What better way to celebrate the end of 2021 then to spotlight untold stories across the country in NHAs.
National Heritage Areas give voice to important, but too often forgotten, parts of our nation's diverse past.
Read and watch to learn more.
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MotorCities and Rivers of Steel National Heritage Areas partnered to host a panel to share critical moments of organized labor examining lessons from our past which shape our present and drive our future.
Panelist represented the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, United Auto Workers, and United Steelworkers.
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Hidden Spaces in Muscle Shoals
Juan Ramon, owner of a downtown Russellville restaurant and part of the town’s growing Hispanic population, is part of Hidden Spaces which shares little-told stories in Muscle Shoals National Heritage Area (MSNHA) in northwest Alabama.
They partnered with local photographer Abraham Rowe and the University of North Alabama’s public-history graduate program to produce the photo-historical project Hidden Spaces. Rowe, public-history grad students and MSNHA director Carrie Crawford identified significant but unknown people and places within the area to interview, photograph, and exhibit. The Hidden Spaces effort was so popular and successful that the project recently wrapped up its 4th exhibit. To learn more about MSNHA and Hidden Spaces, visit https://msnha.una.edu/ and https://hiddenspaces.org/
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Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor partnered with WCNY, the PBS affiliate in Syracuse, NY, to produce a documentary and a companion lesson plan and student worksheets. The film explores the impact of the Erie Canal as an agent of change, empowering women past and present. The film and lesson plan analyze the impacts of the Erie Canal on development of 19th century social reform movements, particularly women’s rights. As students examine historic examples of groups who struggled for equality, the lesson helps them compare past movements to contemporary issues and consider their own capacities as change-makers. The video and educational materials are now available on Erie Canalway’s website and will be uploaded to PBS LearningMedia.
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In January 2022, we will feature speakers from the National Park Service to discuss tools for Interpreting Social Justice on January 20th at 2:00 EDT.
2021's focus was on partnerships in NHAs
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September's presentations on member as partners featured MotorCities NHA and Schuylkill NHA.
October's presentation featured community partnerships in Looking for Lincoln NHA and Delaware and Lehigh NHC.
November featured sites as partners in South Carolina NHC and Silos and Smokestacks NHA.
December featured a discussion on formal and informal partnerships.
As you fill out the NPS NHA Annual Data Collection forms - review the December 2020 presentation on the forms and check out the new presentation from 2021.
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Preservation: South Park NHA Restores Paris Mill - In 2004, Paris Mill in South Park National Heritage Area was listed as one of Colorado’s Most Endangered Places. Since then, Park County purchased the vacant mill, designated it a historic landmark, and invested critical resources to ensure it survives for future generations.
In 2013, the Paris Mill was listed in the National Register of Historic Places; three years later, a Master Plan was completed.
Today, the mill’s Cyanidation Wing and Gold Precipitation Wing are rehabilitated and stabilized with more than $900,000 invested. Colorado Preservation Inc, Park County, South Park National Heritage Area, State Historical Fund, Form Works Design, JVA, and Wattle & Daub Contractors all play a significant role in the project’s continual success. The goal is complete rehabilitation and reuse of Paris Mill as a museum for interpreting the area’s mining history as one of the few intact mills remaining from this era in Colorado.
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Conservation - Water Temperature Monitoring in the Housatonic River Watershed
As part of the Upper Housatonic Valley National Heritage Area’s (Housatonic Heritage) response to climate change mitigation, a water temperature monitoring project was implemented with three regional partner organizations in the headwaters of the Housatonic River. The Berkshire Environmental Action Team, Housatonic Valley Association, and Hoosic River Watershed Association teamed up with Housatonic Heritage’s support to gain new insights into the sources and causes of river water warming in the region.
This program is to confirm the locations of cold-water streams to protect them and sustain a healthy ecosystem for cold-water fish and other species impacted by manmade factors such as dams, deforestation, run off, and other activities.
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Weelunk, an online digital publication by Wheeling National Heritage Area, is dedicated to telling stories of Wheeling’s past and present. To support this work, Wheeling Heritage sponsors an AmeriCorps member through the Preservation Alliance of West Virginia.
Emma Wiley, an AmeriCorp member, was digging through the archives at the Ohio County Public Library and came across an intriguing collection of scrapbooks belonging to Mabel Hull, an African American woman from Wheeling in the 1940--1970s. The collection contained clippings of columns she wrote in the Wheeling News-Register and The Pittsburgh Courier. It was hard to find information on Mabel’s life and work as a journalist. Many of the “go-to” sources like census records and obituaries turned up empty. Mabel's old Wheeling address on Morrow Street no longer exists—demolished as part of Wheeling’s urban renewal movement. Read more about the mysteries of Mabel on Weelunk.com.
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Untold Stories - National Coal NHA in West Virginia marks the 100th Anniversary of the Battle of Blair Mountain, one of the most significant labor actions in American history.
On Friday, September 3, 2021, the curtain opened to the music of Heather Hannah & Company at the Battle of Blair Mountain Centennial kickoff event at the Charleston, WV Civic Center, beginning a weekend of events, exhibits, tours, and gatherings to commemorate the anniversary. The National Coal Heritage Area and their many partners planned and presented this special commemorative event series across West Virginia to memorialize the people, commemorate the places, and celebrate the spirit of Blair Mountain.
