U-M HistoryLabs mobilize the power of history for real-world impacts that contribute to the common good. Reimagining the humanities, U-M HistoryLabs bring together faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates as investigators and lab members in long-term research projects that involve both curricular and extracurricular components. Projects are often developed in collaboration with community partners.
U-M HistoryLab students become coauthors of digital humanities and multimedia projects aimed at diverse public and academic audiences, gaining valuable career-related experiences in research, digital technology, and collaboration.Read "In the Public Eye," an LSA Magazine feature on the launch of U-M HistoryLabs.
Faculty and graduate students interested in starting a HistoryLab should begin by reading the Start-Up Guide, checking out the Resource Guide,and learning about the U-M HistoryLabs Development Fund.
Current HistoryLabs
Crafting Democratic Futures Project
Partner:Crafting Democratic Solutions Project (Center for Social Solutions)
Principal Investigators: Rita Chin, Earl Lewis
Project: Case books covering the global context of reparations
Description
Term:Winter 2023
Participants:Graduate Students, Faculty
Related Course:History 717 (lab)
Description:This HistoryLab will be taught in conjunction with the Mellon-funded Crafting Democratic Futures Project (run through the U-M Center for Social Solutions), which is partnering with Washtenaw County, Flint, and Detroit community leaders to develop reparations plans, as well as with WQED, the Pittsburgh public television station, to make a documentary film about the project. Instead of a standard primary source-based research paper, the final product of this course will be “case books,” written and compiled for the community leaders and documentary filmmakers to understand the broader, global context of reparations and to provide documentary evidence for the reparations plans of the Crafting Democratic Futures Project. Students will work collaboratively with peers in research teams, guided by U-M professors Earl Lewis and Rita Chin, to create case books for three countries that perpetrated state-sanctioned racial violence: the United States, Germany, and South Africa. This work will involve defining “reparations” in relation to other concepts; developing an understanding of how each national reckoning did or did not take place; synthesizing scholarly debates; creating a timeline to trace how reparations changed over time; identifying primary documents associated with each case; and curating this information in an accessible form. Teams will present their “case books” to the community leaders, filmmakers, and Crafting Democratic Futures working group.
Curating African American History at UMMA
Partner: University of Michigan Museum of Art
Principal Investigator: Jason Young
Project: Collaborate with UMMA staff in advance of“Hear Me Now: The Black Potters of Old Edgefield, South Carolina” exhibition
Description
Term:Winter 2023
Participants: Undergraduate Students, Faculty
Related Course:History 441 (lab)
Description:This project will provide undergraduate students with hands-on experience with an exciting museum exhibition that will be coming soon to the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA). That exhibition, “Hear Me Now: The Black Potters of Old Edgefield, South Carolina,” is a groundbreaking traveling exhibition that reexamines the role that African Americans played in the arts and industries of the antebellum south. The exhibition opened on September 9, 2022, at the Metropolitan Museum (The MET) in New York City and has been described by the New York Times as “revelatory.” Students in the course will engage in team-based learning in faculty-led initiatives to prepare for the arrival of the exhibition at UMMA during Fall 2023. In advance of the show’s opening, students will work closely and collaboratively with UMMA staff to address issues related to ethics, redress, and best practices for museums and other institutions interested in displaying work that was originally produced by enslaved artisans.
Environmental Justice Lab
Partner: Ecology Center
Principal Investigators: Matthew Lassiter, Matthew Woodbury
Projects:
- Give Earth a Chance: Environmental Activism in Michigan(exhibit)
- Environmental Action for Survival (ENACT) Teach-In of 1970(documentary film)
- Ecology Center at 50(exhibit)
- Link for a complete list of public projects
Description
Term: Fall 2017-ongoing
Participants: Undergraduate Students, Graduate Students, Faculty
Related Courses: History 390 (lab), History 491 (lab)
Description: The multiple components of theEnvironmental Justice HistoryLaball feature collaborative student research to document the history of environmental activism, justice, and sustainability in Michigan and beyond. To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Earth Day, students ofHistory 390created adocumentary film about the 1970 Environmental Action for Survival Teach-In at U-M, building on the lab’s pilot “Give Earth a Chance” digital exhibit about environmental campaigns during the 1960s-1970s. InHistory 491, research teams are investigating sites of toxic pollution and ongoing remediation. And through summer internships, History students are partnering with theEcology Center of Ann Arborto conduct interviews and chronicle the history of environmental justice in Southeast Michigan.
