University of Pittsburgh Library System

Over the course of the semester, I have been researching the architect Ralph Adam Cram, the Mellon family, their coming together to create East Liberty Presbyterian church and its effect on the Pittsburgh neighborhood of East Liberty.

The initial goal of this project was to prove that Cram considered this church his proudest work because it aligned with his ideological views of what a utopian society should look like. It very quickly became clear that this would be difficult to prove; there was little specifically about Cram in our university archives, and the deliverable library portion of my work was to create a LibGuide that organized and streamlined the materials that we did possess. With this in mind, I started to look at newspaper clippings, and social work reports from East Liberty to see how the neighborhood changed over the century in which the church was built: how life looked before the church versus after.

While I hope to still be able to explore more correspondences between the architect and the Mellon family, it has been interesting to see the efforts that the church has made and continues to make to be a trailblazer in the community. It seems to have always been intentionally inclusive of marginalized communities, and conscious of addressing the needs of the neighborhood as they changed and developed and in this, stayed true to Crams’ ideals.

As I complete the conference paper, that is my other deliverable, I hope to continue looking at the Mellon family and more primary sources from Cram. Looking at the Mellons, at the inconsistencies between how they presented themselves, how the community saw them, and the outcomes of the architectural projects they sponsored seems like another step towards understanding all the players that were a part of the church’s construction. This in turn will solidify our knowledge and understanding of the importance and intention of this monumental building as it stands in a historically turbulent and fascinating Pittsburgh neighborhood.

How the construction of childhood is different for boys and young girls.

Averie’s research began in a previous English Literature Seminar class where she examined the portrayal of women involved in public affairs through the 1852 novel Bleak House by Charles Dickens, with the help of her professor Amy Murray Twyning. In her final paper for the seminar, Averie examined primary sources from nineteenth-century British publications, and their significance to the domestic and public placements of women in societal and familial dynamics. This prior research in fictional representations of women and primary sources sparked an interest in how other publications, specifically those advertised to women, molded ideas concerning the private and public spheres in the nineteenth century. Her ASRA research utilizes a variety of early publications of the popular women's magazine Harper’s Bazar (later changed to Harper’s Bazaar), collected from the Special Collections. Averie’s research was conducted by analyzing seemingly encouraging rhetoric about women’s affairs in public life and digging out the underlying themes and conditions this progress was advertised with. Not only does this research illustrate where women stood in relation to the public sphere, but how they were encouraged to act, look, as well as see the world. Opinion pieces, advertisements, fashion columns, and news all contain rhetoric that can be analyzed in relation to how women were expected to fit into society, which still resonates with gender norms today. The research Averie conducted using the Hillman Archives will assist her in her final semester at the University of Pittsburgh while she utilizes her knowledge to complete a senior thesis.

American choral tradition evolution into extracurricular and secular groups