History Harvest at the University of Illinois is a collaborative public history project in which students engage with members of the public to collect and digitize documents and artifacts of historical interest for scholarly and community research. Originally developed at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, History Harvests engage with individuals, communities and institutions to digitize important historical documents and facilitate deeper scholarly and community research into topics that sometimes only these materials can illuminate. At harvest events, students digitize materials brought by the public, record oral histories about about the significance of those materials, and collect information to serve as metadata for a digital collection. In the weeks that follow, students edit and upload their materials to a site like this one and prepare exhibits based on further public collaboration, research, and connections between materials.
History Harvest Projects
Spatial Change in Champaign-Urbana
Our first History Harvest course, History 358, was held Fall 2019 on the topic of “Spatial Change in Champaign Urbana.” The History Harvest website features our digitization of items brought to our main History Harvest on October 26 and to later in-class harvest events.
LGBTQIA+ and Independent Media History
Our second History Harvest course involved collaborations with the C-U LGBTQIA+ community and resulted in an exhibit at Spurlock Museum titled "Sewn in Memory: AIDS Quilt Panels from Central Illinois" that was created in collaboration with the Greater Community AIDS Project of East Central Illinois, Spurlock, and Illinois Public Media. The History Harvest website features our digitization of items brought to history harvest events.
Farm Aid '85
Our third History Harvest course in Spring 2023 focused on the first Farm Aid concert held in Champaign-Urbana at Memorial Stadium in 1985. Professor Daniel Gilbert, students, and the Champaign County History Museum collected oral histories, photos, and records related to Farm Aid at a History Harvest event. The materials they collected resulted in the exhibit, "Songs of Solidarity: The 1985 Farm Aid Concert" at Spurlock Museum.