Business and Social Life in the Old Eighth Ward: With Biography of Colonel W. Strothers Website

Despite its reputation as a lower-income and vice-ridden region, the Old Eighth Ward was a thriving place for businesses, both large and small. In fact, much of the neighborhood’s reputation for unhealthiness was a result of the prominent industries that called the ward home. One such factory was W. O. Hickok Manufacturing Company, also referred to as the “Eagle Works,” the oldest and most prominent industrial plant in the Old Eighth Ward and one of the first manufacturing plants to use electricity for light and power. Additionally, Eagle Works’ founder, Orvil Hickok, served as a councilman for the borough of Harrisburg.Gordon Manufacturing Company, located at 424 and 426 State Street, was another hub of manufacturing within the Old Eighth Ward. After starting in the attic of a dwelling on South Fourteenth Street in 1898, it moved to a large brick building on Montgomery Street, and then to State Street due to the company’s continuing growth. “Among the local industries that distinguish Harrisburg as a manufacturing city is one that has carried its good name far and wide…. This industry has grown wonderfully during the past few years and on the factories known most widely throughout this and other countries is the Gordon Manufacturing Company.” Harrisburg Daily Independent, October 2, 1905 Right next door to the Gordon Manufacturing Company was the Paxton Flour and Feed Company, organized in 1872 by John Hoffer, Levi Brandt, and the James McCormick estate. The feed company was one of the leading grain shipping centers of Central Pennsylvania with multiple locations throughout Cumberland County.Kurtzenknabe Printing was owned and operated by the family notable musician, hymn-writer, and teacher, J. H. Kurtzenknabe. Kurtzenknabe used the print shop to publish a number of successful hymnals, many designed specifically for children.Not all business in the Old Eighth Ward was industrial. Printing offices, pool houses, drug stores, bakeries, confectioneries, restaurants, and laundry services also thrived. The ownership of these small businesses reflected the diversity of the Old Eighth Ward community. German bakers, for example, became prominent, serving the entire neighborhood. One such baker was Frederick Wagner, who emigrated from Prussia in 1855. He operated a bakery at the corner of State and Cowden Streets for forty-four years, employing a number of apprentices, thus growing the profession as he succeeded. Lewis Silbert, a member of the Jewish community operated a confectionery just down the street from Wagner as well as a cigar store. Besides his family, fourteen others lived and worked with him, which included four African-Americans who had emigrated from the South as well as four mixed-race individuals.Business and politicsoften mixed in the Old Eighth. In fact, one block of businesses became the heart of African-American Republican politics at the time. The corner of Short and South Streets came to be known as “Frisby Battis Corner.” Frisby C. Battis lived there and operated a saloon, a cigar store, and a pawn shop from the building. Next door he opened a pool room which became a headquarters for Republican politics in the Old Eighth Ward, especially as Battis sought to challenge the powerful Democratic Alderman Charles P. Walter. In fact, Battis once found himself in front of a judge as a result of this potent mixture of business and politics. Accused of selling liquor on a Sunday as well as operating a gambling house, the charges were contested with arguments that Battis was being persecuted for his political work by over-zealous Democrats. Although the judge threw out the case, Battis took this as a sign and relocated to Washington D.C. While Republican allies swore that Battis was being unfairly harassed, it is worth noting that despite his partisan allegiances, his place of business and home was used as a poling place for one precinct of the Old Eighth Ward, leading to many accusations of election interference. Regardless, up until the demolition of the Old Eighth Ward, “Frisby Battis Corner” was regularly listed in papers advertising polling places for residents of the ward. Many other businesses and social institutions called “Frisby Battis Corner” home. Colonel W. Strothers operated a pool hall which shared the property with the Brotherly Love Lodge, the Harrisburg headquarters for the oldest and most active African-American Fraternal organization of the time, the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows. Strothers was similarly involved in local politics and social welfare organizations. So too was William Parson’s, who owned a drug store across the street from Battis’s businesses. Colonel W. Strothers was a larger-than-life personality in the Old Eighth Ward. He owned a number of different business, including a pool hall, restaurant, cigar store, and barbershop, most of which were located next to his home in the Old Eighth Ward. Despite being over 300 pounds, he also earned a reputation for being an excellent dancer, even providing dance lessons throughout Harrisburg. However, he is perhaps best remembered as the manager of the Harrisburg Giants, which at the time played in the Eastern Colored League, earning a reputation for a high-powered offense. While the Harrisburg Giants’ success came after the demolition of the Old Eighth, Strothers’s ability to raise and run the team was deeply tied to his life there. Originally a police officer, he quickly transitioned to business and politics. Like many of the Old Eighth’s African-American leaders, he was prominent within fraternal organizations, active in the church community, and like his close colleague Frisby Battis, used his businesses to host and promote Republican politics in the ward.https://mosaic.messiah.edu/look/1017/thumbnail.jp

