The Trenton Project

THE TRENTON PROJECT is a workshop for community research, storytelling, advocacy, and art. Founded and led by Purcell Carson, it is a home for multi-disciplinary documentary work, where we listen closely to how individuals experience a city. Historian Alison Isenberg joined The Trenton Project in 2016 to deepen both our historical scholarship and our role in today's public conversations. We investigate structural inequality to support social reckoning. We cross borders to examine international migration. We show up to explore the communal and the collective.

Film as Investigation

We see film as a tool of investigation, a framework for close listening, and an amplifier for the voices of a city. We have shown our work at Princeton University, partner venues in Trenton, and elsewhere in New Jersey, including: Artworks, Westminster Presbyterian Church, The College of New Jersey, Rutgers University, Trenton Film Festival, Princeton Student Film Festival, Princeton's Trinity Church, Mercer County Technical School, Princeton Arts Council, and Trenton's Shiloh Baptist Church.

Long-term Investigations

In addition to our student work, showcased here, THE TRENTON PROJECT offers a framework for long-term investigations and creative projects. In 2016, Purcell Carson and Alison Isenberg began to focus on and teach about the 1960s, looking at factors surrounding the protests and violence of 1968. That collaborative research, focused on the life and of one Black college student, Harlan Joseph, who was shot and killed by a white police officer in 1968, will result in Isenberg's book, Uprisings, and Carson's film, Harlan B. Joseph Was Here. This work is the product of years of original archival research and teaching, over eighty interviews, public programming, community engagement with other oral history initiatives and an ongoing effort to create a park in Trenton in Harlan Joseph's memory. Our work is an ongoing, lived exploration of how historical research, writing, film production, digital archives, and public history cross-pollinate and inform each other.

Central American Migration

Another focus of THE TRENTON PROJECT looks at Central American migration to Trenton. That work has led to three cohorts of student films and a collaboration with visual anthropology students at Guatemala's University del Valle. Our 2023 screening at Westminster Presbyterian included a simultaneous screening and event for audiences and film participants in Salcajá, Guatemala. The films were also screened by The College of New Jersey's Guatemalan Student Association. Purcell's feature documentary about the ties between Salcajá and Trenton is currently in post-production.

Thank You

THANK YOU!! – Since 2012, we have been fortunate to earn the generous support of the Princeton's School for Public and International Affairs and SPIA in New Jersey, the Program in Community Engaged Scholarship, the Princeton-Mellon Initiative in Architecture, Urbanism and the Humanities, the History Department, the Program in Urban Studies, the Program in Journalism, the PACE Center, the Office of Community and Regional Affairs, and Princeton's Firestone and Mudd Libraries. The Trenton Public Library's Trentoniana room has been an ongoing partner. We've been honored to lead a number of cohorts of summer interns, both directly through The Trenton Project, the Darien Internship in Princeton's Program in Community Engaged Scholarship and the Aspiring Scholars and Professionals Program in the Emma Bloomberg Center. Our work on the 1960s was supported by the 250th Fund in Innovative Undergraduate Education and the Princeton Histories Fund. We're honored to have received recognition from the New Jersey Historical Commission. Alison Isenberg's book is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship and Purcell Carson's work in Guatemala was funded through the Fulbright Program.

PAST EVENTS & HIGHLIGHTS

2025

July 2025 Event
JULY 2025
Work-In-Progress Screening. "The Morgue" work-in-progress session with the film's participants and community artists, community organizers, and local historians. Hosted at ArtWorks Trenton.
June 2025 Event
JUNE 2025
Harlan Joseph Peace Park. The (growing!) team of collaborators on the Harlan Joseph Peace Park gathers to talk about next steps in the offices of NJ Conservation Foundation—how can documentary play a role in something tangible like a park?

