Bringing Together Black Digital History @UmbraSearch.org
Sarah Carlson
University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
Keywords: diversity, access, outreach, instruction, collaboration, African American, digital collections, digital humanities
Abstract
The urgency of representing African American cultural history as fully as possible drives Umbra: Search African American History (umbrasearch.org), a free online discovery platform that aggregates and makes discoverable parts of history that heretofore have been mis/underrepresented in curriculum and education policy. Through partnerships, open data, and technology, Umbra is working against centuries of loss and erasure to expand the historical record for students, scholars, and the general public. Umbra’s digital aggregation of over 400,000 objects (manuscripts, photographs, video) identifies and brings together archival materials that otherwise can be difficult to find online. Materials from more than 500 US archives, libraries, and cultural heritage institutions are discoverable in a central search portal that points students to the home repositories’ collections. Umbra provides an opportunity for students to think critically about history— who writes it, what is deemed worthy of preservation—and is an introduction to archival research.
