MG-214. WARREN J. HARDER COLLECTION, [ca. 1828-1968].
Warren John Harder (1905-1968), a lifelong resident of Harrisburg, was a news correspondent, commercial photographer, and amateur local historian. His collection includes correspondence, notes, newspaper clippings, photographs, and lantern slides. Among the items found in the series labeled Various Negatives and the sub-series labeled Civil War are photographic negatives which depict scenes from the antebellum era. These include scenes labeled "Slave Auction Room," "'Contraband’ (African Americans) Coming North for Protection of Union Lines," "Capture of Slave Ship by British War Vessels, 1860," "'Sunny North,’ 702 Negroes Aboard," and "Congress Passes Resolution to Abolish Slavery." Among the series labeled Lantern Slides are a group of lantern slides labeled "Southern Scenes" that were taken around the turn of the century in the deep South. Other pertinent slides are a scene of a slave ship at Mozambique Channel, Africa, and of a slave auction.
A number of photographs in the series Subject File document Harrisburg’s African American community and city life in general throughout the twentieth century. Of particular interest are Friendship Fire House (1905), Second Baptist Church (1922), Matthew Wilson’s hotel, Mt. Olivet Baptist Church (Colored), and the Jackson Lick apartment building, among others. One picture shows a 1925 Ku Klux Klan parade in Harrisburg. Reference is also made in the subject file index to the "Colored School, Cherry alley, S. W., John Wolf, teacher," and "North Ward (colored) school, West alley, near East State Street, William J. Lawrence, principal."
Among the sub-series entitled Newspaper Clippings in the series Reference Materials are an advertisement dated July 19, 1828 for a runaway slave named Jenny McClintock of Carlisle and an undated advertisement announcing "A magnificent and original production of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a $20,000 production . . . 2 brass bands . . . white and colored band, and Colored Lady Bugle and Drum Corps." The collection contains some photocopy pages of George H. Morgan’s Annals of Harrisburg, written around 1858 and revised in 1906.