THE DIGITAL REPOSITORY FOR THE BLACK EXPERIENCE
Search Results
Higher Education
The HistoryMakers Digital Archive provides a deep research and teaching resource for college curricula in a variety of disciplines, particularly in its applicability to the study of Black intellectual history (including ongoing research on the current state of Black Studies through case studies), and the interdisciplinary study of the African American Experience.
The autobiographical sketches in the Digital Archive demonstrate the profound achievements of African Americans across virtually all fields and aspects of American life, including science, the arts and entertainment, politics, literature, the military, and the academy. As a digital video database currently containing over 2,600 interviews (nearly 10,000 hours of interview footage), The HistoryMakers Digital Archive is the largest primary resource documenting the impact of African Americans on American history and culture in the 20th and 21st centuries.
The HistoryMakers Digital Archive also offers a more varied scope and comprehensive coverage than other African American biographical collections. Because the oral history interviews in the Digital Archive highlight the accomplishments of African Americans from a wide range of backgrounds and professions, it provides a unique resource for exploring African American life and culture and the broad range of African American contributions and responses to the historical events of the 20th and 21st centuries. Moreover, the African American experience documented in the Digital Archive provides insight on the attitudes, beliefs, and structures of American society overall.
Fellowships
Faculty Innovations in Pedagogy & Teaching Fellowship
Now in its fourth year, The HistoryMakers Innovations in Pedagogy and Teaching Fellowship is designed to foster classroom innovation and teaching and to diversify curricula while furthering student learning and research skills during the upcoming academic year. Award recipients will receive a $7,500 award and the opportunity to demonstrate how faculty can creatively incorporate The HistoryMakers Digital Archive into a fall 2023 semester course and syllabus.
For the 2023-2024 program, we awarded fellowships to twelve outstanding teacher-scholars. Applications for the 2024-2025 program will open in early 2024.
Student Ambassador Program
Student Ambassadors serve as official representatives for The HistoryMakers Digital Archive and work to increase awareness, knowledge, and use of The HistoryMakers Digital Archive on their respective campuses. If chosen to serve as ambassadors through a competitive application and selection process, they work individually and in teams learning how to use The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. They are also responsible for promoting use of the digital archive to faculty, students, administrators and library staff using blogs and newsletters, presentations, outreach and traditional and social media. To apply, the student ambassador’s college or university must be an Institutional Member of The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. A list of Institutional College/University Members can be found here: https://www.thehistorymakers.org/institutional-maker
CURRICULA AND TEACHING RESOURCES
We work with educators around the country to create unique and in-depth programs for a variety of educational levels and grades. See the lesson plans below to learn about programs you can bring into your classroom, or log in to the Digital Archives educational tools. Learn about how others are using The HistoryMakers content and submit your own work too.
Classics | Joel Christensen/Zachary Elliott
AFRICAN AMERICAN EXPERIENCES & THE CLASSICS
AFRICAN AMERICAN EXPERIENCES & THE CLASSICS
Joel Christensen, associate professor of Classical Studies at Brandeis University, was part of a cohort of three professors who received special faculty fellowship funding from Brandeis Provost Lisa Lynch to integrate The HistoryMakers Digital …
Law | Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham
AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES AND THE LAW
AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES AND THE LAW
Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, the Victor S. Thomas Professor of History and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University, actively utilizes The HistoryMakers Digital Archive in her seminar course “African American Lives and the Law.” Higginbotham folded The HistoryMakers Digital… Archive into her course as a means of introducing personal stories and
