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History of Oberlin College and Town
Comes Together on Collaborative Web Site
By
KELLY McCOLLUM
College professors,
public-school teachers, local historians, and others have
collaborated to create a lively on-line history of Oberlin,
Ohio, and of the college that shares its name.
Oberlin Through
History is a collection of documents, links, and
exhibits on the history of the town and college, but it also
serves as a home page for some local organizations and
citizens' groups. "We like to think we're showing an
attractive and distinctive side of Oberlin to the outside
world," says Gary J. Kornblith, a history professor at
Oberlin College and one of the people who maintain the
World-Wide Web site.
The project is part of an effort, Dr. Kornblith says, to
strengthen the relationship between the college and the
community around it. Different parts of the site were
created by different members of the community, from
elementary-school students to college professors. The site's
organizers aim to capture the history of the town, with the
help of local groups, and at the same time to be useful to
townspeople. Exhibits on the site offer histories of several
local churches and a guide to historic buildings in the
town.
Dr. Kornblith says the town and college share an
interesting history that many people are not aware of. Both
were founded in 1833. Two years later, Oberlin College was
one of the first American colleges to admit black students.
Up through the Civil War, the town and its citizens
supported the abolition of slavery and served as a station
on the Underground Railroad.
Oberlin was also one of the first colleges to admit
women. Lucy Stone, later an abolitionist and crusader for
women's rights, organized a secret club for female students
while she was an undergraduate. In the club, the students
could practice public speaking and debate, skills that were
not taught to women at the time. The Web site offers a
biography of Stone, as well as information about other
notable Oberlinians and past presidents of the college.
"We are trying to get people to develop their own
history," says Dr. Kornblith, adding that the site isn't
meant to show "how a couple of college professors would
write the history."
Material for the site has come from students, professors,
churches, businesses, the local historical society, and the
college's archivist, who provided some of the images that
illustrate the site. One of the featured exhibits is an
electronic version of Oberlin: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow
... -- a privately printed book that local
elementary-school teachers created for their students. An
Oberlin College student digitized the book and added links
to relevant Web sites.
The book, and much of the site, is used by both local
teachers and professors to teach Oberlin history. Dr.
Kornblith says that the project is a way to link his roles
as a scholar and as a citizen.
And, he says, the way the site presents the history makes
it accessible to more people than would be likely to read
scholarly articles on similar subjects. "We're trying to
bridge the gap between scholarly and popular history," he
says.
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