New York City
January 29, 2021
We are pleased to announce that Humanities New York has awarded ASHP/CML a grant of $5,000 for Spaces, Places, and Faces: Exploring Queer Public History. The grant will be used to research and develop a podcast series that looks at how the work of historians, activists, educators, and archivists have preserved and reclaimed the telling of LGBTQ+ history. ASHP/CML will produce two episodes to air in fall 2021 and script four additional episodes in the series.
Spaces, Places, and Faces builds on ASHP/CML’s recent work with the New York City Depatment of Education developing LGBTQ+ curriculum for grades 4-12. The podcasts are designed for a broad public audience of classroom educators, school administrators, parents, humanities scholars, activists, archivists, and public historians. It will also be of interest to LGBTQ+ people looking to understand the public history happening in their communities as well as to those seeking to understand and integrate the work of Queer public historians into their own practice.
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Did you know that American Social History Project Podcast (ASHP Podcast) has published over eighty episodes? With topics ranging from slavery and anti-slavery imagery to women’s history and women’s activism, and to border, immigration and citizenship, ASHP Podcast has presented subjects of interest to teachers and the public.
Our podcast is drawn from ASHP’s public seminars and professional development programs with scholars, activists, and educators working in social and public history. In the latest podcast, humanities scholar Maryanne Trasciatti (Hofstra University) shares the work of the Remembering the Triangle Fire Coalition, which is leading the effort to build a public art memorial to the 146 victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911. The episode was recorded at ASHP’s public seminar, “Who Decides? The History and Future of Monument Creation in New York City,” held at the CUNY Graduate Center.
Subscribe and download episodes of ASHP Podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Leave a review of the podcast, and subscribe to our biannual newsletter.
In partnership with The Gotham Center for New York City History and the CUNY Public History Collective, ASHP is hosting a series of public programs titled Difficult Histories/Public Spaces: The Challenge of Monuments in New York City and the Nation. The series brings together historians, art historians, community activists, and artists to discuss the ongoing reevaluation of public monuments and memorials and to engage with audiences about the often controversial histories represented.
ASHP held the first event, Monuments as: History / Art / Power on June 13, 2018. The panel presented a case study of the former J. Marion Sims monument on Fifth Avenue and 104th Street, and examined the historical context of Sims’s medical research and experimentation on enslaved women, the modern East Harlem community response to his current memorialization, and future possibilities for remembering this difficult history.
The second event, Who Decides? The History and Future of Monument Creation in New York City will be held on October 9, 2018 and will discuss the history of monument creation, visions for new projects, and the current pressures on New York City agencies to respond to public opinion. Participants will include Michele Bogart, author of the new Sculpture in Gotham: Art and Urban Renewal In New York City; Mary Anne Trasciatti, President, “Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition;” Jack Tchen, Professor of Public History and the Humanities, Rutgers University; and will be moderated by Todd Fine, History Doctoral Candidate, CUNY Graduate Center, and advocate of the monument for “Little Syria.”
A third and final event, focused on alternative approaches to confronting and constructively addressing how difficult histories are memorialized in New York City and throughout the country, will be held on February 6, 2019. Further information will be posted closer to the date of the program.
All events are held in the Segal Theatre at the CUNY Graduate Center and are free and open to the public. The series is made possible with funding from Humanities New York and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Visit https://ashp.cuny.edu/difficult-histories-public-spaces-series-public-programs to learn more about the upcoming programs.
In the introductory essay for the recently completed CUNY Digital History Archive (CDHA) collection “Save Hostos!,” professor emeritus Gerald Meyer states:
From the fall of 1973 until the spring of 1979, Hostos Community College became the site of one of the most prolonged and successful mass movements in New York City during the 1970s. Throughout that five-year period, students, staff, faculty, and members of the community mobilized three massive year-long campaigns.
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Working from a larger collection in the Hostos Community College Archive, Meyer and College archivist William Casari collaborated with CDHA collections coordinator Chloe Smolarski on “Save Hostos!,”selecting documents that were representative of the struggles to save the college at the time of the city’s fiscal crisis. Meyer meticulously saved hundreds of documents from the “Save Hostos” movement, and Casari carefully retained and catalogued the fliers, photographs, articles, correspondence, student newspapers, PSC papers, and and other materials Meyers had gathered. Now, a collection containing 67 of these items can be easily accessed online along with an introductory essay and contextual information for each item. As Casari suggested in his fall 2016 article in Academic Affairs on the CDHA collections, “These primary source items from across CUNY libraries and archives can be used for homework, primary source research, or could form the basis of a small in-class workshop on Hostos history. Numerous curricular uses are possible.”