Political Life in the Old Eighth Ward: With Biography of Anna E. Amos Website

The Old Eighth Ward was a very politically active community. Many citizens were actively involved in a variety of civic organizations to bring about political change in the community. Voting was prominent topic of discussion, especially among black men in the community. Prior to 1838, men of color enjoyed voting privileges in Harrisburg and throughout the state of Pennsylvania, but in 1838, the Pennsylvanian Constitutional Convention disallowed the African American men in Harrisburg the ability to vote. The vote was reinstated for African American men across the country with the passing of the fifteenth amendment in February of 1870. Although by law African American men were able to vote, the amendment did not quell the vehement protests of those who opposed this decision. Despite the opposition, some individuals of the Old Eighth Ward refused to yield their vote. During a voting day in Harrisburg, Major John W. Simpson stood on a store box at a polling place near Umberger’s Cross Keys hotel, and made sure that all people who intended to vote that day were able to place their vote, despite much opposition. The Old Eighth Ward was also home to a variety of civic organizations. One particular political hub of the Old Eighth is located at the corner of Short and State streets, and is owned by Frisby C. Battis. Not only was this building (pictured above) a polling site, but it also provided a place for many civic organizations to meet. Some of these organizations include State Democratic Colored League, members of the Republican party, J. D. Cameron club, D. H. Hastings club, and many more. Battis himself was a very involved with the Republican party in the city of Harrisburg. Battis not only hosted many of these civic organizations at his residence, but he was also the president of the Cameron Campaign Club. Battis was served multiple terms as an elected official, including a delegate at the Republican convention in Lancaster, and as a doorkeeper at the Republican convention. Women were also heavily involved in political associations in the Old Eigth Ward. Anne E. Amos is a highly active member of the political community of Harrisburg. She founded the Daughters of Temperance movement, which was one of the organizations through which women were politically involved in Harrisburg . In addition to the Daughters of Temperance, another civic organization, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, was also heavily involved in the temperance movement in Harrisburg in the early 1900s. Women were also very involved in sparking change outside of work in these civic organizations. During the Great War, over one-hundred women in Harrisburg volunteered and packaged bandages to send to Europe through the Red Cross. The Phillis Wheatley Women’s Christian Temperance Union. also met frequently in the Old Eighth Ward, hosting events for the community. These women’s civic organizations and many more were major contributors to the political landscape of the Old Eighth Ward. Although records of Anne Amos are scarce, her obituary, written by the groundbreaking Harrisburger J. P. Scott, demonstrates the power of African-American women to effect political change in the Old Eighth Ward. Born at sea to a French mother and a Martiniquan father who passed away three months before her birth, Anne arrived in Pennsylvania when she was six years old. Prior to the Civil War, she and her husband became ardent abolitionists, using their home as a station on the Underground Railroad. Simultaneously, she opened a kindergarten to help provide educational opportunities for African-American children in Harrisburg and continued her educational service in North Carolina during Reconstruction, teaching the newly emancipated. Upon returning to Harrisburg, Amos founded the Independent Order of Daughters of Temperance. Not only did this organization work to combat alcoholism and vice, but their work was fully intertwined with the women’s suffrage movement. In fact, Amos was so successful in her temperance and suffrage organizing that she was highly sought by white temperance and suffrage advocates as a consultant and advisor. Moreover, her work was also closely tied to her church as well, demonstrating the ways in which politics, reform, and religious life were often closely related.https://mosaic.messiah.edu/look/1022/thumbnail.jp

