One of the outcomes of the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium is the LVEHC Digital Archive. Hosted by Lafayette College Libraries Digital Scholarship Services, the archive is a collaborative regional effort featuring collections contributed by community members, educators, undergraduate students, public librarians, museum curators, and others interested in making accessible primary sources that bear witness to the diversity of communities, changing economies, and the landscape and sense of place in the Lehigh Valley. We invite you to explore exciting recent additions to the digital archive, including those highlighted below.
Negro History Week NAACP flier, 1976
Easton NAACP-Sigal Museum Collection. This collaboration among members of the Easton chapter of the NAACP and curators at the Sigal Museum and Northampton County Historical and Genealogical Society documents the Black experience in Easton during the past half-century.
The Allentown Band Oral History Project. The Allentown Band and Muhlenberg College collaborated on this collection of oral histories documenting narratives of the historic community band.
Cover of the Estoy Aquí/I Am Here Community Exhibit Program
Estoy Aquí: Latina Women of the Lehigh Valley. Students at Cedar Crest College collected oral history interviews reflecting the diverse heritage of the Latinx population in the Lehigh Valley: Puerto Rican, Dominican, Columbian, Mexican, Honduran, Venezuelan.
Ethnic-American Literature Class Exhibit. Students at Lafayette College created this interpretive exhibit putting primary sources from the Easton NAACP-Sigal Museum Collection into conversation with course readings.
LVAIC Documentary Storymaking Minor Films. This collection includes films created by students in the Lehigh Valley Association of Independent Colleges (LVAIC) Documentary Storymaking Minor. According to the program overview, “The Documentary Storymaking minor emphasizes hands-on experience in the methods, tools, and practices that foster students’ understanding and ability to create meaningful stories for diverse audiences. While developing students’ personal capacities for creative and artistic expression, the minor in Documentary Storymaking is also deeply community-based and connects to the issues, concerns, and stories of broader community life within the Lehigh Valley.”
Are you interested in creating a digital collection, building an interpretive exhibit, or developing a class project in connection with the digital archive? Explore our Building Digital Collections and Course Development Calls for Proposals, and feel free to reach out to Charlotte Nunes (nunesc@lafayette.edu), LVEHC co-Director, to discuss your ideas.