Site Partners

Center for History and New Media at George Mason University

Since 1994 under the founding direction of Roy Rosenzweig, the Center for History and New Media (CHNM) at George Mason University has used digital media and computer technology to democratize history—to incorporate multiple voices, reach diverse audiences, and encourage popular participation in presenting and preserving the past.

CHNM uses digital media and technology to preserve and present history online, transform scholarship across the humanities, and advance historical education and understanding. Each year CHNM’s many project websites receive over 16 million visitors, and over a million people rely on its digital tools to teach, learn, and conduct research.

CHNM’s work has been recognized with major awards and grants from the American Historical Association, the National Humanities Center, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Department of Education, the Library of Congress, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Mellon, Sloan, Hewlett, Rockefeller, Gould, Delmas, and Kellogg foundations.

Institute of Oral History at the University of Texas El Paso

The Institute of Oral History at the University of Texas El Paso (IOH) was established in 1972 for the purpose of "preserving the history of the region adjacent to the Rio Grande both in the United States and in Mexico." Since that time, the Institute has built one of the largest border-related oral history collections in the United States. While an emphasis has been on the El Paso-Ciudad Juárez region, the collection also contains interviews dealing with the history of communities all along the U.S.-Mexico border. Current holdings include over 1000 interviews, representing over 1600 hours of tape recorded interviews and more than 20,000 pages of transcript. These materials cover a wide range of subjects, spanning social, economic, political, cultural and artistic concerns.

Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America at Brown University

The Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America (CSREA) was established in 1988 with the premise that is crucial to understand race as a historical and sociological reality in America and to understand the implications of race and ethnicity as historical, social, and analytical categories for mutidisciplinary studies and multiple modes of discourse. To coordinate and develop Brown`s academic resources for this purpose, the Center facilitates teaching and research on African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans. It also includes teaching, research, and conferences on biracials and multiracials.

The Center emphasizes the interdisciplinary and comparative study of these groups and promotes analytical studies of race, ethnicity, gender, and class. Within Brown University, the Center works with departments and faculty who share similar goals and interests. For graduate and undergraduate students, the Center brings in invited scholars and speakers for the annual events of ethnic student organizations and provides grants in support of their research in the areas of race and ethnicity in America or in the comparative study of American racial or ethnic groups with those in other countries.

Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History

The National Museum of American History (NMAH) opened to the public in January 1964 as the Museum of History and Technology. It was the sixth Smithsonian building on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Since then, some 4 million visitors pass through the doors each year to enjoy the Museum’s exhibitions, public programs, educational activities, collections, and research facilities. Millions more make virtual visits to the Museum’s Web site.

In 1980, the Museum's name was changed to the National Museum of American History to better represent its basic mission—the collection, care, and study of objects that reflect the experience of the American people. Today, the Museum is engaged in a major renovation to create a brighter and more open environment throughout the building and a dramatic new exhibition gallery for the Star-Spangled Banner.

Virtual Partners

Museo Alameda

In 1949, Tano Lucchese, the legendary San Antonio businessman, built the largest movie palace in the United States dedicated to Spanish language entertainment. At the opening on March 9, 1949, Luchesse said, "The Alameda will be a permanent symbol of good faith and understanding between the Latin American and Anglo American where they might share and recognize two different cultures." By 1991, the theater had fallen into disrepair. A group of San Antonio visionaries promoted the rebirth of the Alameda as an important national icon symbolizing the contributions of Latinos to the cultural heritage of our country. The City of San Antonio supported this vision by donating the landmark properties and by contributing capital dollars to the redevelopment campaign. This moved inspired the AT&T Foundation, the Ford Motor Company, and the Ford Motor Company Fund to underwrite important elements of the Alameda's redevelopment. In 1996, Secretary I. Michael Heyman of the Smithsonian Institution announced a physical presence of the Smithsonian in San Antonio. This announcement designated the Museo Alameda as the first formal affiliate of the Smithsonian outside of Washington D.C. and gave birth to the Smithsonian's affiliations program. In May of the same year, Governor George W. Bush signed a joint resolution of the Texas legislature establishing the Museo Alameda as the official State Latino Museum. Soon thereafter, Michael Kaiser of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced a groundbreaking partnership with the Alameda Theater. These alliances breathed life into the idea proposed by founding chairman Henry R. Munóz III: that the Alameda would become a national center for Latino arts and culture, fulfilling Tano Lucchese's dream of a place that tells the story of the Latino experience in America.

El Museo Latino

El Museo Latino opened its doors in the historic Livestock Exchange Building on May 5,1993 as the first Latino art & History museum and cultural center in the Midwest. In 1997, the museum moved to its present brick and red tile roof building. The original construction of 1887 was a school and was reconstructed in the 1930s. Today, El Museo Latino is one of only eleven Latino museums in the United States. In conjunction with the exhibits, El Museo Latino develops educational programs that include lectures, slide presentations, films, art classes, workshops, demonstrations, art history classes, gallery talks, guided visits, and dance classes. Some of the programs are age specific for K-12, some for post secondary students, and others are for an adult audience. In addition, El Museo Latino is a resource and a center for Latino studies in the Midwest. El Museo Latino organizes and presents special events during the year highlighting the annual Cinco de Mayo celebration in May and Hispanic Heritage Month in September. May features the annual Almuerzo (brunch) while September features the Hispanic Heritage celebration Banquet. During the year, Family Day celebrations are also scheduled as well as special dance performances by the museum's dance company, "CHOMARI" Ballet Folklorico Mexicano, and by visiting artists.

