About
2024 UIS History Harvest
'Making A Living'
October 19th, 2024
10am-2pm
Dana-Thomas House, Carriage House
301 E Lawrence Ave, Springfield
The UIS History Harvest once again seeks to engage the public in the act of recording our community’s history. This year’s theme, ‘Making a Living,’ will help students build and interpret an archive on the history of workplace and labor. Students from both graduate and undergraduate history classes will digitize items such as workplace anniversary pins, old uniforms, relevant workplace photographs, and much more with the help of the public.
The goal of History Harvest is to democratize the archive and widen our understanding and appreciation of history and material culture. The 2024 “Making a Living” History Harvest, taking place on October 19th, 2024 from 10 am to 2pm at the Dana-Thomas Carriage House, will focus on the history of employment and workplace. Collecting work memories from the public during the 2024 History Harvest will help to significantly enrich our understanding of labor values, workforce distribution, and the connection between community members and the products of their labor. From your first summer job to long term employment and everything in between, if you think your memorabilia might be related, bring it in!
Directions
This year’s History Harvest will be held in the Carriage House at the Dana-Thomas House. Attendees are instructed to park in the parking lot on the west side of the house, on the other side of the railroad tracks from the Dana Thomas House, which is labeled for “bus parking”. Attendees can then take the sidewalk running along East Lawrence Avenue heading towards the Dana-Thomas House. Immediately upon crossing the railroad tracks, attendees can take a left into the alley where the back door of the Carriage House will be opened to welcome them. (Google pin to parking lot - Dana-Thomas House State Historic Site - Parking Lot)
The 2024 History Harvest, “Making a Living,” asks the members of the public to bring in physical objects and documents that encapsulates their experiences with work, workplace, and business in Illinois. Please view the items and collections pages for examples of artifacts brought in to be digitized during past History Harvests. After the archive is complete, students will create online exhibits to further illuminate our attendees’ stories. The students and faculty from the UIS History Department look forward to the artifacts and stories that will be added to the online archive in 2024.
UIS History Harvest
Since its beginnings in 2016, the UIS History Harvest has hosted four events. This year’s History Harvest, “Making a Living,” will be the fifth conducted by students at UIS. In 2016 members of the public brought in items of political memorabilia. In 2018, participants presented items about “Being Illinoisan.” In 2020, students were encouraged to bring in items related to the changes in education over the past 50 years. Most recently, in 2022, the public was invited to bring in items related to travel in honor of the “The Great Road Trip” theme.
The UIS History Harvest is part of a national movement connecting communities and universities through the practice of local history. More background on the national movement can be found here. For more information on the UIS History Harvest, see our Frequently Asked Questions page.
