History, Civics and English courses often incorporate community histories into service-learning efforts. Students, for example, may provide a service to the community and hone their research and writing skills by improving upon existing historical accounts of life in their communities. This can be accomplished through traditional research using original documents or through a combination of document-centered research and careful collection of oral histories from older residents. Fortunately for residents of Western Pennsylvania, the University of Pittsburgh recently partnered with the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania to develop a digital collection that allows everyone to search a variety of archives from the comfort of their own homes or local library.
 
Historic Pittsburgh, which is available at http://136.142.162.69/pittsburgh/, includes map collections, Census data from the 1800s, an exhaustive chronology of Pittsburgh’s history and a plethora of other full-text documents produced during the last two centuries. By browsing the Full-text Collection and choosing to view the Pittsburgh Directory for 1815, I was able to learn the full name, residence and profession of any Hartmans in Pittsburgh’s business community at that time. Jacob Hartman was a laborer who lived on the south side of Second in a community that was apparently called “Pipetown” during that era. Phillip Hartman, a stonemason, lived on the south side of Third between Cherry Alley and Grant.
 
These names of the past, and the data collected with them, tell part of a story. The 1850 census requires the census representative to indicate whether residents are literate and/or sane. The 1880 census, on the other hand, drops those questions in favor of determining Mother’s and Father’s place of birth. In the 1880 Census, Ireland is always simply referred to as such, but Germany was plodding along in efforts at unification, and census answers reflect that process. Instead of providing Germany as a place of birth, Bavaria or Saxony is often indicated.
 
The maps are extraordinary, indicating the composition of buildings, location of staircases and ward layout. Viewers can enlarge sections of their choosing to focus on specific areas of interest. Whether for geography, history, civics or English, this website is an excellent resource for teachers and students in or around Pittsburgh.