Project partners
Andrea Smith, Professor and Chair of Anthropology & Sociology
John Clark, Data Visualization & GIS Librarian
Paul Miller, Visual Resource Curator
Project description
DSS supported Dr. Smith’s digital research collection in connection with her book Rebuilding Shattered Worlds: Creating Community by Voicing the Past (University of Nebraska Press, 2016), co-authored with Anna Eisenstein. Dr. Smith’s oral history project examines the demolition of Easton’s “Syrian Town,” a once a thriving multi-ethnic community destroyed when over 800 homes were torn down under the auspices of urban renewal in the 1960s. DSS staff worked with Dr. Smith and her students to create a geospatial data set to georeference historic Easton Sanborn Fire Insurance maps held by Easton Area Public Library, and to collect and digitize photographs and other visual materials shared by the community.