Sociology | Karen V. Hansen
GENDER, RACE, AND CLASS
GENDER, RACE, AND CLASS
Karen Hansen, professor of sociology and women’s, gender and sexuality Studies and director of the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University, was part of a cohort of three professors who received special faculty fellowship funding from Brandeis Provost Lisa Lynch to integrate The… HistoryMakers Digital Archive into an existing course. Hansen has now folded the resource into two graduate level sociology courses – “Gender, Class, and Race”
English | Michael D. Hill
SELECTED AMERICAN AUTHORS
SELECTED AMERICAN AUTHORS
Michael D. Hill, an associate professor of English and African American studies at the University of Iowa, pulled The HistoryMakers Digital Archive into a course assignment requiring his students to examine how author Toni Morrison looks at how family… expectations impact individual identity. Hill directed his students to reference The HistoryMakers in a written essay, but also
Library Science | Lynda Kachurek
UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND DIGITAL ARCHIVE USE REPORT
UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND DIGITAL ARCHIVE USE REPORT
Lynda Kachurek, Head of Rare Books and Special Collections at Boatwright Memorial Library at the University of Richmond, wanted to engage students in her Management of Historical Collections class, who themselves are future curators and …
History | Marya R. Levenson
PROPOSAL FOR BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY
PROPOSAL FOR BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY
Marya Levenson, the Harry S. Levitan Director of Teacher Education and professor of the practice of education at Brandeis University, was part of a cohort of three professors who received special faculty fellowship funding from Brandeis Provost…
History | Liesl Orenic
HISTORYMAKERS IN CONTEXT
HISTORYMAKERS IN CONTEXT
Liesl Orenic, professor of history and department chair at Dominican University, crafted “HistoryMakers in Context” for her course “African American History Since 1877.” Orenic’s students were tasked with identifying three interviews in…
Classics | Joel Christensen/Zachary Elliott
REAL ESTATE & SOCIETY AFFORDABLE HOUSING
REAL ESTATE & SOCIETY AFFORDABLE HOUSING
Linda Stoller, Senior Lecturer at the International Business School at Brandeis University, utilized the archive in the context of her undergraduate Real Estate and Society course. Her students were studying affordable housing conceptually as well…
Higher Education Advisory Board
Created under the auspices of a 2016 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The HistoryMakers Higher Education Advisory Board consists of academic administrators, scholars, faculty, librarians, archivists, and digital humanities experts. The goal of this Advisory Board is to forge a relationship between The HistoryMakers and the higher education community, as well as to increase awareness and usage of The HistoryMakers archive and The HistoryMakers Digital Archive in academia. This includes uses both inside and outside the classroom, distance learning and online education, public programming, MOOCs (Massive Open Online Course), course management systems, digital humanities projects, exhibitions, research projects and other scholarly pursuits.
The work of this advisory board focuses on building a sustainable presence for The HistoryMakers in college and university research and teaching, and will develop a community of engaged academic users. Representatives from each of The HistoryMakers’ 50+ college and university partners make up the advisory board, and to date, three in-person meetings have been held – April 2016, February 2017, and February 2018 – with a fourth meeting upcoming. The HistoryMakers Higher Education Advisory Board is organized into three subcommittees:
Members of The HistoryMakers Teaching & Learning Committee represent faculty and administrators from a broad range of subject areas and disciplines. Ranging from academic deans to professional organization administrators and doctoral fellows, the Teaching & Learning Committee seeks to frame The HistoryMakers interaction with scholars and its engagement with trends and concerns in the scholarly arena.
Projects of the Teaching & Learning Committee have included the integration of The HistoryMakers Digital Archive into courses at Harvard University, Brandeis University, and the University of Richmond on African American experiences with the law, Sociology, and classical theatre, respectively.