Seeking Shalom in the Old Eighth Ward: With Biographies of Rabbi Dr. Nachman Heller and Rabbi Eliezer Silver Website

The Old Eighth Ward was the center of Harrisburg’s Litvak–or Lithuanian Jewish–community prior to the Capitol expansion. While an older German Jewish population was already thriving in the city, the newly arriving Litvak found it difficult to integrate with the pre-existing community. Two synagogues were therefore founded in the ward, Kesher Israel and Chisuk Emuna. The presence of both of these congregations serves not only as a testament to the vibrancy of the Jewish community, but also the diversity among these co-religionists. Chisuk Emuna–originally named “Chiska Emuna bene Russia,” meaning “Strengtheners of Faith of the Children of Russia”–was the first Jewish congregation formed in the Old Eighth Ward by the Litvak fleeing persecution in Russia. These refugees and freedom seekers hailed from just a few towns in Lithuania (which at this time was a part of the Russian empire) and thus were culturally, linguistically, and religiously tight-knit. As such, Chisuk Emuna represented and served a very specific Lithuanian Jewish culture. The congregation was more than a place of worship for Jewish people, it also served to hold the community together as they adjusted to life in a new city where they did not speak the language, eat the same foods, or celebrate the same holidays. Moreover, the synagogue provided culturally appropriate “social security” for its members, as both health and wellness and funerary practices could be difficult to navigate in the community’s new American home. However, as the Lithuanian Jewish community began to assimilate in Harrisburg, a divide in the Chisuk Emuna congregation emerged. A number of members of the community felt that their Orthodox beliefs were growing more compatible with the larger American culture. Jewish businesses, especially bakers and confectioners in the Old Eighth Ward, had grown to serve more than just the tight-knit Jewish community, helping to enfold them within the larger multi-cultural fabric of Old Eighth. This led to the formation of a new congregation, Kesher Israel, which sought to maintain Orthodox practices while also engaging more with the public. While most members of Chisuk Emuna conducted both their religious and secular business exclusively in Yiddish, Kesher Israel’s congregants were more comfortable with English. This also allowed Kesher Israel to draw congregants from the larger non-Lithuanian Jewish community in Harrisburg. Joining those who left Chisuk Emuna for Kesher Israel, was Rabbi Eliezer Silver, who left his position of leadership at his former congregation to become the first leader of Kesher Israel. While leading the congregation, Silver became a prominent member of American Rabbinical circles. He used this place of prominence to advocate first for Jewish people suffering in Russia and then, after leaving his position at Kesher Israel, became the first president of Vaad Hatzalah (Rescue Committee) that sought to help Torah scholars escape Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II. It is perhaps no coincidence that a neighborhood that played a prominent role during the American Civil War in assisting freedom seekers would also feature such an important man who worked to save those who may have otherwise died in the Holocaust. Moreover, like those working in the Underground Railroad, Silver was willing to work both within and outside the law to save lives. Even before World War II, he regularly lobbied U.S. presidents to support Jewish people being persecuted in Europe. During the war, he even dressed as a U.S. Army Chaplin and traveled to Europe to gain access to war zones. Rabbi Silver’s legacy lived on among the Kesher Israel congregation, as he returned in 1933 to help lead the installation service of the congregation’s new rabbi, his son David L. Silver Rabbi Dr. Nachman Heller only spent a short time in Harrisburg. However, during his time at Kesher Israel Synagogue, he earned a reputation as an important Jewish author, teacher, and intellectual. At a time when anti-Semitism was still rampant, he used his journalistic skill to educate the public about important aspects of Jewish life and worship. For example, he wrote an explanation of the Jewish observances of the Fast of Esther and the Feast of Purim in the Harrisburg Telegraph on March 16, 1908. Similarly, he took great pride in the education of Harrisburg’s Jewish youth, establishing a Hebrew Academy in association with Kesher Israel. Although he left Kesher Israel in 1911 to begin work at another congregation in Charleston, West Virginia, he continued to return to the Old Eighth Ward as a guest lecturer while remaining active as an author and public intellectual. burg’s Litvak–or Lithuanian Jewish–community prior to the Capitol expansion. While an older German Jewish population was already thriving in the city, the newly arriving Litvak found it difficult to integrate with the pre-existing community. Two synagogues were therefore founded in the ward, Kesher Israel and Chisuk Emuna. The presence of both of these congregations serves not only as a testament to the vibrancy of the Jewish community, but also the diversity among these co-religionists.https://mosaic.messiah.edu/look/1016/thumbnail.jp

