Two key partners of the Graduate Certificate in Public History have received grants from Ohio History Connections to support their work in preserving and making accessible our region’s history.

First, the Center of Archival Collections at BGSU, in partnership with the History Department, has obtained an Ohio History Connections grant to digitize interviews with WWII veterans and holocaust survivors. The interviews were collected from 2001 to 2004 by students enrolled in the HIST3030 course on World War II, under the direction of Dr. Walter Grunden. Both Dr.  Grunden and Kasey Harrington, M.A. student in History with a specialization in Public History, are core contributors to this project. The project is led by Michelle Sweetser, head of the Center for Archival Collections. Dr. Grunden and Sweetser regularly teach graduate seminars in History and the Graduate Certificate of Public History; Kasey Harrington has contributed to this project since her senior year as a major in History; she is graduating from our M.A. program in May.

Additionally, the Wood County Historical Society obtained funding to improve the storage of artifacts in its collection and serve as a model of stewardship practices for other institutions. The project is led by Holly Hartlerode, who regularly teaches ACS/HIST 6530, Historical Organization, in the Graduate Certificate of Public History.

A full description of the grant is available in The Toledo Blade: http://www.toledoblade.com/local/2018/03/02/BGSU-s-collection-of-World-War-II-era-stories-to-be-digitized.html

The grants demonstrate the contributions of our public history program to the preservation and diffusion of the history of our region.