Tag: Local History

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Vermont History Day and the Vermont Historical Society

by Toben Traver

What happens when we engage students in the process of historic documentation and research? This is the question that drives the annual Vermont History Day (VHD) program and competition. Since 1983, VHD, administered by the Vermont Historical Society(VHS) in affiliation with National History Day (NHD), has worked to provide Vermont 5th–12th grade students with opportunities to develop research skills,grapple critically with historic topics, and present the fruits of their labor to their peers and community. All student projects are organized around a common theme selected each year by NHD, a national non–profit organization committed to teaching, preparing, and inspiring the next generation of historically–grounded citizens. Students are charged with delving into the topic of their choice, and encouraged to bring in creative skills and interests; projects –solo or in groups of up to five –can take the form of an essay, a performance, an exhibit, a documentary, or a website. Placing first or second in the statewide April competition qualifies students to compete at the national level in June. In 2021, as in 2020, these competitions will be virtual events due to the ongoing COVID–19 Pandemic.

VHD fits squarely within the mission of the VHS, which is to engage a wide audience“in the exploration of our state’s rich heritage… through our outstanding collections, statewide outreach, and dynamic programming”(Vermont Historical Society, 2021). The program provides an opportunity for students, parents, and teachers from across Vermont to connect with and learn to value historic materials. VHS also demonstrates a clear understanding of how they can tailor their services to this group of users by highlighting possible project ideas oriented to the issues that animate them –environmental degradation, social justice, and indigenous rights, for instance. How–to guides and tutorials are written with grade–school students in mind, using language and imagery they might find approachable. Resources on the VHS website guide participants in how to locate and evaluate primary and secondary sources, a critical component of building archival and information literacy. Further, resources link to various other libraries, museums, local historical societies, and repositories throughout the state. In this way, the project helps raise awareness of the broader environment of cultural heritage centers throughout Vermont, and provides avenues for outreach to critical partner organizations and future potential allies of the VHS.

Students are one of the primary audiences for VHD, though they are certainly not its only beneficiaries. While, according the VHS website, one hundred and sixty–seven students participated in the VHD competition in 2020, a virtual exhibition allows a broad swath of the public to learn about the individual topics and projects, and perhaps connect with the VHS, Vermont State Archives, or other organizations that house cultural heritage materials (Vermont Historical Society, 2020). Educators are a central target of this program as well. VHD provides tools for incorporating historical teaching and learning into the classroom, including suggested topics of study relevant to Vermont’s history, and creative methodologies for engaging in research, such as oral history.

While many of the students engaged in this program have benefited immensely, judging by their glowing reviews on the VHD webpage, it is difficult to quantify the program’s impact. Many of the winning projects in 2020 originated from one school and one town,suggesting that some teachers and communities have found ways to fold the program into their classrooms successfully, while others may have not. That said, local history, culture, and politics have long been celebrated in Vermont, and the VHS has secured a prominent role in educating, promoting, and preserving Vermonters’ connections with their past. VHD provides a clear avenue for this kind of wrestling with history, offering students the chance to direct their own learning, and showing all involved the power that historical materials can have. In this way, the program helps secure a loyal base of support for the VHS, and ensure the organization can continue its mission into the future.

Links for further reading:

The Vermont Historical Society: https://vermonthistory.org/

Vermont History Day: https://vermonthistory.org/historyday/

National History Day: https://www.nhd.org/

References:

Vermont Historical Society. (2020). Vermont History Day 2020. Vermont History. URL: https://vermonthistory.org/vhd–2020

Vermont Historical Society. (2021). Mission & Strategic Plan. Vermont History. URL: https://vermonthistory.org/mission–and–strategic–plan

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Get to Know Bill Barrow and the Cleveland Memory Project

Greetings from Luna Park
Postcard from the Postcards of Cleveland Collection, part of the Cleveland Memory Project. Credit: Michael Schwartz Library, Cleveland State University.

by Jessica Chapel

When Bill Barrow was a child growing up in Cleveland, an electric sign on the city’s West Side lodged itself in his memory. A tipped bottle of milk poured light into a glass, advertising Dairymen’s Milk, a local company. “I keep asking the world for a photo or a home movie,” Barrow told the Cleveland Plain Dealer in 2012.