The Old Eighth: Gateway to the Capitol: With Biography of Gwendolynn Bennett Website

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Harrisburg began to develop as an industrial center. Railroad steel, cigars, flour, shoes, and many other businesses thrived, especially in the Eighth Ward. A large thoroughfare was required in order to accommodate the movement of raw materials throughout the city for processing. Like most industrial societies, Harrisburg utilized water as a means of transportation, with the Susquehanna River flowing alongside the southern border of the city. The Harrisburg canal system was started in a similar manner as the City Beautiful movement– through internal efforts. In 1822, the Harrisburg Canal, Fire Insurance and Water Company was formed by a group of local businessmen to build a canal “from John Carson’s property near Second mountain to Harrisburg and through Paxton creek valley…to the north, possibly Mulberry street.” The original people behind the canal system had grandiose ideas for its industrial capabilities in the city, with images of mills lining the waterways for miles. However, the State “got into the canal business” and interrupted the company’s plan by taking over the land that the canals were being built. Despite this change of ownership, the canals were officially built in 1826, along many lines of “interesting enterprise.” These canals served as gateways for economic prosperity in Harrisburg, bringing increasing business to the Old Eighth Ward. Roads were built along the canals out of necessity in order to accommodate foot traffic from the canals. With the canals increasing the amount of products that could be introduced into the city, a better system of land transportation was needed. Beginning in the 1830s, rail lines were being installed throughout the city to connect with the canals. By 1834, there was a complete line of transportation between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, with Harrisburg serving as a natural midpoint. Due to the increasing railway lines being built, additional lines began to connect through Harrisburg until it became one of the leading railroad centers in the United States. With most of these lines running to or around the factories of the Old Eighth Ward, it became known as a stopping place frequented by all walks of life. Harrisburg, according to historian J. Howard Wert, “was a radiating point for the distribution of goods north, south, east, and west. This same law of location made it an inevitable railroad center.” Comprised of many factories, schools, churches, and small businesses, the Eighth Ward acted as a gateway to the rest of the city, prospering from the constant influx of people from the railway lines. Blue collar workers who traveled along with canal industry frequented many of the ward’s institutions. Union soldiers encamped at Camp Curtain would often find their way to the speakeasies to engage in games. In this way, the Old 8th Ward was a hub for people from many different walks of life. The canals and railroads that passed through and around the Old 8th brought people from across the country into the city. They connected Pennsylvania’s capital city to the rest of America. Many people’s first introduction to Harrisburg was stepping off the trains in the Eighth Ward, experiencing the diverse life that it fostered. These transportation networks fostered opportunity for work, trade, and interaction between a variety of people, bringing even greater life to the ward and the city as a whole. Gwendolyn Bennett would come to be world-renowned as one of the many writers and artists who were collectively part of the African-American cultural flourishing of the 1920s known as the Harlem Renaissance. However, before making her way to Manhattan Island, Gwendolyn Bennett spent time in Harrisburg. Unfortunately, she did not arrive under the best of circumstances, as she was kidnapped by her own father and stepmother amidst a custody dispute. Because Harrisburg was such a busy transportation hub at the time, Bennett’s father was able to avoid authorities until they relocated to Brooklyn in 1918. However, despite the troubling circumstances of Bennett’s time in Harrisburg, she nevertheless flourished in her elementary school, attending the Lincoln School located in the Old Eighth Ward.https://mosaic.messiah.edu/look/1021/thumbnail.jp

Serving the People of the Old Eighth Ward: With Biography of Sister Mary Clare Grace Website

