Introduction
The digital project University of Mary Washington Campus Histories is a site dedicated to preserving Mary Washington’s campus history. The purpose of this project is to create a website centered around stories tied to places on UMW’s campus that reveal how students lived and learned with the landscape around them. Using a variety of sources, including maps, photographs, oral histories, and other digital tools, this website will serve to help UMW students and Fredericksburg residents learn about place-based histories of UMW.
Process
The first step in the process was drafting a project contract that laid out each of the group member’s roles in the project, tools they would be using to enhance the site, and a timeline of work to be completed. The next step in the project was initial research which included taking digital materials, like photographs and maps, from Digital Archives and viewing transcripts from William Crawley’s The University of Mary Washington: A Centennial History at UMW Special Collections. After viewing the transcripts, the group scheduled to record new oral histories, which would be published to the website, that were inspired by Crawley’s previous oral histories. Once all of the research was conducted, the group began to work on making a visually appealing website design and making it easily accessible.
Interactive Map
For our digital map, we used historical images taken from the Centennial Image Collection and matched those up with present day pictures taken at the same relative locations. We then plotted them onto an interactive Google My Map that allows for users to interact with a map of campus and physically see where changes took place.
Stories
The stories page includes two separate categories which are the Campus Timeline and MWC Frisbee Club and VA States. The Campus Timeline includes significant dates in UMW campus history like the construction of buildings and the name change from MWC to UMW. The second story describes the creation of the Frisbee Club and the participation in the Virginia States Frisbee Tournament.
Archives
Our archives consisted of our oral histories in video and audio formats with attached transcripts and other digital materials primarily taken from the UMW Special Collections and Digital Archives, but also included a couple documents obtained from other means like Carol Altstatt’s MWC Frisbee Golf Map from 1979. We organized in a menu these by type: articles, maps, photos, oral histories, miscellaneous along with our bibliography.
The front page of the site, featuring an aerial photograph of campus from 1941.
A major feature of the site that is featured on the front page is the interactive map, which allows users to view historic photographs from spots around campus, and contrast them with photos of how campus looks today.
https://umwcampushistories.umwhistory.org/campus-timeline/
A comprehensive timeline of campus history includes important milestones like the University’s name change, the tenure of each President, and the construction date of each building on campus.
https://umwcampushistories.umwhistory.org/nora-walsh/
The archives include a number of modern oral histories with UMW students, faculty, and alumni, complete with transcripts and captioning for accessibility.
https://umwcampushistories.umwhistory.org/articles/
The site’s extensive archive includes a collection of articles published by UMW’s campus newspaper, formerly titled The Bullet.
