1/25 The History Harvest as Community-Engaged, "Hands-On" History

In recent years, a new form of historical teaching, preserving, and community interaction has been on the rise called the History Harvest. While the idea had been around since 1994 with people like Dr. Edward L. Ayers, it began to gain momentum in 2010 when the University of Nebraska-Lincoln began to promote the concept. The History Harvest seeks to involve the community in a hand on preservation effort by reaching out and requesting artifacts to preserve. Instead of community members having to donate their possessions to the Harvest, the historians involved work to digitize the items and return the artifacts to the visitors once they have scanned the objects in. Artifacts aren’t the only thing that the Harvest collects however as the Harvest also seeks to record oral histories from the participants. Through this collection process, Harvests seek to have a digitized collection that can be accessed at anytime from around the world.

Annotated Bibliography

1.       Chambliss, Julian. “Connie L. Lester and Finding Regional History.” Reframing Digital Humanities Conversations with Digital Humanists, March 3, 2021. https://openbooks.lib.msu.edu/reframingdh/chapter/connie-l-lester-and-finding-regional-history/.

In this interview, the speaker explains the history and significance of the Regional Initiative to Collect Histories, Experiences and Stories, or RICHES for short. Starting off, the speaker explains that RICHES is more than just a database, but a way to connect seemingly unrelated objects to each other through a variety of digital tools. The database aspect is still important however, as it allows local communities and local histories to be widely available in a digital format. The interview also helps to explain how this database will continue to evolve and grow into the future so it’s various partnerships and missions that it has for itself.

 

2.       French, Scot. “SAF Keynote - Society of Florida Archivists - 5-11-2022.” Google Slides, May 11, 2022. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ga4us02-mSuzfH1z1dFHdDOvT-LRSHIX9QKSkF_FgbE/edit#slide=id.p.

This slideshow helps to illustrate the sustainability of history harvests and their ability to create lasting connections and relationships with various people and groups. It also illustrates the many ways digital history can be presented and displayed.

 

3.       Georgini, Sara. “Spring at the ‘History Harvest.’” The Junto, March 7, 2013. https://earlyamericanists.com/2013/03/06/spring-at-the-history-harvest/.

 

This is an interview with two of the creators of the history harvest. In it, they highlight how this type of academic study brings academics out of their towers and into the community. They also highlighted the impact it has on non-academics as they are able to see artifacts and histories that challenge their conceptions of their local community and history as a whole. Lastly, the authors emphasize how they are able to gather many artifacts that are often times not found in the community traditionally.

 

 

 

4.       “Home · History Harvest.” Omeka RSS. Accessed January 25, 2024. https://historyharvest.unl.edu/.

This webpage serves to educate scholars about the history of a history harvest. The site provides materials and guidance on how to perform a harvest. The site also shows off how a digital collection would look with their own collections as an example. It emphasizes how the history harvest is a new way to gather history in the evolving 21st-century.

 

5.       Lelis, Ludmilla. “‘Each Item Tells a Human Story’ at History Harvest.” The Orlando Sentinel. March 3, 2013.

 

This brief newspaper article highlights a local interest in the history harvest. It also shows off and tells that even small just family heirlooms can help paint a larger picture. The article also describes the future use of these collection efforts, such as GPS maps showing where artifacts came from.

 

 

6.       Lester, Connie Lee. “Harvesting History: Democratizing the Past through the Digitization of Community History.” Index of DH Conferences - “Harvesting History: Democratizing The Past Through The Digitization Of Community History,” July 2016. https://dh-abstracts.library.virginia.edu/works/2584.

This piece discusses the reasons the history harvest concept has begun to spread. Starting off, the history harvest answers a long-standing question about how to better involve and interact with the community in a historical, setting. Museums have struggled to attract the attention of people involved in the community and to reach the average community member. She highlights the importance of the organic aspects of a history harvest and how it opens up the field of history to people who aren’t academics. She then pivots to discussing the new efforts at the University of Central Florida and its Regional Initiative to Collect Histories, Experiences and Stories, or RICHES for short. She highlights how it is able to compile an entire database for this historical harvest knowledge and the way students at UCS have been able to learn and grow through their interactions with RICHES.

 

 

7.       Thomas, William G., Patrick D. Jones, and Andrew Witmer. “History Harvests: What Happens When Students Collect and Digitize the People’s History?: Perspectives on History: AHA.” History Harvests: What Happens When Students Collect and Digitize the People’s History? | Perspectives on History | AHA, January 2013. https://www.historians.org/research-and-publications/perspectives-on-history/january-2013/history-harvests.

