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Mount Union borough

Mt. Hope Baptist Church, 1921

General View of Church Looking South. Building Constructed by African-American Residents in 1921. - Mt. Hope Baptist Church, Chestnut & Division Streets
General View of Church Looking South. Building Constructed by African-American Residents in 1921. - Mt. Hope Baptist Church, Chestnut & Division StreetsLibrary of Congress, Historic American Buildings Survey / Historic American Engineering Record. No known copyright restrictions. pa2847.photos.038941p

As the wartime labor market kept expanding, and a third brick plant and a government munitions plant went up, Mount Union drew a number of African American workers from the South. The federal survey puts it plainly: it gave the town a mix of nationalities and races that was new to central Pennsylvania at the time.

The survey records this building at Chestnut and Division streets as constructed by African American residents in 1921. The history of that community was serious enough to carry a master's thesis of its own at Penn State in 1987, written by R. Cummins McNitt.

Nothing further from the county histories. The six histories held here end in 1913 and this story belongs to 1987, so there is no passage in them that bears on it. Rather than attach an unrelated page and let it look like corroboration, this story stands on the sources listed below.

Sources

  1. LOC caption pa2847.photos.038941p (HABS PA-5988)
  2. Shedd 1991, Historical Overview, p.20
  3. HABS PA-5973 p.45 (McNitt thesis in the source list)

Checked 2026-08-25 · Historic Mount Union collection

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Photographs from Mount Union borough

A ferry on the Juniata near Mount Union, as Myer Souders describes itA ferry on the Juniata near Mount Union, as Myer Souders describes itShared by Myer Souders
Perspective View of House Looking North. Gable End Not Visible in Photograph Was the Canal Side. - John Sharrar House, West Water Street near Division StreetPerspective View of House Looking North. Gable End Not Visible in Photograph Was the Canal Side. - John Sharrar House, West Water Street near Division StreetLibrary of Congress · pa2853.photos.038950p
View of Office Looking South. - General Refractories Company, Office, Market Street, Mount UnionView of Office Looking South. - General Refractories Company, Office, Market Street, Mount UnionLibrary of Congress · pa2851.photos.038947p
“The New P. R. R. Station”, as Charles Welch's history of Mount Union captioned it in 1909.“The New P. R. R. Station”, as Charles Welch's history of Mount Union captioned it in 1909.Welch, History of Mount Union, 1909 · stg08
General Interior View of Packing Shed, No. 1 Works - Harbison-Walker Refractories Company, Packing ShedGeneral Interior View of Packing Shed, No. 1 Works - Harbison-Walker Refractories Company, Packing ShedLibrary of Congress · pa2727.photos.134465p
View of Grefco Houses Looking South Along Water Street - Town of Mount UnionView of Grefco Houses Looking South Along Water Street - Town of Mount UnionLibrary of Congress · pa2822.photos.038890p

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