Building History: Public History Students make Community History More Accessible through Building History Projects

Abstract

Historic buildings shaped, witnessed, bear evidence of, and can serve asaccessible gateways to the history of a community. They also cancontribute the development of a community’s identity. The case for thevalue of aging structures and the task of arguing for their preservationmay fall upon the shoulders of underfunded and under resourced localhistorical societies. Public history students and local historicalsocieties benefit from collaborative service-learning experiences wherestudents help the historical society document local history and buildtheir work place skills. Students also gain an awareness of theimportance of the work historical societies do and the needs of thecommunities that they serve. This presentation will discuss the learningexperiences of students in an undergraduate public history class whoworked with a local historical society to document and share the storiesof historic structures that are located the town’s historic main street.It will describe the evolution of this collaborative activity, describeproject stages, assignment topics, means of coordination betweenacademic librarian, public history professor, students, and historicalsociety, the benefits for all involved, the outcomes of the project, andnext steps that are envisioned. It will invite discussion of similarexperiences or suggestions of how the collaboration, which is expectedto be repeated, might be improved