These three authors go into a step-by-step process on the history harvest and explain some key ideas about a history harvest. They emphasize the importance of community involvement and understanding the community

 

8.       Vance, Meghan. “Engaging Communities to Preserve: The History Harvest as a Collaboration Model for Digital Preservation: The Signal.” The Library of Congress, September 4, 2013. https://blogs.loc.gov/thesignal/2013/09/engaging-communities-to-preserve-the-history-harvest-as-a-collaboration-model-for-digital-preservation/.

In her article, Vance highlights the challenges that a history harvest can face in their efforts to digitize. She highlights the lack of funding and manpower, but points out the importance of collaboration with private groups to help counter act this. She also explains the interactions in her internship that helped her to better understand how these groups are able to digitize their collections.

1/18 Historic Eatonville and the Fight to Preserve "America's First Incorporated Black Town" in the 21st Century

This was my first-time hearing about all-Black townships and sub-divisions that were built from the ground up before. I had always assumed Black communities just came from the way Black people migrated into the area rather than a concerted effort to build an exclusive community. Instead, there were many Black communities that were built throughout the United States, but Eatonville stands out from the rest by remaining active today. Eatonville owes its survival due to the extensive planning of its founders and the continued efforts of its residents.

Many Black communities came about in the decades following the end of the Reconstruction Era in 1877. Eatonville itself emerged in 1887 due to the boom of Citrus groves cropping up throughout central Florida. During this citrus boom, white landowners would move down to the region to establish groves. As Black people heard about the growth of these groves, they began to move to the area and establish small homes and hovels around the area to live and work. One of these grove owners, Lewis Lawrence, saw the plight of his workers and strove to do something about it. Lawrence was not alone for at the same time, Joseph E. Clark, an ex-slave from Georgia, had been trying to buy land with several other African Americans as he worked at Josiah Eaton’s grove. Eaton, Clark, and Lawrence would end up laying the ground work for Eatonville through their purchase and development of a couple hundred acres just west of the groves.

In the initial contacts for Eatonville, the founders laid out several guidelines and agreements that fostered the town’s growth. First, the community would sell its property at working class prices to exclusively colored people. This served to ensure that the town would be own by Black people for Black people without the worry of white land speculators buying up all the property and destroying the community. The next step would be the seemingly harsh policies of banning the sale of alcohol, gambling, and other unsavory activities in the town. This would ensure that the town did not fall into the many negative stereotypes surrounding Black people at this time and provide the look of white moral supervision. Both factors would both make it easier to attract the patronage of other wealthy white philanthropists and stave off those who would use any flaw to critique the entire concept of the township. Lastly, the town did not fully isolate itself from its surrounding neighbors. Eatonville would proudly proclaim how its members worked in other nearby communities on the citrus groves.

You can see the effects of these benefits not being present in the many other townships that faded away into history. With towns like Boley, Oklahoma, the community found itself ruined by the rise of white supremacist power as the territory fell into the hands of the Democrats. While the community maintained local control, the inability of the town to receive state funding for the Black schools and roads led to the township’s demise. Towns like Dearfield, Colorado, and Nicodemus, Kansas and Mound Bayou, Mississippi would fade once the main pillars and businesses of the community closed. Without local businesses, good harvests, or a railroad to maintain the relevance of the town, like Langston City with the only nearby Black school, these communities were either abandoned entirely or became forgotten small towns. Even if the towns could demonstrate success in maintaining favorable conditions for economic growth and Black success, the town would fail simply by not sustaining a stable population like Allensworth, California. Just because Eatonville did not succumb to the problems these other townships faced does not mean the town is safe today.

Eatonville now finds itself battling for its survival amid Orlando’s continued growth. Orlando ranks as one of the fastest growing cities in the country with neighboring communities like Clermont and Winter Garden also growing rapidly.  As a result, Eatonville and its community have had to stave off multiple development efforts that threatened to destroy the community.  During the centennial anniversary of Eatonville in 1987, Orange County insulted the community by announcing a major expansion of Kenndey Boulevard from 2 lanes to 5 lanes with seemingly no thought to the area. The community responded in a joint effort between the Maitland city council, Eatonville city council, and the Association to Preserve the Eatonville Community (P.E.C.). These 3 groups would end up filing separate lawsuits over a couple years that would stall out the development until the county canceled it. Again, when the county decided to sell off the Hungerford school property to land developers, the Eatonville community raised their voices against it and got the project canceled. Eatonville continues to survive thanks to the community’s efforts to stand up and fight for their right to exist.