{"id":19377,"date":"2017-05-04T12:56:42","date_gmt":"2017-05-04T16:56:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/college.unc.edu\/?p=19377"},"modified":"2024-07-02T16:36:00","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T16:36:00","slug":"elijah-gaddis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/?p=19377","title":{"rendered":"Making history accessible to everyone"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Elijah
Elijah Gaddis (photo by Kristin Prelipp)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Elijah Gaddis grew up in Cabarrus County, in the \u201cheart of textile country,\u201d not knowing much about the history of the place he calls home. During his time at Carolina, he has made it his mission to illuminate the state\u2019s history in new ways, through public-facing digital scholarship in partnership with local communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing that animates my research and teaching is this desire to be responsive and to do work rooted in those places,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Gaddis will be among the first two recipients of the Ph.D. in American studies<\/a> in the College of Arts & Sciences, after also receiving his master\u2019s degree in folklore from UNC. (He earned an undergraduate degree from NC State.) \u201cI\u2019m the first in my family to go to college, and I just continued all the way through and didn\u2019t stop,\u201d he said, laughing. (The Carolina doctoral hooding ceremony will be held on May 13.)<\/p>\n

Gaddis spent three years working on Digital Loray, the largest public humanities project in the university\u2019s history, which animates the complex history of the Loray\/Firestone Mill and surrounding mill village in Gastonia \u2014 from its opening as a textile mill in 1902 to its renovation as a mixed-use development in 2015.<\/p>\n

\u201cElijah took the lead in developing the online digital portal for the project, which provides users with more than 2,000 digital objects (photographs, maps and other materials),\u201d said Robert Allen, James Logan Godfrey Distinguished Professor of American Studies. \u201cHe has contributed to every aspect of this project and at every level \u2014 from strategy and design to implementation and evaluation.\u201d<\/p>\n

In July 2016, Allen, Gaddis and Seth Kotch, assistant professor of digital humanities, founded the Community Histories Workshop<\/a>, which will build and test innovative models for community-engaged digital public history projects. The workshop is supported by UNC\u2019s Digital Innovation Lab.<\/a><\/p>\n

Gaddis has been working on two new projects. The Rocky Mount Mills Project<\/a> will bring to life the history of the second oldest cotton mill in the state (founded in 1818), which is being developed by Capitol Broadcasting Company as a mixed-use site with residential, commercial and recreational spaces. Gaddis has been collaborating with other graduate and<\/p>\n

\"Gaddis
Gaddis speaks at a recent alumni event at Rocky Mount Mills. (photo by Mark Newman)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

undergraduate students to document the story of the mill through oral history interviews and the curation of thousands of items into an online archive. A \u201chistory harvest\u201d was held in March to encourage local people to share their memories, stories, photographs and more.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe mill in some way sort of indexes every piece of North Carolina history, because you\u2019ve got agriculture and industry and this struggle for equality in a place like Rocky Mount Mills, which relied on slave labor for many years,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m hopeful that a new generation of students will better learn about that heritage and what it still means to the state.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kotch, Gaddis and about 75 undergraduates have begun to document and map lynchings in the state of North Carolina through The Red Record.<\/a> A June 12-13 \u201cLynching in the American South\u201d workshop<\/a> will bring people together to learn and work with a variety of digital tools with the goal of contributing to the site but also expanding The Red Record beyond North Carolina.<\/p>\n

The Graduate School recently recognized Gaddis with an Impact Award<\/a>, honoring the research contributions he has made to North Carolina.<\/p>\n

\u201cElijah acts on the principle that history and culture serve people, bringing communities together around public memory and building better, richly informed futures,\u201d said Bernie Herman, George B. Tindall Distinguished Professor of Southern Studies and Gaddis\u2019 dissertation adviser. \u201cHe exemplifies our commitment of humanities for the public good and reminds us all of Carolina\u2019s enduring commitment to be the \u2018people\u2019s university.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

This summer, Gaddis will move on to a new post as an assistant professor at Auburn University, where he will teach digital and public history.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a lot of ways, I\u2019ll be continuing the work that I\u2019ve started here,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of textile heritage in Alabama and so much important African-American history. I\u2019m eager to delve into that.\u201d<\/p>\n

By Kim Spurr, College of Arts & Sciences <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Elijah Gaddis grew up in Cabarrus County, in the \u201cheart of textile country,\u201d not knowing much about the history of the place he calls home. During his time at Carolina, he has made it his mission to illuminate the state\u2019s history in new ways, through public-facing digital scholarship in partnership with local communities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":19383,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fine-arts-humanities","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19377"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48100,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19377\/revisions\/48100"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}