The CUNY Digital History Archive is an open, digital archive and portal that gives the CUNY community and the broader public online access to a range of materials related to the history of the City University of New York. This project also involves coordination and collaboration with college libraries and archives that house significant historical collections. The CDHA accepts historical materials and records contributed by individuals whose lives, in diverse ways, have shaped, and been shaped, by CUNY. Faculty, staff, and students have fought to sustain CUNY’s democratic mission and one of the goals of the CUNY Digital History Archive is to document and preserve those stories.
ASHP has received funding from the Arthur P. Sloan Foundation to further develop the CUNY Digital History Archive, a participatory project to create, collect, and conserve the histories of the City University of New York. This open archive and portal gives the CUNY community and the broader public online access to a range of materials related to the history of the City University of New York. The CDHA will make available materials contributed by individuals whose lives, in diverse ways, have shaped and been shaped by CUNY. Faculty, staff, and students have fought to sustain the university’s democratic mission and one of the goals of the CUNY Digital History Archive is to document and preserve the stories of those efforts. This project also involves collaboration with CUNY college libraries and archives that house significant collections and records related to the history of the university. With the support of this grant, we look forward to increased partnering with these libraries and archives as well as to conducting oral history interviews and incorporating contributions from former and current members of the CUNY community. Please contact us if you would like to contribute materials to this project.
February 11, 2015 marked the launch of the fourth Mission US digital role-playing game. This series of free online games is created to engage middle and high school students in the exploration and understanding of U.S. history. “City of Immigrants” supports the study of immigration, the labor movement, and cultural identity in the American History curriculum. Players take on the role of Lena Brodsky, a Russian Jewish teen who has immigrated to New York City in 1907. As Lena makes the Lower East Side her home, she struggles to help support her family and finds herself in the middle of the growing labor movement.
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As young people play “City of Immigrants,” they gain important insights into the struggle for safe working conditions, fair wages, and the right to bargain collectively. At the same time, they experience the challenges of cultural differences, assimilation, and prejudice. Players will interact with a variety of characters, from factory supervisors to family and religious leaders, who all had roles in creating America’s labor movement and strong communities in New York. As they assume the role of Lena, players must decide: Does she dare speak up and stand up for workers’ rights? Can she continue to support her family? Players will make choices and experience the consequences of those choices – the same choices immigrants grappled with as they made their way in the United States.
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The CUNY Digital History Archive (CDHA) is an open, participatory, digital repository and portal that gives the CUNY community and the broader public online access to a range of archival materials related to the history of the City University of New York. This effort involves coordination and collaboration with college libraries and archives that house significant historical collections. The CDHA will conduct and collect oral history interviews as well as accept historical materials and records held by individuals who have, in diverse ways, contributed to CUNY. The project involves faculty, staff, students, activists, archivists, librarians, retirees, and alumni. One collection currently being built is on Civil Rights and Open Admissions on CUNY campuses, 1960s – 1970s so let us know if you or your CUNY college have relevant material on the subject. CDHA is conducted under the auspices of the American Social History Project-Center for Media and Learning at the CUNY Graduate Center. Sign up to get involved!
We are very excited to announce the launch of Who Built America Badges for History Education. The site is a free online professional learning community where teachers can work with ASHP/CML history educators to teach and create document-based, Common Core aligned units. While doing so, they earn digital badges that demonstrate their professional learning and help to advance their careers. This project grows out of our decades of work providing professional development to history teachers in New York City and elsewhere and features the engaging social history content ASHP/CML is known for. Please help us to get the word out about WBA Badges to both in-service and pre-service teachers by sharing this announcement with colleagues.
The history of the City University of New York and the championing of public higher education are the focus of a new initiative involving present and past CUNY faculty, staff, and students along with libraries, archives, and collections in and outside of the university. Coordinated by ASHP/CML, the CUNY Digital History Archive will collect the stories in text, sound, and image of the many events, people, and communities that have been critical to the university’s democratic mission. These materials will be made available to the public as an open access repository and also will direct users to valuable records and resources located at CUNY campuses.
A public program on Wednesday, April 9th, at 6:30 pm in the Martin Segal Theatre at the Graduate Center will mark the launch of the CUNY Digital History Archive. Featuring two roundtable discussions−”The Fight for Open Admissions and Its Early Implementation across CUNY, 1968-1976″ and “Student Activism and the Fight against State and City Cutbacks and Attacks, 1985-2014″−the event will involve activists in the struggle for and defense of Open Admissions from the late-1960s to the present, who will describe their experiences and offer insights about the past and its implications for the future. Please mark your calendars and check the ASHP/CML homepage in late February for details about this event.