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CRUCIFIX OF MEMORY THESIS ETP.pdf (2.54 MB)

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Crucifix of Memory: Community and Identity in Greenville, Pennsylvania 1796-Present

Christiansen, Jobadiah Truth
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0776-0283
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1429530820

Abstract Details

2015, MA, Kent State University, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of History.
Utilizing methodologies laid out by Kitch in Pennsylvania in Public Memory: Reclaiming the Industrial Past (2012), Linkon and Russo in Steeltown U.S.A.: Work and Memory in Youngstown (2002), and Stanton in The Lowell Experiment: Public History in a Postindustrial City (2006), this thesis examines how community memory affects the identity of a typical American Midwestern small town. Located in Western Pennsylvania, Greenville emerged as an industrial crossroads in the late nineteenth century linking Pittsburgh, Erie, and Cleveland via three railroad lines. After the relocation of several industries during the 1980s and `90s the community fell into decline and has since struggled. The Greenville Historical Society portrays the identity of Greenville as a transportation town, based on its history along an Erie Canal route and later as a hub for railroads. Yet for the modern community, this `transportation town’ identity is but a shell of the past and a bitter reminder of what once was. Since the late twentieth century deindustrialization, there is a disconnect between the modern reality lived by the community and the historical identity reflected via local public history. Employing oral histories in comparison to primary and secondary sources, such as newspapers and town and county histories, this thesis examines several elements centered on community memory and small town history by focusing on how the community makes sense of its past and the importance of the town’s history to the community’s identity. Taking a `bottom-up’ approach and focusing on the community as central to the story by drawing from social histories like Russo’s Families and Communities: A New View of American History (1974), where he suggests that until the twentieth century, the “local community exerted the most profound and comprehensive influence on the lives of Americans,” Crucifix of Memory will examine three pivotal points within the history of Greenville. Chapter one will discuss the early settlers and first families who arrived in the late 1790s and the early development of the community. Chapter two will utilize the great fire of 1873 that destroyed the downtown as a flashpoint which ironically pushed the community into a `golden age’ of industry and prosperity. Chapter three will wrestle with the issue of deindustrialization that occurred in the 1980s and how the community has dealt with it. As a study of memory and community, the thesis draws on the theories of oral history and memory as laid out by Abrams’ Oral History Theory (2010). A number of past and present residents of the community will be interviewed to ascertain their memories about Greenville, keeping in mind that there is “a shared authority” between the historian and the public for the responsibility of the history. In A Shared Authority: Essays on the Craft and Meaning of Oral and Public History (1990), Frisch points out that working with the memory of public community results in a more “widely shared historical consciousness.” An impetus for Crucifix of Memory is bridging the division between popular community memory and academic history through oral historical analysis and comparative memory studies. Approaching the collective identity of Greenville via these pivotal points in their history, this thesis draws upon the work of Melucci in “The Process of Collective Identity” (1995), who describes collective identity as developing out of a shared set of traditions, active relationships, and emotional interaction that come together to form unity within a group. Thus I look at the traditions, relationships, and interactions within the memories of the community as the process of collective identity to determine how the people of Greenville make sense of themselves, their community, and by extension, the larger history of the United States.
Kenneth Bindas, Ph.D. (Advisor)
Leslie Heaphy, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Donna Deblasio, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
123 p.
History; Urban Planning
Community; memory; identity; oral history; local history; public history; Pennsylvania history; deindustrialization;

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Christiansen, J. T. (2015). Crucifix of Memory: Community and Identity in Greenville, Pennsylvania 1796-Present [Master's thesis, Kent State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1429530820

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Christiansen, Jobadiah. Crucifix of Memory: Community and Identity in Greenville, Pennsylvania 1796-Present. 2015. Kent State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1429530820.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Christiansen, Jobadiah. "Crucifix of Memory: Community and Identity in Greenville, Pennsylvania 1796-Present." Master's thesis, Kent State University, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1429530820

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

kent1429530820
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This open access ETD is published by Kent State University and OhioLINK.