HIST 3312 – Digital Storytelling
For the Fall 2023 semester, we created a course in Digital Storytelling for the History program at PVAMU. The course will introduce students to digital storytelling as well as the emerging field of Black Digital Humanities. In addition to assigned readings, students will attend lab sessions and learn digital technologies and skills, such as digital exhibition curation, ArcGIS mapping, and digital content management.
Caleb Brookins: A Rewarding Experience
Caleb Brookins has moved on to greater things, but he will always cherish his time working to preserve the rich history of Prairie View A&M University.
Say My Name!
One of our most startling discoveries in 2021 was the fact that we did not know the name of a single person who had been enslaved on the plantation that later became PVAMU. This blog post reveals the name of the first enslaved person we know lived at Alta Vista.
“Silence is a Very Good Weapon”
In February 1971, PVAMU students destroyed over $200,000 of property on campus, burning down the campus security building, the Dean of Men’s offices, and the Office of Freshman Studies. They overturned a security patrol car and set it on fire, and they set fire to the Army ROTC building. This blog post by Malachi McMahon and Dr. T. DeWayne Moore explains how silence can be a powerful weapon in the hands of higher administration.
Progress to Date
In this blog post, we curated a digital exhibition in Wordpress to update stakeholders on our progress at the end of the Fall 2022 semester. We look forward to accomplishing even greater things in 2023!
Grant Accomplishments – November 19, 2022
This blog posts lists our accomplishments on the NEH grant as of November 19, 2022.
Prairie View Memorial Park Cemetery
This map of Prairie View Memorial Park Cemetery was provided by Texas Cemetery Restoration, LLC. We appreciate Dr. Jessica Ward, Assistant Professor of the Practice in the School of Architecture at PVAMU for sharing her research with the Digital PV Panther Project.
Amistad II Bookplace (2002)
In this 2002 article from the student newspaper, Erika K. Myers interviews the owners of one of the only Black-owned businesses in the city of Prairie View–the Amistad II Bookstore–which should be honored with a historic marker in the city.
A Student’s Perspective inside the DPPP
D’Asia Johnson has taken on numerous roles during her first two months working on the Digital PV Panther Project. This blog post highlights her multi-faceted experience, and it offers readers a glimpse of the work environment inside the DPPP.
Digital Preservation at PVAMU
Archival Assistant Kasedi Eason has developed into the role of historic preservation on campus, and her first blog post details her experiences curating social media, processing archival collections, and collaborating with a range of scholars on the Digital PV Panther Project.
The Archival Experience
Archival Assistant Hannah Harden is one of the hardest working members of the team at the Digital PV Panther Project, and this blog post details her multi-faceted workload and experience for the first month!
Historical Consciousness and the PV19
By analyzing the digital resources available about an important, yet understudied, chapter of local voting rights history, The PV19, Caleb Brookins demonstrates that historical understanding is required to make good decisions and achieve a heightened state of consciousness.
That Old PV Spirit
This editorial by Clearance Lee Turner in a 1961 edition of student newspaper explains the need for “That Old PV Spirit” during homecoming.
We’re Hiring!
The Student Hourly Assistant, under general supervision, will process and digitize collections, curate social media content, transcribe oral histories, conduct archival research, create video and audio recordings, compose blog entries about their work, and serve as public ambassadors for the Digital PV Panther Project.
Hourly Rate of Pay: $13.00
Job Posting Close Date: 10/05/2022
A Tale of Two Professors at Prairie View
The Texas State Library & Archives Commission (TSLAC) awarded Ms. Earles and Dr. Moore almost $20,000, and it gave Lindsay Boknight the opportunity to learn more about the amazing careers of Myrtle E. Garrett and Oscar John Thomas. This blog post examines the lives and legacies of two former professors and encourages researchers to visit the archives to examine the collections for themselves!
Animal Husbandry, Assault Rifles, and Best Friends
Zynitra Durham examines a historic building on the campus of PVAMU as well as celebrates her birthday with horses and assault rifles in this very personal blog post.
Black Digital Humanities Projects & Resources
Black Digital Humanities projects help to unmask the racialized systems of power at work in how we understand Digital Humanities as a field and utilize its associated techniques. This blog post contains numerous links to Black Digital Humanities projects to highlight the intersection between Black studies and digital humanities, transform the concepts into corporeal reality, and provide support to the work of the black digerati in and outside of academe.
Paying Respect at the Abner A. Davis Memorial
Malachi McMahon details the history of memorialization of Abner A. Davis on “The Hill,” and he explains how he took part in the tradition of historic preservation and campus beautification at PVAMU.