While many of Harrisburg’s City Beautiful advocates sought to “save” the people of the Old Eighth Ward from the outside, many individuals and organizations within the ward dedicated their lives to serving the community as well as the wider city. The Old Eighth Ward was home to a number of fraternal and sororal organizations dedicated to community service. The largest and oldest of these organizations was the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows, which met at the Brotherly Love Lodge located right next to the famed “Frisby Battis Corner,” the center of African-American Republican politics in the ward. Among the members of the G.U.O.O.F were famed Harrisburgers Jacob Compton, Joseph L. Thomas, and Colonel Strothers. Simultaneously, many of the women of the ward, such as Martha F. Saunders and Anna E. Amos, were members of the Daughters of Temperance. Not only did these organizations provide social security and stability to a community before the New Deal, they also had a long history of working for emancipation and African-American rights prior to the Civil War. In fact, in a time when southern states still enslaved African-Americans, both organizations led August 1st Emancipation Day parades which celebrated the abolition of slavery in British Caribbean colonies–a precursor to Juneteenth celebrations of the Emancipation Proclamation in the United States. As an organization named “Daughters of Temperance” would indicate, this was indeed a time when many institutions were also concerned with combatting drunkenness and alcohol consumption. The Old Eighth Ward was the site of many hotels and saloons that served alcohol–including many that continued to serve alcohol during Prohibition–that largely catered to traveling canal and rail workers, soldiers stationed in the city, as well as others who did not live in the ward. This led to the rise of “Temperance Hotels,” which sought to serve these travelers while also encouraging sobriety. Ironically, one such hotel was demolished long before Capitol expansion in order to make space for expansions of the Pennsylvania Rail Road. Later, the Daughters of Temperance opened a Temperance Hall that served as the headquarters for both their social reform efforts as well as women’s suffrage advocacy. One other prominent organization working for temperance was the Keeley Institute, which was housed in the largest mansion in the ward, the James Russ House. Before the rise of the 12-step method for treating addiction, the Keeley Cure was literally the “gold standard,” as central to the treatment was the injection of bichloride of gold. While we now know that this is a dangerous medical treatment, the Keeley method also focused on treating addicts in caring, home-like environments, making the Russ House the perfect site for the institute. For a short time, the Keeley Institute relocated, and during that time, the Russ House served as the St. Clare Infirmary run by Sister Mary Clare Grace and the Sisters of Mercy in Harrisburg. As this was a time of virulent anti-Catholicism in America, the reputation and adoration that Sister Mary Clare Grace received is all the more remarkable. The St. Clare Infirmary was open during the Spanish-American War and many soldiers from nearby Camp Meade were treated there. Finally, as a neighborhood with many wooden structures, fire companies were crucial for maintaining the safety for the ward’s residents. The first company, the Citizens Fire Company was chartered in 1841, and the ward was always very proud of its service record. The second department, the Mt. Vernon Company was founded in 1858, and the leadership of the company was an important civic stepping stone for notable Harrisburgers. Sister Mary Clare Grace was born in Ireland in 1833 and trained as a sister at St. Xavier Academy in Chicago. She arrived in Harrisburg on September 1, 1869. Even though she was born into a relatively affluent family, she immediately earned a reputation in Harrisburg for living a life of Holy poverty. She was also known for strict observance of religious discipline. However, this strictness made her an incredibly effective institutional leader, whether she was running St. Genevieve’s Academy, the Mercy Home residence for other Sisters of Mercy, or the St. Clare’s Infirmary. When she arrived in Harrisburg, she was often met publicly with anti-Catholic sneers, a common experience for Sisters in conspicuous habits across the United States in the nineteenth century. However, by the time she passed in 1911, having lived in retirement in the very St. Genevieve’s Academy, the people of Harrisburg flocked to her funeral and sang the praises of her life of service.https://mosaic.messiah.edu/look/1018/thumbnail.jp

