University of Pittsburgh Library System

‘A Brutalist End to Forbes Field’ examines the acquisition and demolition of Forbes Field ballpark by the University of Pittsburgh for eventual construction of academic buildings. The project utilizes interviews and documents acknowledging pushback from neighborhood/student group Peoples Oakland, as well as internal university meeting minutes and communications, to provide a picture of the discourse surrounding the demolition of the historic structure. The project represents a microcosm of a changing Pittsburgh neighborhood, and considers the potential impacts of urban universities located within neighborhoods.

The researchers' experience involved a lot of contextual research and then narrowing down the topic's scope to a specific building or structure. The researcher did an interview with someone close to Peoples Oakland, and this provided a first-hand account and understanding of the controversy that led the researcher to their subject in the first place. In the future, the researcher hopes to work more with the archives, and pairing this research with talking to older residents in oral histories about Pittsburgh. 

An exploration of archival material that portrays the complexities of 19th-century Christian womanhood through the Biblical canon they were represented in and the literature they left behind.

From the 1880s to 1910s, westernized rhetorics of Indigenous health portrayed women as unfit mothers and framed Indigenous families as threats to societal well-being. Found in popular media and youth literature, these narratives dismissed Indigenous healing and upheld assimilation as "progress." Centered around the Carlisle Indian Industrial School,which engaged forced assimilation of Native children, such language justified stripping autonomy under the guise of care and protection.

My project explores the International Sexual Minorities Information Resource (ISMIR), a largely overlooked queer archival database created in the late 1990s to facilitate global communication among LGBTQ+ people. Through archival research and close reading, I investigate ISMIR’s role in the formation of queer digital publics, asking how early online spaces functioned as technologies of queer communication, identity-making, and mutual aid. I consider how local and digital forms of community building intersected in this era. My research builds on earlier work I conducted for my senior thesis, which centered on the Donny Thinnes Papers and the AIDS crisis in Pittsburgh, and which raised questions about archival silences and queer generational memory.

To better understand how ISMIR functioned as a platform for queer connection, I mapped and graphed all Pittsburgh-based events listed in ISMIR’s community calendars between 1994 and 1997. This analysis revealed what kinds of programming, activism, and social gatherings were taking place locally, and offered insight into the rhythms of queer life during a moment of technological transition. By analyzing the calendars’ structure and contents, I trace how ISMIR attempted to create an inclusive, accessible informational network rooted in everyday needs and local specificity.

One of my key findings is that ISMIR operated as both a practical information hub and an emotional lifeline for isolated users, bridging geographies through user-submitted data and anonymous dialogue. I argue that ISMIR’s ephemeral and decentralized nature challenges dominant archival logics, demanding new ways of thinking about preservation, access, and community memory. In the future, I hope to expand my work by analyzing the national and international events listed in ISMIR’s calendars, to better understand how transnational queer solidarities were imagined and fostered in the early internet era.

This research, conducted jointly for both this ASRA project and Rike’s Chinese capstone thesis, explores the use of Confucianism to bridge the gap between tradition and modernity and to promote a Chinese national identity in the Chinese Nationality Room in the Cathedral of Learning at the University of Pittsburgh. Rike’s digital exhibit and thesis analyze various primary sources from the 1930s residing in the Chinese Nationality Room Archival Collection, including Chinese-language fundraising materials and documentary photography. The crown jewel and inciting interest of this research is “The Joyful Cultivation of the Exuberant Artemisia,” a work of Chinese calligraphy donated by Chaing Kai-Shek (1887-1975), head of China’s Nationalist government.

By diving into the historical context surrounding the decade of the room’s creation, the archives reveal the “messiness” and complexity of the questions faced by the China Room Committee, a group made up of members of the local Chinese diaspora in Pittsburgh and international students from China studying at Pitt. The biggest of these questions was: how do we represent China as a nation? The answer the Room Committee came up with was to represent Confucius as both ancient teacher and national hero, drawing inspiration from the contemporary memorial architecture movement in China and traditional Confucian temples.

Rike not only created a digital exhibit displayed on the digital wall on the third floor of Hillman, but also participated in the Archival Scholars in Conversation exhibit launch event and presented her research at the REALL DEALL undergraduate research conference.

My research examines how infectious diseases affected different communities in Pittsburgh during a period of major change from approximately 1880 to 1920. As the city rapidly industrialized and grew into its reputation as “The Steel City,” it experienced a large influx of immigrants and a widening gap between wealthy industrialists and working-class laborers. These changes had a significant impact on public health and the spread of disease across different neighborhoods. Using historical records, maps, and public health reports, I found that infectious diseases such as typhoid fever, tuberculosis, and diarrheal illnesses were most prevalent in crowded, lower-income areas of the city, particularly in neighborhoods with large immigrant communities. Neighborhoods near the steel mills and rivers, such as the Strip District, the Hill District, and the South Side, had higher disease and mortality rates. In contrast, wealthier neighborhoods like Squirrel Hill had lower rates, likely due to better living conditions. Public health officials responded to these issues in several ways as scientific theories on disease transmission developed. A prominent idea that emerged during the era emphasized the benefits of cold, fresh air for individuals with tuberculosis. This led to interventions such as the Open Air School on the roof of Irene Kaufmann Settlement, which sought to help children in the Hill District, a predominantly Jewish immigrant community with high rates of tuberculosis. Overall, my project demonstrates how health outcomes were tied to social and economic conditions. It highlights the importance of public health efforts and how historical patterns of inequality shaped the spread and impact of disease in the city. I hope to continue my research by creating interactive maps in the Digital Atlas Design Internship and expanding the scope of my research to compare Pittsburgh’s history of disease with other cities, such as Philadelphia and New York City.