TOURS       GIVE  

 CONTACT      ACCESSIBILITY    

  • Home
  • Learn
  • Blog
  • Through NEH Grant HistoryForge Confirms NEW Testing Partners

THE HISTORY CENTER BLOG

The History Center blog shares research and findings about local history, excerpts from the History Center Archives, information about upcoming exhibits and other opportunities on how to get involved with The History Center in Tompkins County. To learn more or view the archival materials mentioned, visit us in downtown Ithaca, follow us on social media @TompkinsHistory, or subscribe to our monthly newsletter History Happenings

Through NEH Grant HistoryForge Confirms NEW Testing Partners

Tue, May 30, 2023 4:20 PM | Anonymous

Through NEH Grant HistoryForge Confirms NEW Testing Partners


An exciting aspect of the recently awarded $145,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to the HistoryForge project is the expansion of records for Tompkins County as well as the addition of new partner sites across the country. Over the course of the next year each new partner site will begin implementing HistoryForge in their own communities under the guidance and support of Tompkins HistoryForge

HistoryForge is an innovative digital history project combining maps, archival records, and census data that allows any community to explore its local history through the individuals who lived there and the buildings and neighborhoods they lived in. 

We are excited to welcome the following organizations to HistoryForge
The Heinz History Center will focus on the 1920 census and G.M. Hopkins real estate maps for Pittsburgh’s Hill District neighborhood for its participation in the HistoryForge project.  At that time, the Hill District was a densely populated neighborhoods that included African American, Italian American, and Jewish residents. The neighborhood developed into a cultural and social hub for Black Pittsburgh between the 1920s and 1950s.  
The Schenectady County Historical Society is happy to serve as a testing partner for the HistoryForge program. We will focus our work on the first and second wards of the city of Schenectady for the 1910 census. This area covers the Stockade neighborhood which is the oldest part of the city. In 1910, this area of Schenectady was largely residential and experiencing decline as the city expanded east and south. The Erie Canal was no longer the shining star of the city and the population was shifting to accommodate the growing workforce at General Electric and other businesses away from the Stockade area. However, these changes likely played a significant role in preserving the architecture and character of the neighborhood. The National Park Service has described the Stockade as the highest concentration of historic period homes in the country. Many of the properties in this area can be traced back to the colonial and early America periods. The archival collections at SCHS include extensive photographs, documents, and maps for this portion of the city. We also have copies of the 1910 city directory and enrollment of voters to complement the census records.

The Midlo Center for New Orleans Studies at the University of New Orleans will partner with HistoryForge on two related projects during the first testing year of this partnership. In the first project, the Midlo Center will use the HistoryForge platform to link census data with historical maps and addresses from two New Orleans neighborhoods, the Iberville and the Tremé-Lafitte areas, both of which have been profoundly transformed by urban renewal projects in the twentieth century. The areas are of considerable importance in the city’s history. They encompass Storyville, New Orleans’s semi-legal red light district from 1898 to 1917, famous as the birthplace of the city’s distinctive style of jazz; the Tremé neighborhood, often referenced as one of the oldest Black neighborhoods in the United States; and the Carondelet Canal area, once a thriving commercial zone linking water-borne commerce with a developing African American middle class of skilled workers in the building trades. As these neighborhoods have also been the subject of large-scale archaeological data recoveries in recent years, the HistoryForge platform potentially provides a new interpretive tool to link people in the past with both addresses and archaeological assemblages, and to make this information available to the public.

In a second regionally-focused project, the Midlo Center will transcribe wage laborer lists compiled by the Louisiana Freedmen’s Bureau from former plantations just after Emancipation, and then utilize these as a bridge to later census data in select Mississippi River parishes. The Midlo will coordinate with a broad range of community partners in this effort, with an initial emphasis on select former plantations and post-Emancipation freetowns in St. John the Baptist and Plaquemines Parishes. This is intended to create a new tool for those researching genealogy, population movements, and ancestral African American cemeteries in the area. It will align with efforts to link unmarked and/or newly identified cemeteries with descendant populations currently underway by the Midlo and its partners.

From before the Civil War, the Walnut Hills neighborhood of Cincinnati became home to both middle and working class families from many different racial and ethic groups, including African Americans, Italians, Mountain People from Appalachia, and many others. By focusing on the 1940 census, we will use HistoryForge to identify, describe and celebrate the vibrant diversity of Walnut Hills, especially as it existed prior to the transportation and other social developments that transformed the neighborhood beginning in the 1950’s. This work supports the mission of the Walnut Hills Historical Society: To promote the unique history of Walnut Hills through research, engagement and advocacy. 

 From 2022-2024 the HistoryForge project is supported by a major grant from the 'National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom'.

Physical Address

Located inside the Tompkins Center for History & Culture

110 North Tioga Street

(On the Ithaca Commons) 

Ithaca NY, 14850 USA

Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫˀ Territory

Hours

Exhibit HallWednesday-Saturday 10am-6pm - CLOSED Sun-Tues

Cornell Local History Research Library & Archives - By appointment only. Please contact archives@thehistorycenter.net

Contact                                                     

Email: Refer to Contact page for individual emails, General inquiries to community@thehistorycenter.net

Phone: 607-273-8284

Web: thehistorycenter.net

Find us on social media @tompkinshistory



© Copyright 2020-2024 The History Center in Tompkins County

Web Design by Zoë Van Nostrand

Powered by Wild Apricot Membership Software
Visit Us