Shippensburg University announces 2022 Alumni Awards

Ruth E. Hodge – Lifetime Achievement Award

Ruth E. Hodge received her master’s in Library Science in 1972 from Shippensburg University.  Ruth is an archivist, author, librarian, educator, and community activist.  From 1960-1980, she was employed by the US Army War College Library and from 1980-1993, she was then employed by the US Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks.  In 1992-1993, Ruth organized and executed the 1^st and 2^nd Conference on African Americans in World War II at the Carlisle Barracks.  The conferences presented the top and noted Black military officers, staff, and historians, beginning with General Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. of the Tuskegee Airmen.  The conferences were attended by the Black military and interested people throughout the United States.   In September 1981, she was asked to teach “Cataloging” at Shippensburg University, for the first semester, due to an emergency. She retired from Carlisle Barracks in 1993 and was then hired by the PA State Archives as an archivist.  Her duties were to assist researchers, assist in the organizing and planning of the annual Pa. Black History Conferences, and to research and publish a book to be titled Guide to African American Resources at the Pennsylvania State Archives. The Guide was published in 2001 and received the MARAC Frederic Miller Finding Aids Award. Ruth has participated in many research projects sponsored by the Cumberland County Historical Society, such as researching African Americans of Cumberland County who served in World War II and the Civil War.  Additional community contributions of her work includes: the 2009 dedication of the historical marker for one of the first religious institutions to be built west of PA’s Susquehanna River, the Bethel AME Church in Carlisle, which played a key role in the operations of the Underground Railroad during the American Civil War;  the naming of Carlisle’s high school for Emma Thompson McGown, one of Carlisle’s earliest African American teachers, and the only building named for an African American in Carlisle; and, participation in the 180^th Anniversary of Education in the Carlisle Area School District.  For this celebration, she told the story of the “Black Education Experience from Segregation to Integration” with a large exhibit, November 2016.  Ruth has received many awards and honors during her lifetime including the Outstanding Alumni Award from Lycoming College, 1983; the Dept. of the Army Achievement Medal for Civilian Service, 1993; the PA Commission for Women Award; the Albert Nelson Marquis Who’s Who Achievement Award, 2019; and the Cumberland County Historical Society “Historian of the Year” Award, 2020.