Class Year
2025
Document Type
Student Research Paper
Date of Creation
Fall 2023
Department 1
History
Abstract
This paper discusses Pennsylvania College (now Gettysburg College) and its presence in the Pennsylvania borderlands region during the antebellum period, 1832-1860. The paper argues that Pennsylvania College's location and the "borderlands" identity of many of its students and faculty were integral to how discourse and actions surrounding slavery and abolition manifested themselves at the institution. The paper indicates that Pennsylvania College's antebellum history can serve as a microcosm of broader trends in American borderlands communities during this period. Crucially, this paper is shaped by primary source research conducting using minutes of Pennsylvania College's debating societies, the Philomathean and Phrenakosmian societies, available in Special Collections and College Archives, Musselman Library, Gettysburg College.
Copyright Note
This is the author's version of the work. This publication appears in Gettysburg College's institutional repository by permission of the copyright owner for personal use, not for redistribution.
Recommended Citation
Rallabandi, Vivek K., "A Delicate Balance: Pennsylvania College in the Pennsylvania Borderlands, 1832-1860" (2023). Student Publications. 1125.
https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/student_scholarship/1125