“We have built a program [that] will support our student’s futures.”
Zynitra Durham discusses our meeting with Getty Images. “We have built a program to not only honor the legacy and history of HBCUs and their contribution to American History, but a program which will support our students’ futures. For Getty Images to move the world, we must ensure that all content creators, their work, and their stories can be preserved. We are committed to making content accessible and to ensure a more authentic representation of history.”
PVAMU on the National Register of Historic Places?
Lindsay Boknight explains that PVAMU is the oldest publicly funded HBCU in the state of Texas, but the entire campus is currently NOT listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). Several buildings on campus are listed in the NRHP, but not the entire campus, which contains more than 20 buildings on 1,502 acres of land. If the entire campus of PVAMU were to be added to the NRHP, it would allow us to catch up and preserve older structures, such as the E.B. Evans Animal Industries Building, which has been vacant since 2009. There is nothing like the mission of an HBCU, and we need to preserve the historical spaces where our students live, learn, and grow and where our faculty and staff do their phenomenal and purpose-driven work.
Alta Vista: “Monument of Sorrow”
George Ruble Woolfolk’s chapter in 101 Historic Homes in Waller County centers on Alta Vista, the slave mansion built by Jared Ellison Kirby in 1858.
Redesigning the Past
In this post, Kalayah Jammer discusses processing the manuscript collections of former PVAMU professors and administrators who made amazing strides to the betterment and exposure of the university. She also introduces us to the amazing career of Edison Anderson, who directed the Prairie View A Capella Choir in the 1960s.
New Beginnings
Here’s to New Beginnings! Come along with archival assistant Lindsay Boknight for a change of pace and a change of mindset in uncovering the deep rooted history of Prairie View A&M University for the Digital PV Panther Project! Read along to discover more about our “on campus” cemetery, lost tape files, and the unstoppable work of Wilhelmina R. Delco!
“They Can Tropical Fruits”
In my first weeks as an archival assistant for the Digital PV Panther Project, I helped process the manuscript collections of former professors and administrators involved in building the Prairie View community. On my first day, Dr. Moore gave me a tour of Room 109 in the library, the Archival Annex, which contains collections that […]
The First Few Collections
Over the course of my first few weeks of being an assistant in the archives and making my way through the various collections, I have learned a lot more about the history of my HBCU. My first job on campus in 2020 was in the Cooperative Agricultural Research Center (CARC), but it was not until last week while going through the manuscript collection of a female extension agent who worked at PVAMU and TAMU named Myrtle Garrett that I learned the history of the CARC.
Rehousing Manuscript Collections
In his first month as an archival assistant on the Digital PV Panther Project, Malachi McMahon examined the contents of numerous boxes of archival media on the fifth floor of John B. Coleman Library.
Uncovering the Roots of Alta Vista
My experience working on the Digital PV Panther Project started off on a high note. In my first week, I uncovered some long-lost elements of university history that stretch back almost two centuries on a field trip to the Austin County Courthouse archives in the town of Bellville, TX. I also tried the chicken tenders at Dairy Queen for the first time! Most importantly, however, I sparked an intense curiosity within myself about the rich history and campus geography at Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU).
The 1989 Texas Historical Marker Proposal for Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery
In the summer of 1989, Dr. Mildred W. Abshier and a research team consisting of Bessie Thomas, Frank Jackson, and Carrie B. Coss visited the cemetery with 82 year-old descendant Ida Lou Wells Owens Pierce, a longtime resident of the Wyatt Chapel community. Using the field research, local scholarship, and the information gleaned from several interviews, Dr. Abshier prepared the following report to accompany the historical marker application submitted to the Texas Historical Commission. Their efforts resulted in the dedication of a historical marker near the cemetery behind Prairie View A&M University in 1992. We located this report while preparing the grant proposal to the Summerlee Foundation in 2021, and we decided to publish it below in advance of the ground penetrating radar survey in September 2022.
Using Science to Uncover History: A Geophysical Investigation of Wyatt Chapel Cemetery
Alison T. Henning, Ginger Burns, Richard Hoffman, and Brian Jacoby published this article about Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery in a 2009 issue of the Journal of History and Culture.
Slave Ship Galveston – 1858
In December 2021, we searched Ancestry.com for information about Jared Ellison Kirby, and we located the name of another person who lived at Kirby’s enslaved labor camp, Alta Vista. According to the manifest of the ship Galveston, Kirby had a 15 year-old girl named Lucinda transported from New Orleans to Galveston in May 1858.