2024

October 2024 Event
OCTOBER 2024
"The Morgue" in Production. Research and filming for a new project, "The Morgue," about the photo archives of The Trenton Times.
July 2024 Event
JULY 2024
Festival Screening: "She's With You". "She's With You", a short profiling Judge Anne Thompson, is featured at the Trenton Student Film Festival. Congratulations to N'Dea Piliavin-Godwin, Julia Stern, and Cailyn Tetteh.
June 2024 Event
JUNE 2024
New Jersey Studies Alliance Award. "Preaching to the Heavens", a portrait of Shiloh Baptist's Rev. Howard Woodson, by Angela Allen and Mattie Isaac wins the 2024 New Jersey Studies Alliance research award.
May 2024 Event
MAY 2024
Public Screening: History 202. Final History 202 student film screening and feedback session, May 2024. Hosted by the Program in Community Engaged Scholarship, Maria Lockwood and Tania Boster.
April 2024 Event
APRIL 2024
Public Work-in-Progress Screening. Work-in-Progress Session and dinner at Westminster Presbyterian Church with filmmaker and writer Sadia Shepard, scholar John Johnson, Rev Karen Hernandez-Granzen, Rev Darrell Armstrong, and Cherry Oakley.
March 2024 Event
MARCH 2024
Oral History Get Together. Alison Isenberg organizes an Oral History Get Together to share goals, challenges, wishes and strategies for Trenton-area public historians.
February 2024 Event
FEBRUARY 2024
Lincoln University Black Power Conference. We're honored to be invited by Prof Dwight Murph for a two-day discussion Charles Hamilton's and Stokely Carmichael's Black Power, held where was written, Lincoln University, Harlan Joseph's alma mater.

2023

November 2023 Event
NOVEMBER 2023
Public Screenings: Urban Studies 202. We showcase the most recent URB202 films in Trenton—with a simulcast for film participants in Salcajá, Guatemala
July 2023 Event
JULY 2023
Public Meetings: Harlan Joseph Peace Park. First public meetings with the Rescue Mission and Michael Graves & Assoc. to imagine a Harlan Joseph Peace Park in the Ewing-Carroll neighborhood.
May 2023 Event
MAY 2023
Public Work-in-Progress Screening. On-Campus work-in-progress screening with guest critics, filmmakers Cheryl Beading and Ben Niles.
April 2023 Event
APRIL 2023
A Historic Marker in Trenton. An honor to attend the unveiling of a historic marker memorializing the life and loss of Harlan B. Joseph in April 1968. Mayor Reid Gusciora, City Council Member Jennifer Williams and Rhonda Killingsworth

2022

September 2022 Event
SEPTEMBER 2022
Public Screening: "What's In a Name" and History 202. Film screening and discussion, "What's In A Name" and History 202 films. Trenton Circus Squad Screening
July 2022 Event
JULY 2022
Hedgepeth-Williams Summer Project. Darian Interns team up with ASAP interns and Passage Theater to produce a film about the 1947 desegregation of Hedgepeth-Williams Middle School
March 2022 Event
MARCH 2022
First on Film. The First College exhibition is reviewed in the Daily Princetonian, highlighting the collaboration between students, Alison Isenberg, Anne-Marie Luijendijk, Johanna Rossi Wagner and Purcell Carson.
Read Article
February 2022 Event
FEBRUARY 2022
At the Rescue Mission of Trenton. URB202-HIS202 students visit the Rescue Mission to hear about the mission's work and initial plans for a Harlan Joseph Peace Park
January 2022 Event
JANUARY 2022
Sol Libsohn, First College and Upward Bound. Wintersession students create an exhibition of photos by Sol Libsohn, documenting the path-breaking Princeton Summer Studies Program of the 1960s and drawing on research by Alison Isenberg, Purcell Carson and other Trenton Project cohorts.