Chamizal National Memorial

In 1968, Congress established Chamizal National Memorial to commemorate the Chamizal Convention (treaty) of 1963. The Chamizal treaty finally ended a long-standing border dispute between the U.S. and Mexico. The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo established the Rio Grande/Río Bravo as the international boundary between the U.S. and Mexico. However, rivers naturally move over time. In this case, the river gradually, and at times abruptly, moved south, which left Mexico with less land than the 1848 treaty established. The land disputes that arose because of the river movement caused tension between the U.S. and Mexico for more than 100-years. Finally, in 1963 U.S. President John F. Kennedy and Mexican President Adolfo Lopez Mateos met to discuss the "Chamizal Issue” and through diplomatic negotiations, they solved the Chamizal Issue with the signing of the Chamizal Treaty.

New Americans Museum

For centuries, the United States has beckoned to immigrants the world over. As a result, contemporary America is a diverse mosaic of cultures and traditions. One in five Americans today was either born in a foreign country or has a parent who was born abroad. In fact, children of immigrant families is the fastest growing population group in the U.S. Understanding the impact of these demographic changes is a national imperative. In the civic, economic, and artistic arenas, yesterday’s newcomer is tomorrow’s pioneer in a continuing process that defines us to this day. As a catalyst to celebrate America’s past and promise, the New Americans Museum provides inspiring and compelling educational and cultural programs and activities exploring our diverse immigrant experiences.

Oregon Historical Society

Shortly after its formation, the Society opened its first office and museum in Portland City Hall and began the development of a regional research library and a collection of historical artifacts. In 1917, the Society moved into Portland’s Public Auditorium (now Keller Auditorium) and, in 1966, moved to its current location at the corner of SW Jefferson and Park in downtown Portland. The journal of record for Oregon history, the Oregon Historical Quarterly, has been published continuously since 1900. Over 150 books on Oregon history, politics and culture, as well as biographies, field guides and exhibit catalogs, have been published by OHS since the OHS Press was established in 1929. The OHS artifacts collection is comprised of over 85,000 artifacts, including ancient objects from the earliest settlements and objects that illustrate exploration in the Oregon Country, the growth of business and industry, the development of artwork and crafts, maritime history, and many other topics. The OHS Research Library contains one of the country’s most extensive collections of state history materials, including approximately 25,000 maps, 30,000 books, 8.5 million feet of film and videotape, 16,000 rolls of microfilm, and 12,000 linear feet of documents. The Research Library’s photographic archives include over 2.5 million images from pre-statehood to the present day. OHS Education Programs include internet resources to supplement classroom curriculum, Folklife cultural programs that focus on the diversity and beauty of arts and traditions, and teacher training and workshops on Oregon history.

Lakeshore Museum Center

Formally known as the Muskegon County Museum, The mission of the Lakeshore Museum Center is to preserve and interpret through exhibits, education, and programs the natural and cultural history of Muskegon County.

University of Texas at San Antonio, Department of Sociology

The sociology program at UTSA is a fast-growing component of the College of Liberal and Fine Arts at UTSA that highlights the cutting edge work of diverse scholars who are engaged within and outside the academy (please see below for current faculty research and select publications). The core of our program is highlighted by an emphasis on methodological rigor, both quantitative and qualitative. We also strive to achieve a balance between the abstract theoretical concerns that ground our discipline and empirical research that sheds light on the genuine, everyday experiences of real people in the real world. At UTSA sociology, we strive to gain a fuller understanding of the social forces and existent inequalities which disproportionately affect the economically disadvantaged, members of racial ethnic minority groups, and members of low-income rural populations. A unifying theme of our program is our department’s philosophy of engaging in scholarly work that addresses public issues in a manner that is timely, relevant, and accessible to general audiences outside the academy. Our emphasis on “Public Sociology” is centered on an understanding of sociology as a scholarly discipline that is both rigorous, research driven, and theoretically informed. In the tradition of sociologists like C. Wright Mills and Michael Buroway, we strive to connect seemingly personal problems like poverty and “deviant” behavior with broader public issues, while making research findings available to audiences outside the academy. This means making findings available to a broad array of audiences from policy makers, members of the community, and the public at large. The Voices of the United Farm Worker Movement in Texas Project is a multimedia research initiative to document the history of the United Farm Worker Movement in Texas from its inception in 1966 to the present-day. The research project seeks to address present-day issues tied to undocumented immigration into the U.S. by interviewing/filming activists, farm workers, elected officials and community members whom had participated in the movement during her 30-year tenure. The multimedia research initiative which began as a Film Documentary has expanded to include an Oral History Collection, and a Digital Archive.

Collecting Partners

California State University Channel Islands

California State University Channel Islands, located in Camarillo, California, is a student-centered, four-year, public university known for its interdisciplinary, multicultural, and international perspectives and its emphasis on experiential and service learning. Channel Islands' strong academic programs focus on liberal studies, sciences, business, teaching credentials and innovative master's degrees such as the M.S. in Bioinformatics. Students benefit from individual attention, up-to-date technology, and classroom instruction augmented by stellar faculty research. The University promotes partnerships with the community and works to build pathways to college for Ventura County residents. Channel Islands is a responsible citizen of the region and actively pursues sustainable and energy efficient practices.

Service Learning at CSUCI

CSUCI is dedicated to providing students with experiential and service learning experiences. Service learning is a teaching and learning method that links course content to "real-life" experiences that centers around a community need or issue. Through reflection activities students are given the opportunity to understand what was learned and experienced, and how the community was benefited.