American Historical Association
James Grossman; Executive Director
American University
Mary Ellen Curtin; Associate Professor; Critical Race, Gender and Culture Studies Collaborative
Arkansas State University
Cherisse Jones-Branch; James and Wanda Lee Vaughn Endowed Professor of History, Director, A-STATE Digital Press
Boston University
Walter Fluker; Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor of Ethical Leadership
Saida Grundy; Assistant Professor of Sociology and African American Studies
Susan Mizruchi; Professor of the Humanities; Director, Boston University Center for Humanities
Brandeis University
Joel Christensen; Professor of Classics
Karen Hansen; Director, Women's Studies Research Center, Professor of Sociology & Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Anita Hill; University Professor of Social Policy, Law, and Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies
Wangui Mugai; Florence Levy Kay Fellow in Race, Science and Society
Carleton College
Charisse Burden-Stelly; Assistant Professor; Africana Studies and Political Science
Carnegie Mellon University
Shawn Alfonso-Wells; Adjunct Professor of History
M. Stephanie Murray; Director & Academic Advisor, Assistant Teaching Professor, BXA Intercollege Degree Programs
Avigail Oren; Adjunct Professor, History
Richard Scheines; Dean, Professor of Philosophy
Steven Schlossman; Professor of History; Director of Undergraduate Studies
Case Western Reserve University
Joy R. Bostic; Associate Professor; Founding Director, African and African American Studies Program
Chicago State University
Lionel Kimble; Associate Professor of History
College of William & Mary
Jody Allen; Assistant Professor; History
Adrienne Petty; Associate Professor; History
Steve Prince; Director of Engagement, Distinguished Artist In Residence; Muscarelle Museum of Art
Cornell University
Lynn Perry Wooten; David J. Nolan Dean, Dyson School; Professor, Management and Organizations
Dominican University
Douglas Keberlein-Gutierrez; Associate Professor; History
Chavella Pittman; Associate Professor of Sociology
Duke University
Mark Anthony Neal; James B. Duke Professor of African and African American Studies; Chair
Emory University
Michelle Gordon; Senior Lecturer in the Department of African American Studies
Dwight McBride; Provost
Harvard University
Jarvis Givens; Assistant Professor, Education; Suzanne Young Murray Assistant Professor
Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham; Victor S. Thomas Professor of History and of African and African American Studies; Chair
Khalil Muhammad; Professor of History, Race, and Public Policy, HKS; Suzanne Young Murray Professor, Radcliffe
Howard University
Greg Carr; Associate Professor and Chair | Department of Afro-American Studies
Roger Caruth; Lecturer, School of Communications
Lorenzo Morris; Professor, Department of Political Science
Catherine Quinlan; Assistant Professor, Science Education
Johns Hopkins University
Kali-Ahset Amen; Associate Director; Assistant Research Professor
Johnson C. Smith University
Marsha Rhee; Associate Professor; English
Lesley University
Tatiana Cruz; Assistant Professor; American History
Kazuyo Kubo; Associate Professor; Sociology
Morgan State University
Denise Davison; Assistant Professor; Social Work
Melissa Littlefield; Associate Professor, Social Work; Chair
New York University
Pamela Newkirk; Professor, Journalism
David Levering Lewis; Professor Emeritus
Northeastern University
Victoria Cain; Assistant Professor; History
Northwestern University
Ava Thompson Greenwell; Professor, Journalism
Jonathan Holloway; Provost
Ohio State University
Jackie Blount; Professor; Educational Studies
Linda James Myers; Professor, African American and African Studies
R. Joseph Parrott; Assistant Professor, History
Princeton University
Kinohi Nishikawa; Assistant Professor; English
Rice University
Marcia Walker-McWilliams; Associate Director, Programs for the Center for Civic Leadership
Rutgers University
Tim Eatman; Associate Professor, Urban Education; Dean, Honors Living-Learning Community
Savannah State University
Kisha Cunningham; Assistant Professor, School Of Teacher Education
Anthony Di Lorenzo; Assistant Professor; History
Simmons University
Brian Norman; Professor, English; Dean, Gwen Ifill College of Media, Arts, and Humanities
Jessica Parr; Adjunct Professor of History
Janie Ward; Professor and Department Chair, Africana Studies
Smith College
Paula Giddings; Elizabeth A. Woodson Professor Emerita of Africana Studies
Southeast Missouri State University
Joel P. Rhodes; Professor; History
Stanford University
Shelley Fisher Fishkin; Joseph S. Atha Professor of the Humanities and Professor of English
Texas Southern University