2021

November 2021 Event
NOVEMBER 2021
Public Screenings: "It Was No Dream". Screening of our Co-Vid film collaboration with LALDEF, "It Was No Dream", alongside the student exhibition at the Arts Council in Princeton. Thanks to Tulia Jimenez-Vergara, Ryan Lilienthal and Maria Evans
August 2021 Event
AUGUST 2021
Bloomberg Center's ASAP Summer Interns. A wonderful summer of work with an amazing cohort of interns from the Bloomberg Center's Aspiring Scholars and Professionals Program, led by Afia Ofori-Mensa. Thank you!
February 2021 Event
FEBRUARY 2021
"It Was No Dream" in Production. Outdoor, cold-weather filming and zoom interviews—imperfect conditions, but resulting in It Was No Dream / No Fue Un Sueño, a collaboration with the students of LALDEF's Futuro program

2020

Summer 2020 Event
SUMMER 2020
Crowdsourcing Trenton. Summer interns work with the McGraw Center to develop an online platform to share and comment on archival photos, both a tool for research and a model for community partners.
May 2020 Event
MAY 2020
Public Screening: Individually, Together. The URB202 CoVid cohort switches gears mid-semester and makes work documenting the pandemic.

2019

November 2019 Event
NOVEMBER 2019
NJCH Public Scholar Program. Purcell Carson presents to the Plainsboro Library as part of the New Jersey Council for the Humanities Public Scholar program
June 2019 Event
JUNE 2019
New Jersey Historical Commission Award. The Trenton Project receives an Award of Recognition for "outstanding service to public knowledge and preservation of the History of New Jersey"
January 2019 Event
JANUARY 2019
Public Screening: Urban Studies 202. Students and community leaders join for "Inside Stories from a Changing City" a suite of student films about the ties between Guatemala and Trenton.

2018

October 2018 Event
OCTOBER 2018
Urban History Association. Alison Isenberg and Purcell Carson present work-in-progress footage at the Urban History Association conference in South Carolina
Summer 2018 Event
SUMMER 2018
Harlan Joseph Peace Park. The Trenton Project, Alison Isenberg and Purcell Carson collaborate with Robert Blaser and summer interns from Roger Graves and associates to brainstorm about a park
April 2018 Event
APRIL 2018
Mural with Will Kasso. Trenton muralist Will Kasso works with students at Princeton University, and includes Harlan Joseph in their collage about racial justice and activism at the university
March 2018 Event
MARCH 2018
Mural with Will Kasso. Trenton muralist Will Kasso works with students at Princeton University, and includes Harlan Joseph in their collage about racial justice and activism at the university
April 2018 Event
APRIL 2018
An Evening of Community Memory and Public History. With community partners, and the Joseph/Killingsworth family, we gather at Artworks Trenton to discuss the anniversary of April 1968 and memorialize Harlan Bruce Joseph who lost his life to police violence on this night, fifty years ago.
January 2018 Event
JANUARY 2018
Work-In-Progress Screening. A work-in-progress screening and critique of student films from History 202 with guest filmmaker and professor of collaborative filmmaking at Wesleyan University, Sadia Shepard

2017

November 2017 Event
NOVEMBER 2017
Art All Day. Honored to spend Art All Day at the Trenton Free Public Library -- thanks to Laura Poll -- talking to Trentonians about our research and their memories of Trenton in the 1960s.
Summer 2017 Event
SUMMER 2017
Mapping Uprisings. Professor Alison Isenberg, history grad student Dan Ewert, mapping expert Wangyal Tsering and students work with Trenton fire and police records to map the violence of 1968. With thanks to Dennis Keenan and Laura Poll
April 2017 Event
APRIL 2017
Social Issue Filmmaking at Passages Theatre. Discussion of the Trenton Project films as part of a panel on Social Issue Filmmaking at Passages Theatre, part of the Trenton Film Festival
April 2017 Event
APRIL 2017
Princeton Arts Council. Student Films are invited for a standing-room only screening and discussion at the Princeton Arts Council
October 2017 Event
OCTOBER 2017
1967 Trenton Central High Class Reunion. We are pleased to be included—and to film—at Trenton Central High School's 1967 Class Reunion. Congratulations to all the alums.
January 2017 Event
JANUARY 2017
Work-In-Progress Screening. The students of History 202 participate in a work-in-progress screening on campus with film editors Gabriel Rhodes and Kristen Nutile
January 2017 Event
JANUARY 2017
Public Screening: Trenton in the 1960s. A final screening and public discussion Artworks in Trenton, focussing on the student films for History 202.

