My work in the classroom strives to connect students with the mechanisms of the archive, build historical empathy from the students’ perspective, and empower students to be producers rather than consumers of historical interpretation.
Goin’ North: Stories from the First Great Migration to Philadelphia
- created by West Chester University students in Fall 2014 and Spring 2016
- built with open source platform Omeka, integrating OHMS (Oral History Metadata Synchronizer)
- audio files synchronized with transcripts, segment synopses, keywords and subjects drawn from a student-generated controlled vocabulary of over 1,600 terms, linking related primary sources and visual sources, and GPS coordinates situating the topics and moments in space.
- digital repository of over 500 sources related to the Great Migration to Philadelphia
- student created storytelling projects using archival audio to interpret themes of Great Migration
Fannie Hutchinson Index (4:43 and 34:16)
Minnie Whitney Index (19:16-20:35)
“Where is Home?” storytelling project (2:00)
Read more about the project and its methodology
Up next: The Most American of Cities
Excerpt from interview with Gilda Cetrulla, 16 June 1982, “I Remember When,” Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky Libraries
