history

by Kristen Gwinn-Becker on October 19, 2020 Leave a Comment

The 3 Fs Endangering Your History: Fire

History is always in danger. By history, I mean the historical assets that we use as evidence and examples to share stories from the past. These assets are often in a state of jeopardy. Numerous forces could destroy these resources and the histories they contain. This blog series addresses what we at HistoryIT call the 3Fs – the greatest dangers to your history: Fire, Flood, and Forgetting.

This post takes a look at the first F – fire. I have observed that most of us are aware that our historical archives – whether personal or institutional – are one matchstick away from total destruction. This is a serious concern. Though, it rarely prompts an urgency for digital preservation. We always think it won’t be our house that burns. Until it does.

by Kristen Gwinn-Becker on August 3, 2020 Leave a Comment

How to develop a sense of belonging when you can’t be together?

Looking to the past is more critical than ever as you build your organization’s future.

With no end in sight for the pandemic, organizations that rely heavily on recruitment must pivot from face-to-face interactions to online ones. How can your organization make the shift and thrive?

Belonging to an organization involves feeling like you are part of something greater than yourself. This notion develops not only through interactions with other members, but also through what you learn about the organization’s history, traditions, and values. As groups transition to virtual recruitment, they must find ways to mimic both of those pathways to belonging.

by Kristen Gwinn-Becker on July 9, 2020 Leave a Comment

How to talk about a shameful history

Individuals and organizations all have things from their past that they wish hadn’t happened or had been handled differently. This can be as minor as that eighth-grade haircut or as serious as middle school bullying. It can be as horrifying as knowing your ancestors owned slaves. It can be as shameful as learning about racist policies and procedures implemented in your organization’s past.

by Laura Pearce on February 7, 2019 Leave a Comment

History Shows Attack on Greek Life Nothing New

With Harvard and other leading universities seeking to ban or effectively eliminate single-gender organizations by sanctioning their members, sororities and fraternities are under attack.

It’s not the first time.

by Larry Brunt on October 28, 2016 Leave a Comment

Walter Johnson, Manager of the Cleveland Indians

As most baseball fans know, the Cleveland Indians are battling right now for their first World Series title since 1948.

That 1948 team was stacked with future Hall of Famers: Larry Doby, Bob Feller, Lou Boudreau, Bob Lemon, Joe Gordon and Satchel Paige. But one Hall of Famer who wore the Cleveland Indians uniform in the first half of the 20^th century doesn’t look natural in it at all.

by Larry Brunt on October 11, 2016 Leave a Comment

Walter Johnson and his Fox Hounds

Even on its surface, it’s a compelling photograph. The inscription dates the image to 1926, but even without it, one could guess the era: the sepia finish, the rugged faces, the fedora on one man, the flat “newsboy” cap on the other. Even the weathered faces and wood-slat barn suggest an earlier age.

by Kristen Gwinn-Becker on April 4, 2016 Leave a Comment

Digital Imperative for Historical Collections

I read the April 2^nd Washington Post article about the discovery of the missing patent documents for the Wright brothers’ “flying machine” with mixed emotions. As an historian, I am thrilled that determined archivists were able to track down what is universally regarded as a national treasure, missing – likely due to being misfiled – for more than thirty years. As a digital innovator, I see another example of celebrating “history saved” obfuscating the serious reality that our history is in danger, and I am frustrated.

by Kristen Gwinn-Becker on November 30, 2015 Leave a Comment

Analog Practices in a Digital World

Our historical information is stuck in the past. For the most part, cultural heritage organizations are failing to connect the modern online population with our historical resources. I believe that the public needs to interact with evidence and stories from our past in order to build a thoughtful, informed society. And in order to interact with it, they need access to it – digital access. It’s not our technology – or lack thereof – that is relegating our meaningful evidence of the past to a small pool of elite researchers who are charged with finding and interpreting its meaning once they have located it in a remote physical archive, or even in a digital archive. At the root, the persisting problem is a cultural one or, perhaps more accurately put, a behavioral one. Our cultural heritage organizations are still utilizing analog practices, even within the digital world.

history

Footer