We are so thankful for our community!
Teams
Academic Year 2024-2025
During this year, the team worked on content for an exhibition titled “’A Worthy Place’: Durham, Duke, and the World of the 1920s-1930s” in the Jerry and Bruce Chappell Family Gallery, Duke University Libraries. We also continued working on transcribing James Bennett’s ledger. Team members included Robert Buerglener, Carson Holloway, Kalei Porter, Seth Kessler, Melanie Shao, and Cassidy Thompson.
Summer 2024 (History+ Project)
During this summer program, students researched individual questions using local and digital archival sources while we continued transcribing James Bennett’s ledger and drafted new procedures. Led by Robert Buerglener, Carson Holloway, Kalei Porter, Seth Kessler, Everett Cohen, Gurnoor Majhail, and Eli Herring.
Academic Year 2023-2024
We continued working on James Bennett’s ledger, while launching this website. Other events included presenting at the Southern Historical Association Conference in Charlotte and facilitating the first-ever Earth Day event at Bennett Place. Team members include Robert Buerglener, Carson Holloway, Kalei Porter, Seth Kessler, Kate Newbold, and Zhihui (Jerry) Zhou.
Summer 2023
During this summer program, students researched and developed research projects on individual topics of interest related to Bennett Place while drafting a methodology to transcribe James Bennett’s ledger. Team members included Robert Buerglener, Carson Holloway, Kalei Porter, Ruth Player, Charlotte Joyner, and Sherman Criner.
Academic Year 2022-2023
During our inaugural year, students engaged in a number of projects to evaluate historic sites both in the US and abroad to evaluate the current state of the field, web presence, and digital projects. We also began early exploration and analysis of historical resources available at the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke University, the Southern Historical Collection, UNC University Libraries, the Durham County Library, and elsewhere. Team members included Robert Buerglener, Carson Holloway, Kalei Porter, Jasmine Zhou, Vivian Guo, and Joy Liu.
Local Historic Sites
Through our work, we are able to partner and visit different historic sites in and around Durham! Here are a few that we wanted to highlight.
Of course, we enjoy partnering to expand the interpretation at Bennett Place, but there are other local sites that we would like to highlight too!
We always visit Stagville State Historic Site, but the great work of the tour guides means that different narratives are emphasized on different tours, keeping the experience fresh. That said, the agency of the enslaved community is always highlighted.
The Burwell School in Hillsborough, NC does a great job of highlighting the work of Elizabeth Keckley. Keckley was enslaved by the Burwell family, but after purchasing her freedom, she later became a successful fashion designer in Washington, D.C. and a close friend of Mary Todd Lincoln. We also enjoyed learning about the impact of the Burwell family on women’s education, including the family’s complications as enslavers.
Consultants
- Trudi Abel, Archivist, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library and Senior Fellow in Information Science & Studies
- Sarah Carrier, North Carolina Research and Instructional Librarian, Special Collections, Wilson Library, UNC Chapel Hill
- Nan Mullenneaux, Senior Program Coordinator, Language, Arts, & Media Program, Duke University
- Drew Keener, Map and Geospatial Data Specialist, Center for Data and Visualization Sciences, Duke University Libraries
- Liz Milewicz, Head, Digital Scholarship & Publishing Services, and Director, ScholarWorks: A Center for Scholarly Publishing, Duke University Libraries
- Will Shaw, Digital Humanities Consultant, Duke University Libraries
- Mark Thomas, GIS Specialist and Librarian for Economics, Duke University Libraries
- Ed Triplett, Professor IS&S, Duke University.
- Arthur Menius, Orange County Historic Council
- Rebekah Cowell, Humanities Intern, Duke University Libraries
Photographers
Most of the pictures featured across the North Carolina Lives and Legacies site were taken by Seth Kessler, team member 2024-2025. April Scharding has also partnered with us as a photographer for some events at Bennett Place.
