INTRODUCTION:  What does it mean to visit an African country with a class from a US college in order to learn?

Alice Lesnick, Term Professor of Education, Bryn Mawr College

July, 2012

360: Learning and Narrating Childhoods (Spring, 2012) was a cluster of three courses, one in Education, one in Literature, and one in Psychology.  15 Students from a broad range of majors, years, and backgrounds undertook a cross-disciplinary, cross-cultural study of child development, with a particular focus on the role of language and literacy in forming and channeling personal and group identities.  

Jones, Dick, The First 300: The Amazing and Rich History of Lower Merion, Lower Merion Historical Society (2000)

My research starts with The Lower Merion Historical Society's history of Lower Merion County as written and archived into The First 300.  I will not be using direct quotes here as the book's website indicates that doing so requires written permision.  However, the hyper link above accesses the entire text.

The Lenape Indians

The text includes some information about the area prior to being settled by the Europeans as it explains that the proximity to the Schuykill river made it a convenient site for the Lenape Indians, who inhabited much of the east coast.  The Lenape were a fishing and hunting tribe who travelled in bands through PA, DE and other East Coast states.  A point that I found interesting was that William Penn gained a "right" to the area when he purchased Pennsylvania, but still felt compelled to pay the Lenape Indians for their land despite the area having been settled by both the Dutch and the Welsh prior to Penn's purchase.  My intention is to research further into the lives and patterns of the Lenape bands.

The Pennsylvania Railroad