Tomiko Meeks; Professor; History
Brittany Slatton; Professor of Sociology
United States Air Force Academy
Lt. Col. John Roche; Director of Academics, History
University of Alaska-Anchorage
Ian Hartman; Associate Professor; History
University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff
Kevin Butler; Associate Professor of History
John D. Foster; Associate Professor; Sociology
University of Illinois, Chicago
Jane Rhodes; Department Head, Professor of African American Studies
University of Iowa
Sarah Bond; Assistant Professor of Classics
University of Massachusetts Boston
Layla Brown-Vincent; Assistant Professor; Africana Studies
Tony Van Der Meer; Senior Lecturer; Africana Studies
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Traci Parker; Assistant Professor; Afro-American Studies
University of Michigan
Joel Howell; Victor C. Vaughan Professor of the History of Medicine
Earl Lewis; Professor, Director, Center for Social Solutions
University of Pennsylvania
Marybeth Gasman; Judy & Howard Berkowitz Professor of Education
University of Richmond
Patrice Rankine; Professor, Classics; Dean, School of Arts & Sciences
University of Virginia
Theresa Davis; Associate Professor; Cross Cultural Performance
Michael Gerard Mason; Assistant Dean, African American Affairs; Director, Luther Porter Jackson Black Cultural Center
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Nan Kim; Associate Professor, Director of Public History
Valdosta State University
Tameka Hobbs; Coordinator of African American Studies & Associate Professor of History
Virginia Commonwealth University
Brian Daugherity; Associate Professor; History
Nicole Turner; Assistant Professor, Department of History
Washington University in St. Louis
Jack Kirkland; Associate Professor, Social Work
Members of The HistoryMakers Digital Humanities Committee are made up of librarians, faculty, and researchers, focused solely on exploring methods to provide more context for The HistoryMakers collection, and to provide further entry points for students and researchers, using cutting edge digital techniques and data analytics. Led initially by work produced out of the Yale University Digital Humanities Lab, this committee works collaboratively across institutions to conceive and implement projects that offer new ways of understanding and engaging with The HistoryMakers content, and that will surface latent themes and characteristics of the Collection.
Examples of the Digital Humanities Committee’s work include a text-modeling experiment using transcripts from The HistoryMakers Collection (http://dh.library.yale.edu/projects/hm/) generated by Yale University’s Digital Humanites Lab. The 25-topic model used machine algorithms to explore themes based on word frequency and co-occurrence.
Boston University
Vika Zafrin; Digital Scholarship Librarian
Carnegie Mellon University
Mike Christel; Teaching Professor; Entertainment Technology Center
Howard University
Lopez Matthews; Digital Preservation Librarian
Michigan State University
Julian Carlos Chambliss; Professor; English, History
Rutgers University
Krista White; Digital Humanities Librarian and Head, Media Services
Stanford University
Hannah Frost; Manager, Digital Library Product & Service Management
Glen Worthey; Digital Humanities Librarian Co-Lead of The Center For Interdisciplinary Digital Research
University of Iowa
Thomas Keegan; Head, Digital Scholarship & Publishing Studio
University of Richmond
Lauren Tilton; Visiting Assistant Professor of Digital Humanities
University of Virginia
John Unsworth; Dean of Libraries, University Librarian, Professor of English
Yale University
Catherine DeRose; Digital Humanities Lab Manager
Peter Leonard; Director, Digital Humanities Lab
Members of The HistoryMakers Library & Archives Committee are made up of librarians, archivists, and library administrators at each of The HistoryMakers partner institutions. Rather than serving solely as a database for partner institutions, The HistoryMakers also seeks to facilitate connections that will enrich the physical collections of partner libraries, as well as exploring mechanisms for connecting The HistoryMakers oral history interviews with other oral history collections or supporting contextual materials.
Projects of the Library & Archives Committee have included working with The HistoryMakers on the re-institution of a training program for minority archivists at Yale University, Harvard University, and Emory University; facilitating the donation of the personal papers of HistoryMakers like Angela Davis (Schlesinger Library), Daphne Maxwell Reid (Northwestern University), and Senator Emil Jones (University of Illinois, Chicago) to institutional repositories for preservation.
