Aug. 29, 2012

HARRISBURG –Michael Barton, professor of American studies and social science at Penn State Harrisburg, will discuss the late journalist Paul Beers and his observations of Harrisburg at the Harrisburg Campus of HACC, Central Pennsylvania’s Community College.

The presentation will be held in the McCormick Library at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2012.

Beers, a member of the HACC Board of Trustees from 1973-96, chronicled the life of the city for The Patriot-News as a reporter-at-large for 28 years. Those columns have been republished in “City Contented, City Discontented: A History of Modern Harrisburg.”

“Paul Beers defined the role of journalist-historian in modern Pennsylvania,” said Barton, who, along with his graduate students transcribed those columns to produce the book. “It has been an honor and an education to edit his writings.”

“City Contented, City Discontented” marks the publishing debut of the Midtown Scholar Press. “For Beers, HACC's groundbreaking was the seminal event in the City's modern renaissance and held the promise that the Pennsylvania capitol would one day rise above its discontent,” said Eric Papenfuse, owner of Midtown Scholar Bookstore and Press.

Copies of the book signed by Barton will be available for a suggested minimum donation of $50 for attendees and $25 for students, with funds benefiting the HACC Foundation in support of student scholarships.

The event is sponsored by The Fourth Estate, the student newspaper on HACC’s Harrisburg Campus.