History of the Book
Principal Investigator: Helmut Puff
Project:Online or in-person exhibition
Description
Term:Fall 2022
Participants:Undergraduate Students, Graduate Students, Faculty
Related Course:History 441 (lab)
Description:In this lab, students will discuss a history stretching from the birth of the modern book in the Middle Ages to its rebirth in the era of print and the digital age. Using examples in the university's diverse collections, the lab will investigate papyri, manuscripts, early prints, political pamphlets, cookbooks, children’s books, graphic novels, books as art objects, and more. In the end, the lab will collaborate on an online or in-person exhibition.
The Philippines and the University of Michigan
Partner:ReConnect/ReCollect: Reparative Connections to Philippine Collections at the University of Michigan
Principal Investigators:Deirdre de la Cruz, Ricky Punzalan
Project:The Philippines and the University of Michigan, 1870-1935 (additional contributions to digital exhibit)
Description
Term:Fall 2022-ongoing
Participants: Undergraduate Students, Graduate Students, Faculty
Related Course:History 441 (lab)
Description:Students work with archival sources at the University of Michigan’s Bentley Historical Library, the University Library’s Special Collections, and the Museum of Anthropological Archaeology to examine the complex and contentious relationship between the Philippines and the United States over the course of a century (1870s–1960s). Building on the foundation of the Michigan in the World digital exhibit, “The Philippines and the University of Michigan,” students will research and write original content that extends the exhibit both topically and chronologically. This lab is also designed to work in partnership with ReConnect/ReCollect: Reparative Connections to Philippine Collections at the University of Michigan, a two-year project funded by the U-M Humanities Collaboratory.
Policing and Social Justice Lab
Principal Investigator: Matthew Lassiter
Projects:
- Detroit Under Fire: Police Violence, Crime Politics, and the Struggle for Racial Justice in the Civil Rights Era (exhibit)
- Mapping Police Violence Series; other investigative reports and publications (link for complete list of projects)
Description
Term: Fall 2018-ongoing
Participants: Undergraduate Students, Graduate Students, Faculty
Related Courses: History 366 (large lecture), History 393 (lab)
Description: This HistoryLab addresses contemporary debates over mass incarceration and police misconduct by taking teams of undergraduate researchers to Detroit to excavate unsolved and/or unprosecuted episodes of racial violence throughout the twentieth century. Usingarchival collections and digitized databases, students will produce online investigative exhibits and interactive maps. Ultimately this lab will create a comprehensive database of thousands of police-civilian encounters and homicides in the city of Detroit and expand its coverage to other parts of Michigan.
Race, Local History, and Sundown Towns in the United States
Principal Investigator: Stephen A. Berrey
Project: Contributing to theSundown Towns digital exhibit documenting history of sundown towns
Description
Term: Fall 2021-ongoing
Participants: Undergraduate Students, Graduate Students, Faculty
Related Courses: History 491 (lab)
Description: In this HistoryLab, students will research and write about the racial histories of small towns in the United States, focusing especially on suspected “sundown towns.” Students will conduct research into these towns and work collaboratively to contribute their findings to a website devoted to documenting this history. Public-facing goals include educating the public about sundown towns and working with local communities on how to respond to these troubling histories through acknowledgment and through concrete steps toward racial justice
Past History Labs
Collaborative Research in the Holocaust
Partner: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Principal Investigators: Rita Chin, Jeffrey Veidlinger
Project: Content forExperiencing History: Holocaust Sources in Contextdigital collection
Description
Term: Winter 2019-ongoing
Participants: Graduate Students, Faculty
Related Courses: History 717 (lab)
Description: Students work with theUnited States Holocaust Memorial Museumto develop digital analytical materials based on the museum's archives for its online educational programming. Students develop research, critical analysis, and writing skills working in a collaborative, team-based approach to historical research methods and practices. The class travels to Washington, DC, to utilize the museum’s collections and to present to their stakeholders. Read about the genesis of this project in "Rethinking How We Train Historians," anAHA Perspectivesarticle written by Rita Chin. Other articles cover theproject launchand the2019 class trip to Washington, DC.
