Lycoming College representatives present at annual Pennsylvania Historical Association event

The Lycoming College community was well represented at the recent Pennsylvania Historical Association (PHA) Annual Meeting & Conference, with five presenters on the day’s agenda. Held in in York, Pa., Lycoming faculty, students, and alumnae contributed to the theme of day, “Rights, Reform, and Protest in the Mid-Atlantic,” with presentations or posters that addressed the many ways people in the region have struggled to expand rights, press for reform, and challenge entrenched authority from the eighteenth century to the present.

The Pennsylvania Historical Association advocates and advances knowledge about the history and culture of Pennsylvania and the mid-Atlantic region for a better understanding of how the past informs the present. PHA holds its annual meeting in a different Pennsylvania location each fall, bringing together historians, educators and history buffs to participate in a wide variety of panel discussions, to hear speakers, and to network.

Lycoming College community participants included the following.

Christopher Pearl, Ph.D., associate professor of history at Lycoming College and chair of the PHA conference, was a panelist for “Pennsylvania's Revolutionary War: Politics, Loyalists, and Military History.” The panel discussion can be viewed at https://pcnselect.com/videoplayer.php?id=6382857737112&b=his.

Sarah Donovan ’17, doctoral candidate at the College of William and Mary, presented at a session entitled, “Pennsylvania's Revolutionary Frontiers.” Her presentation can be viewed at https://pcnselect.com/videoplayer.php?id=6382810627112&b=his.

Emma Fredericks ’17, executive producer at A&E, presented on “Digital Media Use in Public History.” Her session can be viewed at https://pcnselect.com/videoplayer.php?id=6382856162112&b=his.

Amanda Charowsky ’26, history major at Lycoming College, presented a poster entitled, “1777: A Year in Revolutionary America”

Emma Mitcheltree ’27, history major and literature minor at Lycoming College, presented a poster entitled, “The Other Side of the Bar: Woman Seeking Agency Through Tavernkeeping in Colonial America”

“Lycoming College undergraduates presenting their research at the Pennsylvania Historical Association Annual Meeting, alongside academic historians and Lycoming history alumnae, speaks to the quality of the educational experience at Lycoming, as well as the distinctive support we provide for undergraduate research,” said Pearl. “Both Amanda and Emma are Larson, Morris, Piper Fellows. Additionally, Emma is the recipient of a Lycoming College Student Research Grant. Their presentations represent the research they were both able to do with those support mechanisms, providing them funds to travel for their research to archives such as the National Archives in Washington, D.C., and the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, Pa.

Lycoming’s history department offers an intensive and enriching curriculum that helps students cultivate valuable insights about current events through a deep knowledge of the past. The multitude of exciting study abroad and research opportunities, such as fellowships, summer research grants, and a two-semester research project during senior year, puts Lycoming’s history program on par with some of the most rigorous history programs in the nation.