Department Archives: History

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.

The UCF History Department exhibit, Zora Neale Hurston’s ‘Native Village’: Historic Eatonville Remembered, hosted on the first-floor gallery wall in the John C. Hitt Library, explores Hurston’s anthropological research into the people, history and culture of Eatonville.

After a successful year of initiatives, Veterans Month and a commemoration in St. Augustine, UCF’s Veterans Legacy Program team reflects on the year and looks forward into 2019.