Vice and Virtue in the Old Eighth: With Biography of Joseph L. Thomas Website

One of the most exhaustive resources for studying the Old Eighth Ward is a series of columns published in the Patriot newspaper between 1912 and 1913 penned by local educator and editorialist, J. Howard Wert, titled “Passing of the Old Eighth.” A white Civil War veteran, he was politically progressive for the time, and while he was active in the Harrisburg school system, he was a strident advocate for school integration, often partnering with the African-American educational reformer, William Howard Day. However, Wert was also a staunch advocate for the Capitol expansion project and the City Beautiful movement and believed that on the whole, the Old Eighth Ward was a neighborhood marked by vice and ultimately a blight upon Harrisburg’s civic landscape. Thus, when Wert sought to “tell the story” of the Old Eighth, he did so from a very particular vantage point. His progressivism was marked by the kind of white paternalism that was all-too-common at the time. In their edited collection of Wert’s columns, historians Michael Barton and Jessica Dorman note that Wert was at his most descriptive when describing the vice of the city. Describing the actions of canal workers who frequented the ward’s drinking establishments, Wert wrote that There were orgies by day, and fiercer orgies by night that were protracted till the stars had paled before the brightening eastern skies. J. Howard Wert, “Passing of the Old Eighth,” Patriot, February 17, 1913. Two drinking establishments, Lafayette Hall and the Red Lion, were especially prominent in both Wert’s descriptions of the Old Eighth Ward as well as the perception by Harrisburg’s more affluent public. Although Lafayette Hall was intended to be a well-appointed and garish restaurant, bar, and dance hall, it’s owner, Harry Cook–whom Wert describes as quite the villain–could not obtain the proper licenses for operating the establishment. But that did not stop Cook, and Lafayette Hall became an infamous yet ostentatious destination for heavy drinking and other carousing. At the other end of the spectrum yet no less notorious was the Red Lion. As Wert writes “if a Harrisburger wanted to show a visiting sport from another city a gilded palace of sin, he took him to Lafayette Hall. But if he wanted to show the same visitor sin itself in concetrated form, without any ornamentation, flounces, or furbelows, he took him to the ‘Red Lion,’ and the visitor generally came away admitting that the Five Points of New York, or the Old Loun in Baltimore had nothing to beat it.” J. Howard Wert, “Passing of the Old Eighth,” Patriot, June 23, 1913. However, it is important to note that while the Old Eighth Ward might have been the location of these “dens of iniquity,” the majority of their clientele were not residents of the neighborhood. Most patrons searching out hard liquor, illegal gambling, and even prostitution were those who did not even call the city home. During the Civil War, soldiers stationed at nearby Camp Curtin poured into the Old Eighth. So too did canal and rail workers with their wages burning holes in their pockets. Yet this detail was lost on most civic reformers from outside the ward. The railroad was the lifeblood of Harrisburg industry, so it was easier to displace some of Harrisburg’s poorer residents in the name of public health and virtue than try and regulate the industries that supported the ward’s illicit economy. At the same time, Wert knew enough about the residents of the ward that he felt he needed to offer a counterweight to his persistent descriptions of vice. In a column dedicated to both an addiction treatment center and a hospital that had existed in the Old Eighth, Wert wrote “To prevent any misapprehension, I wish to say again, most emphatically, that, althought disgraceful vice conditions were in evidence, year after year, in the ‘Old Eighth,’ yet it has it always been the home of many devoted and noble men and women whose unsullied lives shine all the more brightly by the contrast.” J. Howard Wert, “Passing of the Old Eighth,” Patriot, May 12, 1913 It is also worth noting that in close proximity to the vice of the ward were vibrant religious communities–both Christian and Jewish–as well as an extremely popular temperance movement. One of the most prominent temperance organizations were the Daughters of Temperance, who not only worked to combat alcohol consumption but were instrumental in advocating for emancipation prior to the Civil War and Women’s suffrage. The story of one individual of a downtrodden and oppressed race upon whose patient endurance of the vessels of injustice have discharged their contents for centuries… possessed of indomitable resolution, tireless energy and rectitude of purpose… one of the best known citizens of Harrisburg, respected by all Harrisburg Telegraph, May 20, 1911. Joseph L. Thomas stands in sharp contrast to the colorful villains that populated Wert’s columns. In fact, it is quite notable and perhaps evidence of Wert’s myopic perspective that Thomas never appeared in the “Passing of the Old Eighth” series, despite being one of the most well-known, respected, and beloved residents, business owners, and civic leaders from the ward. Thomas was born in Winchester, Virginia in 1852, but by 1911 he was a Harrisburg resident for over fifty years and had his home and office at 429 State Street in the Old Eighth Ward. In fact, his residence was located directly under the current Pennsylvania War Veterans’ Memorial Fountain of Capitol Park. In 1895, he joined the undertaking business with a partner who soon after died, and Harriet A. Hill, the partner’s widow, turned over the business to Thomas. As a graduate of four of the leading embalming schools in the country, and rising above being orphaned as a teenager, the citizens of Harrisburg had great respect for his excellence in his position. The citizens of Harrisburg also elected him to the city’s Common Council for two terms and to the School Board for one term. He was also a prominent member of Harrisburg’s fraternal organizations, rising to the position of chairman of the Masonic Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, whose mission concerned taking care that no family should be wanting or lacking support when facing affliction. Thomas was so beloved in Harrisburg that in 1911, just as the state legislature was passing the Capitol expansion bill, the Harrisburg Telegraph published a glowing full-length column praising the African-American leader. Drawing comparisons to none other than Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Robinson, the column urged people to “There are men in every community, less known to fame than they, who, unostentatiously, are laboring in the same vineyard, doing the work the Master gives them to do. Harrisburg has such workers and one of the number is Joseph L. Thomas”https://mosaic.messiah.edu/look/1019/thumbnail.jp