An often-overlooked part of American History, the Battle of Blair Mountain was the largest armed insurrection in the United States other than the Civil War and was a landmark event in United States labor history. Tying red bandanas around their necks, as many at 10,000 miners gathered in the community of Marmet to begin their march to Mingo County. This Red Neck Army was stopped in Logan County where a fierce five-day battle between the union forces and the Logan Defenders led by Sheriff Don Chafin ensued with hundreds of miners ultimately were indicted for treason and murder. To learn more about the Battle of Blair Mountain Centennial visit blair100.com
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Freedom's Frontier NHA is Recognized as an Underground Railroad Program
Lawrence, KS – The National Park Service’s National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom recognized Freedom’s Frontier National Heritage Area (NHA) as a program in the Network to Freedom.
Freedom’s Frontier NHA joins 18 new listings from the 42nd round of Network to Freedom applications and becomes the first NHA to receive the designation. This listing, one of over 695 others in the Network, which include partner sites in Freedom’s Frontier NHA, provides insight into the experiences of freedom seekers who bravely escaped slavery and those who assisted them.
Freedom’s Frontier National Heritage Area, Inc. was designated (FFNHA) in 2006 to work with the National Park Service and local organizations to tell important stories of the region relating to the enduring struggle for freedom, including the Underground Railroad. Extraordinary events in the FFNHA, forever changed America. In the 19th century, the nation turned its eyes to the Missouri/Kansas borders where people with different definitions of freedom collided, fueling the Civil War. The impact of these events is forever woven into the nation’s fabric.
“Through this designation, the National Park Service’s Underground Railroad Network to Freedom, has recognized the importance of the sites and stories of the Underground Railroad on the Kansas/Missouri border. We are proud to be the first National Heritage Area to be accepted on the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom and are eager to work alongside the Underground Railroad Network to Freedom in sharing our region’s Underground Railroad history with the public”, says, Grant Glenn, Chair of the Board of Trustees for the Freedom’s Frontier National Heritage Area.
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Japanese Railroad Workers in the Mountains to Sound Greenway NHA
The Northwest Railway Museum is located in the city of Snoqualmie, in the Mountains to Sound Greenway NHA. The museum does a great job bringing railroad history to life, offering historic train rides as well as exhibits that highlight the role of railroads in the development of Washington state.
The railways’ connection to the Snoqualmie Falls Lumber Company and the Japanese community there was an important story that was not regularly told. The museum created an exhibit to share the history of Japanese immigrants to Washington state who were influential in railway construction, and other industries including forestry. Workers of Japanese ancestry made up the largest ethnic group of workers at the Snoqualmie Falls Lumber Company. This new exhibit, opened to the public in summer 2021.
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Teaching Hidden Histories in the Essex National Heritage Area
The catalyst for a Spring 2021 workshop series organized by Essex Heritage called “Teaching Hidden Histories,” funded through the National Park Foundation began in 2020 when a high school teacher was approached by students to ask why they were not being taught much of the history behind current events and racial tensions.
Working with the teacher, scholars, and community leaders, Essex Heritage offered three popular online workshops to support educators in teaching lesser known local histories of traditionally marginalized groups within the Essex National Heritage Area. The workshops focused on immigration history; local experience in the 18th and early 19th centuries; and Indigenous histories. They explored how local stories illuminate larger relevant issues of structural exclusion and resistance in the past and in today’s world, and modelled ideas for curriculum development. The workshops also gave educators a chance to talk to each other about issues, and to hear from students.
A workshop in March 2022 will feature 20th century black experiences in Essex County presented as part of a larger project funded by the National Park Service’s African American Civil Rights grant program.
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Mississippi Restoration Project Wins Best of the South Award
As a result of a 2018 National Park Service African American Civil Rights Grant and support from the Mississippi Gulf Coast National Heritage Area (MGCNHA), the Southeastern Society of Architectural Historian’s awarded their 2021 Best of the South: Preserving Southern Architecture Award to the Yaryan-Phoenix Naval Store Paymaster Office in the Turkey Creek Community of Gulfport, Mississippi. The building was saved from the brink of destruction and now serves as community space as is a memorial to the perseverance and importance of the local African American community.
The Award honors a project that preserves a building in an outstanding manner and that demonstrates excellence in research, technique, and documentation. MGCNHA helped the project team with historic research, addressed preservation questions, and navigating grant requirements.
In 2005, the building in Gulfport, Mississippi was inundated by Hurricane Katrina’s storm surge. Originally constructed in 1920, it was previously damaged in a catastrophic explosion in 1943 that killed 11 of the predominantly African American workforce. It was the only structure from the plant that survived the explosion.
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Vermont African American Heritage Trail Guide Published
A new brochure guiding people to African American heritage sites in Vermont and New York was published this summer. The ALANA (Asian-American, Latino, African-American & Native American) Community Organization/Vermont Partnership for Fairness & Diversity utilized a 2020 Champlain Valley National Heritage Partnership (CVNHP) Making of Nations interpretive theme grant to upgrade and distribute promotional materials for the Vermont African American Heritage Trail (VAAHT). The guide’s 12 heritage sites and 15 historical markers are complemented by sites in New York.
“We are so pleased to be partners in this project,” said CVNHP Director Eric Howe, “the new Vermont-based guide includes three African American sites in the New York portion of the Champlain Valley, including John Brown’s Farm, the North Star Underground Railroad Museum, and a site focused on Solomon Northup, the author of Twelve Years a Slave.”
The project also revised and updated educational and promotional materials for sites along the VAAHT to encourage learners of all ages to understand the significant impact the fight for civil rights has had on Vermont, the broader CVNHP region, the country, as well as those involved in the movement. The guide can be accessed online and the brochures are available at partner sites.
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Editor’s Note:
As newsletters across the NPS transition away from Constant Contact to a new gov delivery format, our appearance may change and we may be occasionally delayed in 2022. Thank you for your patience!
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