Matters”
• Lisa Dugas, Big Pine Consulting LLC, “Remarkable Historic Resources from Baseline Survey in Southwest Pennsylvania”
• Steven Burg, Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania “Exploring the Material Culture of Pennsylvania’s African-American Cemeteries”

Panel 5: Pennsylvania Main Line of Public Works and the Underground Railroad

Chair

• Lenwood Sloan, Creative Consultant and Arts Educator

Panelists

• Randolph Harris, Lancaster History, “Lancaster/York area of the Main Line”
• Barbara Zaborowski, Pennsylvania Highlands Community College, “The Main Line Through Central Pennsylvania”

Commentator

• Samuel Black, Senator John Heinz History Center

Panel 6, Health, the Environment, and Ethics in Pennsylvania’s Past

Chair

• Janet Moore Lindman, Rowan University

Panelists

• Judith Newman, Penn State Abington, “Why the history of unethical medical research in Pennsylvania still matters today”
• Ariana Genna, Lebanon Valley College, “An Analysis of West Virginia v Environmental Protection Agency”
• Andrew Simpson, Duquesne University, “Growing Old in the Commonwealth”

Panel 7: Gender Roles in Pennsylvania

Chair

• Susan Rimby, Lock Haven University

Panelists

• Camille Kaszubowski, Seton Hill University, “Hannah Lewis’s Petitions: Loyalism and Widowhood in Revolutionary Pennsylvania”
• Tristin Milazzo, Independent Historian, “Maybe I Do Like Women's History: Changing One's Perspective of Coal Region History"”
• Karol Weaver, Susquehanna University, “Military Nurses, World War II, and the Anthracite Coal Region”

Panel 8: The Roles of Monuments in Pennsylvania’s Past and Present

Chair

• Amy Sopcak-Joseph, Wilkes University

Panelists

• Zachary Matusheski, Henry Jackson Foundation for the Advancement for Military Medicine, “Mourning McKinley in Philadelphia: Commemorating the Death of President William McKinley”
• Spencer Larson, West Chester University of Pennsylvania, “Chester County’s ‘Monument Man’”
• Peter Miele, Seminary Ridge Museum and Education Center, “The Eternal Light Peace Memorial: Gettysburg’s ‘Organic Machine’”

Panel 9, New Views of Pennsylvania, 1500 to the Present

Chair

• Alonna Carter,

Panelists

• Jared Freedline, University of Central Florida, “Early Pennsylvania Cartography”
• Bernadette A. Lear, Penn State University Libraries, “Inheriting and Re-envisioning Someone Else’s Digital Project: The Literary and Cultural Heritage Maps of Pennsylvania”
• Christina Larocco, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, “The Future of Pennsylvania History Writing: Experiments in Content, Genre, and Form”

Panel 10: The Transformative Power of History: Pursuing Reconciliation through Research, Teaching, and Learning for the Public Good

Chair

• Julie Holcomb, Baylor University

Panelists

• Devin Manzullo-Thomas, Messiah University, “Documenting los Hermanos en Cristo: Oral History, Community Engagement, and Archival Collecting at Messiah University
• Bernardo Michael, Messiah University, "Japanese Americans in South Central Pennsylvania: The story of the Sakimura family and Messiah University, 1945-2022"
• David Pettegrew, Messiah University, "Reconciling the Past in Pennsylvania’s Capital Region: Place-Based Storytelling from the Digital Harrisburg Initiative"

Commentator

• Sarah Myers, Murray Library, Messiah University

Chair

• Allen Dieterich-Ward, Shippensburg University

Panelists

• Kelan Amme, Messiah University, “Place-Based Storytelling on the T. Morris Chester Way”
• Julian Cerminara, Duquesne University, “History of Pittsburgh’s Chinatown”
• Amanda Charowsky, Penn State University Schuylkill, “Scalpel and Sword: Joseph Warren and Hugh Mercer, the Doctor Generals”
• Claire DeVinney, Millersville University, ““Every Man is a Reader”: Development of Polemic Press in Philadelphia, 1690-1760”
• Keli Ganey, Messiah University, “Behind the Bronze”
• Peter Kuhs, Duquesne University, “A War within a War: Conococheague Raids During the Frontier War, 1755-1758”
• Sophia Levin, Carnegie Mellon University, “The Overlap: Pittsburgh’s Birth Control League and African American Communities, 1930-1946”
• Rachel Petroziello, Messiah University, “Harrisburg’s Lincoln Cemetery: Reviving Legacies through GIS Mapping”
• Alexandra Shehigian, Messiah University, “Schools of Harrisburg’s Sixth and Eighth Wards”
• AnnaMarie Zayas, Duquesne University, “The Hill on Ice: The Penguins, Pittsburgh, and the Hill District”
• Sean McCrerey, Duquesne University, "Mt. Lebanon: An Example of Photographic Continuity Changes"

