Nunn Center collaborates with West Chester University to digitize "Goin' North" oral history project

 

The "Goin' North" project includes
photos of families like
Alexander, Caroline, and Milo Manly.

A collaboration between the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at UK Libraries Special Collections Research Center and West Chester University of Pennsylvania yielded an online exhibit based on the “Goin’ North” oral history project. Documenting the experiences of African Americans who moved to Philadelphia during the Great Migration (post-World War I to 1970) the exhibit and collections include digitized oral history interviews along with associated photographs and documents.

Called a “model collaboration” by Nunn Center Director Doug Boyd, the project came about through a relationship between Dr. Boyd and Professor Charles Hardy, the original interviewer and historian who conducted the oral history project in the 1980s. As collaborators and co-authors Dr. Boyd and Professor Hardy worked together to use the OHMS system developed by the Nunn Center in a class at West Chester. Drawing on audiocassettes housed at the Philadelphia History Museum students digitized 71 interviews, audited the transcripts, and developed keyword thesauri.

Dr. Boyd, Kopana Terry, and Danielle Gabbard of the Nunn Center worked closely with professors at West Chester to complete the project. The interviews are now archived at the Nunn Center.