Boston University
Vita Paladino; Director, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center
Brandeis University
Matthew Sheehy; University Librarian
Carnegie Mellon University
Erica Linke; Associate Dean & Director of Collections and Information Access
Columbia University
John Tofanelli; Research Collections and Services Librarian, Humanities/History
Cornell University
Eric Acree; Director, John Henrik Clarke Africana Library
Emory University
Yolanda Cooper; University Librarian
Harvard University
Marilyn Dunn; Executive Director of the Schlesinger Library and Librarian of the Radcliffe Institute
Johnson C. Smith University
Monika Rhue; Director of Library Services and Curation
Northwestern University
Kathleen Bethel; African American Studies Librarian
Charla Wilson; Archivist for the Black Experience
Princeton University
Steven Knowlton; Librarian for History and African American Studies
Rutgers University
Consuella Askew; Director, Dana Library
University of Arkansas
Carolyn H. Allen; Dean of Libraries
University of Chicago
Brenda Johnson; University Librarian
University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign
Harriett Green; Head of Scholarly Communication and Publishing; Scholarly Communication and Publishing Librarian, Associate Professor
University of Iowa
Dan Johnson; Consulting Archivist
University of Pennsylvania
Nicholas Okrent; Coordinating Bibliographer and Librarian for the Humanities, Bibliographer and Liaison for World History and Humanities
University of Virginia
Sony Prosper; Resident Librarian; Special Collections
Virginia Commonwealth University
John Ulmschneider; University Librarian
Innovation and Pedagogy Conference Materials
Innovation and Pedagogy Conference Materials
The HistoryMakers Digital Archive Innovation and Pedagogy Conference 2024
The HistoryMakers Digital Archive Innovation and Pedagogy Conference 2024
Emory Conference Center, Atlanta, Georgia Sunday, February 25, 2024 – Monday, February 26, 2024
THE HISTORYMAKERS 3RD ANNUAL HIGHER EDUCATION ADVISORY BOARD MEETING – REACHING FACULTY & STUDENTS
THE HISTORYMAKERS 3RD ANNUAL HIGHER EDUCATION ADVISORY BOARD MEETING – REACHING FACULTY & STUDENTS
February 11-12, 2018; New York City 48 Attendees from 30 of 35 subscribing institutions.
THE HISTORYMAKERS 2ND ANNUAL HIGHER EDUCATION ADVISORY BOARD MEETING – REACHING INSTITUTIONS & LIBRARIES
THE HISTORYMAKERS 2ND ANNUAL HIGHER EDUCATION ADVISORY BOARD MEETING – REACHING INSTITUTIONS & LIBRARIES
February 5-6, 2017; New York City 40 Attendees from 19 of 19 subscribing institutions.
THE HISTORYMAKERS 1ST ANNUAL HIGHER EDUCATION ADVISORY BOARD MEETING – REACHING HIGHER ED
THE HISTORYMAKERS 1ST ANNUAL HIGHER EDUCATION ADVISORY BOARD MEETING – REACHING HIGHER ED
April 25-26, 2016; New York City 23 Attendees from 9 of 10 subscribing institutions.
Digital Humanities
Combining state of the art technology with traditional oral history to create a more robust and comprehensive resource has long been one of The HistoryMakers goals. Now, with the development of The HistoryMakers Digital Archive, this goal has reached fruition in a unique platform. However, The HistoryMakers corpus is still largely unexplored, and is now ripe for exploration along interdisciplinary lines. As a burgeoning academic discipline, the Digital Humanities has already established itself as a collaborative space for scholars in varying areas to combine their expertise – elucidating new ideas and trends in data and the historical record that had never before been explored.
With over 9,000 hours of fully-transcribed time-aligned video content, robust search capabilities, and hundreds of thousands of fields of metadata, The HistoryMakers has amassed an impressive dataset for technologists and data scientists to experiment with, but through The HistoryMakers Digital Archive, this vast content is also accessible for those without background in analytics or quantitative fields. In order to encourage scholars from all areas to explore The HistoryMakers content more deeply, and to use it in the creation of innovative new projects, a Digital Humanities committee was formed within The HistoryMakers Higher Education Advisory Board, and a Digital Humanities Fellowship Award was created in 2019.