Panel 11: The Impacts of German Settlers in Pennsylvania

Chair

• Cynthia Falk, Cooperstown Graduate Program, SUNY Oneonta

Panelists

• Karen Guenther, Commonwealth University-Mansfield, “‘A Fellow Passenger was Gottlieb Mittelberger’: The Experiences of Some Passengers on the Osgood After Their Arrival in Philadelphia”
• Donald E. Harpster, College of St. Joseph, Rutland, Vermont, “Americanization of the Philadelphia German Reformed Community in the Era of the Revolution, 1775-1801.”
• Evan Portman, Duquesne University, “Deference and Disgrace: German Americans at Gettysburg”

Panel 12: Alternative Visions of Pennsylvania History

Chair

• Rachel Batch, Widener University

Panelists

• Sydney Wise, West Chester University, “Keeping the Faith: The Catholic Church and Vietnamese Pennsylvanians from the Mid-Twentieth Century to Today”
• Richard Jones, Shippensburg University. “The Absence of a Socialist or Labor Party in the United States: An Examination of Socialism in Reading, Pennsylvania”
• Zachary Bauerle, Duquesne University, “‘The Red Flag Waved’: Reformers, Socialists, Anarchists and the Fight for the American Labor Movement in Gilded Age Pittsburgh, 1877 – 1892”

Panel 13 (Roundtable): Navigating Controversy

Chair

• Joana Arruda, Independent Public Historian

Panelists

• Tyler Stump, Pennsylvania State Archives
• Anand Ghorpadey, Please Touch Museum
• Cara Curtis, Cumberland County Historical Society

Panel 14: Space and Place in Pennsylvania

Chair

• Donald W. Linebaugh, University of Maryland

Panelists

• Martha Moon-Renton, Shippensburg University, “Michaux State Forest: Conservation vs. Crime: The Criminalized Utilization of Forest Resources”
• Christopher Ott, Shippensburg University, “Understanding Historic Districts: A Shippensburg Case Study”
• Trevor Kase, Penn State Harrisburg, “A Social Network Analysis of the Free Black Community in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 1800-50”

Panel 15: The Underground Railroad in Pennsylvania

Chair

• Sam Black, Senator John Heinz Center and the International Underground Railroad Month Pennsylvania Committee (IURM)

Panelists

• Michele Sullivan, Kennett Square Underground Railroad Center/IURM “The Underground railroad in Chester County”
• Harriett Gaston, Penn State Altoona/IURM “The Underground Railroad and Freedom Seeker Experiences in Blair County”

Commentator

• tonya thames-taylor, West Chester University/IURM

Panel 16: Ideas and Practices of Sovereignty in the Early American Republic

Chair

• Sandra Moats, University of Wisconsin-Parkside

Panelists

• Matthew Rainbow Hale, Goucher College, “The People as ‘Centre’: Popular Sovereignty, the French Revolution, and Democratic Absolutism in the Mid-1790s”
• Robert Alderson, Georgia State University, Perimeter College, “Edmond-Charles Genet and American Sovereignty”
• Max Matherne, Cumberland University, “‘Corrupt Bargains’ and the Reconceptualization of Popular Authority, 1801-1829”

Panel 17 (Roundtable): Building a Career in the Historical Professions

Chair

• Sarah Piccini, Lackawanna Historical Society

Panelists

• Lexy deGraffenreid, Penn State University Libraries
• Kate Lukaszewicz, Classrooms Without Borders
• Lynne Calamia, Roebling Museum
• Walter Biggins, University of Pennsylvania Press

Panel 18: The Built Environment in the Mid Atlantic

Chair

• Donna Rilling, SUNY Stony Brook

Panelists

• Tanya Kevorkian, Millersville University, “Incorporating the Shenks Ferry People into the History of the Area of Lancaster County”
• Caitlin Black Obetz, Penn State Harrisburg, “Utopia, Colonization, and Control: Interpreting Pennsylvania’s Diamond-Shaped Town Squares”
• Anne Krulikowski, West Chester University, “Joseph Brinton’s ‘Celebrated’ Green Stone: Architecture and the Industrial Revolution”

Panel 19 (Roundtable): Using the Past to Inform the Future: Teaching Pennsylvania History

Chair

• Michael McCoy, SUNY Orange

Panelists

• Jay Donis, Thiel College
• Paul Douglas Newman, University of Pittsburgh, Johnstown
• Scott Wert, Conrad Weiser High
• Hannah Uschock, University of Pittsburgh