Systematic sensitivity analysis of the full economic impacts of sea level rise

The potential impacts of sea level rise (SLR) due to climate change have been widely studied in the literature. However, the uncertainty and robustness of these estimates has seldom been explored. Here we assess the model input uncertainty regarding the wide effects of SLR on marine navigation from a global economic perspective. We systematically assess the robustness of computable general equilibrium (CGE) estimates to model’s inputs uncertainty. Monte Carlo (MC) and Gaussian quadrature (GQ) methods are used for conducting a Systematic sensitivity analysis (SSA). This design allows to both explore the sensitivity of the CGE model and to compare the MC and GQ methods. Results show that, regardless whether triangular or piecewise linear Probability distributions are used, the welfare losses are higher in the MC SSA than in the original deterministic simulation. This indicates that the CGE economic literature has potentially underestimated the total economic effects of SLR, thus stressing the necessity of SSA when simulating the general equilibrium effects of SLR. The uncertainty decomposition shows that land losses have a smaller effect compared to capital and seaport productivity losses. Capital losses seem to affect the developed regions GDP more than the productivity losses do. Moreover, we show the uncertainty decomposition of the MC results and discuss the convergence of the MC results for a decomposed version of the CGE model. This paper aims to provide standardised guidelines for stochastic simulation in the context of CGE modelling that could be useful for researchers in similar settings

Sailing into a dilemma : an economic and legal analysis of an EU trading scheme for maritime emissions

On the basis of a joint economic and legal analysis, we evaluate the effects of a “regional” (European) emission trading scheme aiming at reducing emissions of international shipping. The focus lies on the question which share of emissions from maritime transport activities to and from the EU can and should be included in such a system. Our findings suggest that the attempt to implement an EU maritime ETS runs into a dilemma. It is not possible to design a system that achieves emission reductions in a cost efficient manner and is compatible with international law

Pressure-dependence of arterial stiffness: potential clinical implications

Background: Arterial stiffness measures such as pulse wave velocity (PWV) have a known dependence on actual blood pressure, requiring consideration in cardiovascular risk assessment and management. Given the impact of ageing on arterial wall structure, the pressure-dependence of PWV may vary with age. Methods: Using a noninvasive model-based approach, combining carotid artery echo-tracking and tonometry waveforms, we obtained pressure-area curves in 23 hypertensive patients at baseline and after 3 months of antihypertensive treatment. We predicted the follow-up PWV decrease using modelled baseline curves and follow-up pressures. In addition, on the basis of these curves, we estimated PWV values for two age groups (mean ages 41 and 64 years) at predefined hypertensive (160/90 mmHg) and normotensive (120/80mmHg) pressure ranges. Results: Follow-up measurements showed a near 1 m/s decrease in carotid PWV when compared with baseline, which fully agreed with our model-prediction given the roughly 10mmHg decrease in diastolic pressure. The stiffness-blood pressure-age pattern was in close agreement with corresponding data from the 'Reference Values for Arterial Stiffness' study, linking the physical and empirical bases of our findings. Conclusion: Our study demonstrates that the innate pressure-dependence of arterial stiffness may have implications for the clinical use of arterial stiffness measurements, both in risk assessment and in treatment monitoring of individual patients. We propose a number of clinically feasible approaches to account for the blood pressure effect on PWV measurements