Department Archives: History

The UCF History Department was featured on News 13 earlier this month for the Jones High School Museum Digital History Exhibit. Created by undergraduate students in Dr. Robert Cassanello’s Digital Museum class, the online exhibit tells the 124-year history of the first public high school for black Americans. The exhibit will be on display at UCF Celebrates the Arts on April 8, 2019.

History professor Eric Rutkow, whose newest book is receiving high praise, will give a talk about his research on the Pan-American Highway on April 2.

Yovanna Pineda, Associate Professor of History, shares insight on her recent farm technology and global food production research trips.

The UCF Africana Studies Program and History Department hosted the first annual Dr. John T. Washington Lecture Series at the Live Oak Event Center. A’Lelia Bundles, the great-great-granddaughter of Madam C.J. Walker, spoke on the theme “Raising Our Voices: Madam C.J. Walker’s Legacy of Leadership, Activism and Education.”

History alumna Dr. Anne Ladyem McDivitt showcased her research in a solo panel at the 2019 Super MAGFest, an annual event celebrating video games and video game music. McDivitt, along with other video game historians, presented at the event’s Music and Gaming Education Symposium.

The RICHES™ project at UCF recently conducted a History Harvest event with the St. Cloud Historical Society. Led by Dr. Connie Lester, RICHES™ works to research, document, and make digitally available information on Florida’s regional history and to develop digital research tools. St. Cloud citizens contributed images, objects and documents in an effort to digitally preserve their community’s history as part of the harvest.

In a recent article published by The Global Post, UCF Professor of History Dr. Luis Martínez-Fernández argues that historians occupy a unique position to shed light on present-day circumstances. Martínez-Fernández also feels that historians’ ability to perform this task has come under attack in recent years.

Mark Bruckert, a sophomore at the Crooms Academy of Information Technology and a member of the Oviedo Historical Society, recently installed his Eagle Scout project at the Lawton House Museum in Oviedo. The installation of iPads allows visitors to the Lawton House to connect to Oviedo artifacts stored in the RICHES Mosaic Interface database, as well as items in Florida Memory, the Florida Historical Society, and DiaryEarth.

UCF Professor of History Dr. Luis Martínez-Fernández has been appointed to the board of the National Council for History Education (NCHE). Since 1990, the NCHE has worked to promote excellence in K-12 and college-level history education.

As a first-generation college graduate, Holly Baker is ready and eager to embark on her career as a public historian. Beginning in February, she will join the Florida Historical Society as Public History Coordinator and Manager of the Brevard Museum of History and Natural Science in Cocoa.