He isn’t asking the world for a photo of that milk bottle sign out of nostalgia. Barrow, the Head of Special Collections in the Michael Schwartz Library at Cleveland State University, oversees the Cleveland Memory Project, a digital repository of images, oral histories, documents, and other materials chronicling the history of Cleveland. The centerpiece of the Cleveland Memory Project is the 500,000 photographs in the Cleveland Press Collection, a trove that spans decades of city life.

Launched in 2002 by the Schwartz Library in partnership with community organizations throughout Northeast Ohio, the Cleveland Memory Project has been a collaborative effort from the start, said Barrow, and outreach and advocacy work has been key to building the repository both within the library and the community.

“Not much would get accomplished if I tried to run Cleveland Memory entirely out of Special Collections,” said Barrow, explaining that he’s as motivated by idealism as he is by pragmatism. “I have an old Sixties notion of community organizing and participatory democracy fueling this all-together-now approach.”

Barrow, who holds a master’s degree in history from CSU and a master’s in library science from Kent State University, began working with the Cleveland Press Collection as a graduate student in 1993; in 1994, he was hired to process the Cleveland Union Terminal Collection at Schwartz. Both collections became part of the library’s Special Collections department when it was created in 1999, the same year Barrow was brought on as Special Collections Librarian.

The Cleveland Memory Project grew out of earlier efforts to digitize and make local history collections accessible, and a long list of teams across the Schwartz Library and CSU — including Digital Production, Discovery Services, Multimedia Services, and the Law College — was engaged to make it real.

Keeping that early momentum going remains a priority. “The Cleveland Memory Team has meetings monthly at least 11 times a year and is very well attended,” said Barrow. “We use it to keep everyone abreast of relevant developments and to discuss new project proposals.”

It’s that engagement that gives Barrow reason to believe the work of the Cleveland Memory Project will continue well into the future. “The challenge is always money. I’d gone to library school at age 48, so recognizing that my economic life as a librarian wouldn’t be 50 years, targeted my ambition on trying to get as much of the print-based local history resources into the digital realm as I could,” said Barrow.

“There’s still tons to be done. More money, more staff, more everything, would push that job closer to completion. But with the Cleveland Memory Team functioning so well, I think they’ll carry on, state budget permitting.”

Barrow cautioned that buy-in can’t be taken for granted. “Silos are always a problem, whether because of territoriality or lack of conviction that [an institution’s] mission calls for working with others.”

Collaborating with the audience also matters. When work on the Cleveland Memory Project began, “we started with those [topics] we knew the patrons most often requested when they came into Special Collections. We have a feedback loop where people can ask questions, correct mistakes, or volunteer collections to donate,” said Barrow.

“We have allowed other libraries, historical societies, government agencies and even individuals to mount material in Cleveland Memory, which helps us focus outward more. The idea is not to have a show-window where the CSU staff decides what the people want to see, but rather a community stage where we invite colleagues at other institutions to put material up from their holdings.”

Barrow plans to keep finding ways to bring the larger community into the archives. He gives talks around the region, speaking to civic groups about the Cleveland Memory Project and Special Collections. He’s made use of a blog and a newsletter — as well as Facebook and Twitter — to connect with the Cleveland Memory Project’s audience.

And to connect with donors, who have added their items and memories to the repository. If the world hasn’t yet come through with a photo or video of that old electric sign for the Cleveland Memory Project, longtime Cleveland denizens did with reminiscences when Barrow put out the call on his blog. Dairymen’s Milk still haunts more than a few people’s dreams.

Looking ahead, Barrow’s thinking about how to make collections more available to the public.

“I’m coming around to an access mode for Special Collections, rather than a preservation one,” said Barrow. “While still acknowledging the importance of preserving primary sources, I’m opting for a model whereby Special Collections is the repository of material destined for digitization and access. To me, preservation has always been only a long-term access strategy and now, with digital technologies, we can provide superior access without particularly compromising the preservation factor.”