Collaborative Research with the DIA
Partner: Detroit Institute of Arts
Principal Investigators: John Carson, Anthony Mora
Project:K-12 digital teaching tool
Description
Term: Spring 2020-ongoing
Participants: Graduate Students, Faculty
Related Courses: History 717 (lab)
Description: Students in this HistoryLab will develop content for the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) Diego Rivera "Detroit Industry Murals" digital teaching project. They will learn to work collaboratively with peers in small research teams, guided by the instructors in conjunction with input from DIA staff. Working in teams, students will collaborate on all tasks. from drafting an initial proposal, identifying primary sources, and writing document descriptions to presenting the collection to the museum stakeholders.
Great Lakes Environmental Justice Lab
Partner: School for Environment and Sustainability
Principal Investigator: Perrin Selcer
Project: Michigan Sustainability Cases: The Rouge River: Redlining, Riverbanks, and Restoration in Metro Detroit (case study)
Description
Term: Winter-Fall 2020
Participants: Undergraduate Students, Graduate Students, Faculty
Related Courses: History 491 (lab)
Description: In 1987, the United States and Canada designated 42 “Areas of Concern”: dangerously polluted places in Great Lakes watersheds. In the following decades, they have spent billions of dollars on environmental remediation. In this HistoryLab, Students will perform original research to produce to show how these places became so damaged, who benefitted and who suffered as a result, and what citizens and policymakers can learn from this history to make a better future. The goal will be to publish the case studies online through the Michigan Sustainability Cases platform, where they can be used in high school and college classrooms and inform stakeholders engaged in ongoing Areas of Concern remediation projects.
Inside the AHA: Race and the Institutional Histories of the American Historical Association
Partner: American Historical Association
Principal Investigators: Angela D. Dillard, Katherine French
Project: Client-based institutional research
Description
Term: Fall 2020-ongoing
Participants: Graduate Students, Faculty
Related Courses: History 717 (lab)
Description: This HistoryLab centers the practice of client-based institutional research focusing on the history of racism and racial exclusion in shaping the American Historical Association (AHA). In an effort to allow members of the AHA Council to reflect on and reckon with the various ways in which race and racism shaped the association’s history in terms of intellectual and scholarly production, leadership, and institutional practices, this lab course will, together with our institutional partner, begin to document key moments in the association’s past that shaped and perpetuated this exclusion. This critical genealogy will incorporate key texts and ideas from the early decades of the association (and the discipline) through the presidency of John Hope Franklin (1979).
Living and Dying in Late Medieval London
Partner: London Metropolitan Archives
Principal Investigator: Katherine French
Project: Digital exhibit mapping Late Medieval London
Description
Term: Fall 2021-ongoing
Participants: Undergraduate Students, Graduate Students, Faculty
Related Courses: History 491 (lab)
Description: Students in this HistoryLab will work with the London Metropolitan Archives to explore daily life in medieval London through last wills and testaments. Members of the lab will work in teams, learning how to read and transcribe these sources and collaborate in creating an online museum-style digital exhibit that combines qualitative, and quantitative analysis with interactive maps and reproductions of key documents.
Looking for Asian Americans at U-M and in Michigan
Partner: Bentley Historical Library
Principal Investigator: Hitomi Tonomura
Project: Deconstructing the Model Minority at the University of Michigan (exhibit)
Description
Term: Winter 2019
Participants: Undergraduate Students, Graduate Students, Faculty
Related Courses: History 393 (lab)
Description: This HistoryLab explores the two centuries of history and legacy of Asians, Asian-Americans, and the Pacific-Islanders in the state of Michigan, especially at the University of Michigan. Students examine the rich archival material kept at the Bentley Historical Library, and, if appropriate, expand their inquiry to organizations and people who reside in Michigan today. Together, we will visualize the project result in the form of a public presentation.
Politics of Academic Freedom
Partner: Bentley Historical Library
Principal Investigator: Howard Brick
Project: Jointly authored research paper
Description
Term: Spring-Fall 2020
Participants: Undergraduate Students, Graduate Students, Faculty
Related Courses: History 491 (lab)
Description: The meaning and applicability of academic freedom and freedom of speech standards—however much we prefer to trust in them as cherished ideals—typically come into dispute amid definite social and political contexts and strains. In this HistoryLab, students will examine definitions of academic freedom and freedom of speech over time, engaging in collaborative research regarding one of five noted episodes in U-M’s twentieth-century history, moments when official disciplinary action penalized (or was suspected of penalizing) U-M students or faculty for their involvement in leftwing political protest.
