Class Year

2025

Document Type

Student Research Paper

Date of Creation

Fall 2023

Department 1

History

Abstract

One of the first international students that attended Pennsylvania College (now Gettysburg College) was Tadaypaly Veeraragava Roy, who was a student at the college for about a semester in 1876. Roy was a student from Guntur, a prominent city in what is now the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Guntur was the center of the American Evangelical Lutheran Church's missionary operations in India, and there were many missionary schools and churches in the region. It is possible that Roy came into contact with Lutheran missionaries that may have made him aware of Pennsylvania College's existence. As one of the college's first nonwhite students, Roy tested the racial boundaries of the period, particularly as the United States reckoned with the aftermath of the Civil War during the Reconstruction period. This paper tries to tell Roy's story in Gettysburg in the broader context of Reconstruction.

Comments

Written for HIST 352: Gender and Sexuality During the American Civil War

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