2016

September 2016 Event
SEPTEMBER 2016
Princeton Alumni Weekly. Student Films to Focus on Death of Man Killed in '68 Trenton Riots by Allie Wenner looks at the student work and collaborations with Alison Isenberg and Purcell Carson
October 2016 Event
OCTOBER 2016
Link TV: "Roses are Read". Link TV features Nick Sexton's "Roses Are Read", a short documentary he directed for Urban Studies 202.
October 2016 Event
OCTOBER 2016
Many thanks to TCNJ for graciously agreeing to share their Steenbeck as we look through the Trentoniana Room's collection of 16mm films.
July 2016 Event
JULY 2016
Princeton Student Film Festival. Screening of Ana DeJesus's "Two Wheels" at the Princeton Student Film Festival
January 2016 Event
JANUARY 2016
Public Screening: Sanctuaries in the City. Final Screening at Artworks in Trenton—Final Screening and community discussion of the year's student films.
January 2016 Event
11 JANUARY 2016
Work-in-Progress Screening and Critique. The students of Urban Studies 202 participate in a work-in-progress screening on campus

2015

June 2015 Event
JUNE 2015
Trenton Film Festival: "Kayla". A screening of Andrew Hunt's "Kayla" for audiences at Passages Theater in Trenton.
May 2015 Event
MAY 2015 [B]
Screening at Mercer County Technical School. A screening of Elisa Steele's "Z-Line" and Andrew Hunt's "Kayla". Kayla Massenat joins to talk about her experiences at MCTS and as a carpenter.
May 2015 Event
MAY 2015 [A]
One Table Cafe, Trinity Church, Princeton. Screening of Sofia Hiltner's "Workers Unprotected" and Ava Hoffman's "A Fork in the Road". Dinner & discussion event at the Episcopal Church.
April 2015 Event
APRIL 2015
Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, Rutgers University. A screening and discussion of Azza Cohen's "Refugee, Refugee"
March 2015 Event
MARCH 2015
World Youth Alliance, Manhattan International Film Festival. A screening and discussion of Azza Cohen's "Refugee, Refugee"
January 2015 Event
JANUARY 2015
Public Screening: Sanctuaries in the City. Final Screening 6PM – Artworks in Trenton—Final Screening and community discussion at Artworks in Trenton
January 2015 Event
JANUARY 2015
Work-in-Progress Screening. The students of Urban Studies 202 participate in a work-in-progress screening on campus
January 2015 Event
JANUARY 2015
Trenton Times press. Brielle Urciuoli reports on Andrew Hill's portrait of Kayla Massenat, and other films, for New Jersey dot com in Princeton University students capture life in Trenton through mini-documentaries
January 2015 Event
JANUARY 2015
Student Documentaries Profiled. Michael Hotchkiss reports on the work of student filmmakers for the Princeton communications office in Student Documentaries tell stories of Trenton, its people and their jobs

2013

December 2013 Event
DECEMBER 2013
New Hope Schools Day of Service. Trenton Project student films are featured as part of the New Hope-Solebury Middle School "Day of Service".
November 2013 Event
18 NOVEMBER 2013
The College of New Jersey. Select films featured as part of The House the Theta Phi Alpha Built, a homelessness awareness week at The College of New Jersey
June 2013 Event
JUNE 2013
Mercer County Juvenile Probation Office. Films requested for use in the community service program of the Mercer County Juvenile Probation Office
May 2013 Event
MAY 2013
Public Screening: Artworks. Final Screening and community discussion of first Trenton Project student films
May 2013 Event
MAY 2013
Films featured in the The Trenton Times. Princeton University students to debut documentaries exploring homelessness in Trenton by Mike Davis
May 2013 Event
MAY 2013
Films featured in Town Topics. Princeton University Student Filmmakers Explore Housing Problems in Trenton
Winter 2013 Event
WINTER 2013
Urban Studies Film Festival. With support from the School of Architecture and the Princeton Mellon Initiative in Architecture, Urbanism & the Humanities, Alison Isenberg and Purcell Carson host a semester-long film series.