Center for Technology & Innovation, Inc., 321 Water Street, Binghamton, NY 13901,
Telephone: 607-723-8600 email: info@ctandi.org
History Channel grant helps local teens partner with Cornell students to collect local stories
By Elizabeth Cohen • Press & Sun-Bulletin • May 4, 2008
Some teenagers have a passion for soccer, or gravitate to music, gymnastics, ballet or MySpace pages. Laura Jurewicz is all about history.
"For awhile I was very interested in talking to World War II veterans," said the Union-Endicott High School junior, who would someday like to be a history teacher. "That helped me really see the importance of finding and recording people while we can."
More recently, Jurewicz, 16, with a group of 12 other students from her school and Johnson City High School, recorded audio stories from local residents who were connected to the Southern Tier's industry in its heyday, including early IBM workers and Endicott-Johnson factory workers. After collecting their interviews, the students worked with four Cornell students to professionally edit their pieces for broadcast this summer on News Radio 1290 WNBF and National Public Radio, as well as CDs, which will be added into the permanent collection of the Four County Library System.
A History Channel grant of $9,800, secured through the Center for Technology and Innovation, Inc., in Endicott, provided funds to purchase recording and editing equipment "to preserve local history and excite teenagers about journalistic reporting as both history and an art form," said Susan Sherwood, executive director of the Center for Technology and Innovation. The grant is one of 27 from The History Channel, which awarded $250,000 across the country during the 2007-08 year.
On Thursday, the high school and university students gathered at Your Home Public Library in Johnson City to celebrate their achievements. As they dined off original "Your Home" china in the historic library dining area, the students discussed the next stages of their joint project, which is called "History Works!"
Jurewicz said she and fellow student interviewer Christine Chen lucked out. "My friend is the grandson of Sandy Scanlon, the granddaughter of George F. Johnson, and we were able to get an interview with Sandy and her husband William Scanlon," said Jurewicz. "We all know about the shoes the factories made, but she told me other wonderful personal stories."
Chen and Jurewicz and the other students recorded many stories about working conditions, about factory life and the general culture surrounding Endicott-Johnson and IBM in the companies' early days.
The five Union-Endicott students in the project created the graphics for the CD they are producing for the Four County Library System, while Johnson City student Kurt Hoover created an original jingle as a part of the audio package, using sounds of factory noises mixed with carousel music, to elicit the time period of the era.
"The oral histories and soundscapes offer the opportunity to experience the heritage of the region first-hand through the voices of residents as they relate their accounts of the sight, smell and sound of the EJ tanneries, memories of the early days of IBM, and images of the daily life of George F. Johnson," Sherwood said.
"This was a chance for us to learn about the social fabric and cultural landscape of this area -- the reason people came here and why they have stayed," said Hans Klein-Hewitt, one of the Cornell students involved with the project. "It was awesome to hear the high school students' audiotapes. The quality and stories they elicited -- and the poignancy of some of the stories -- is very impressive."
Some of participants in the history project stand next to a statue of Harry L. Johnson
Thursday in Johnson City. Clockwise from right: Johnson City High School senior Ameli
Stymacks; Cornell University senior Patrick Castrenze; Cornell University junior
Matthew Ball; Cornell University graduate student Hans Klein-Hewett; Johnson City
High School senior Kurt Hoover; and Union-Endicott High School sophomore Anthony
Watts. (DIOGENES AGCAOILI JR. / Press & Sun-Bulletin)
About the project:
With funding from the History Channel, students from Johnson City High School, Union-Endicott High School and Cornell University are collaborating with the Center for Technology & Innovation in Endicott and the Four County Library System to create a "historic soundscape" with first-person stories documenting growth of technology and industry in Endicott and Johnson City.
This summer, the "History Works!" audio CDs will circulate through the Four County Library System, and it will be heard on News Radio 1290 WNBF and National Public Radio.
Audio files will also be uploaded to the Cornell University Soundscape Web site at http://cit.cornell.edu and at the Center for Technology and Innovation's "Digital Scrapbook of Southern Tier Technology" at www.ctandi.org.
Audio Links
Listen to Sal Paliziano speak about the factory whistles in the Tier.
Listen to Sandy Scanlon speak about her grandfather, George F. Johnson.
Listen to Lou Ligouri speak about his grandfather Rocco.
Listen to Patricia Roberts speak about adapting white shirts to be used as leper gowns
Project to Create Legacy of Local Technological Revolution
Students from Union-Endicott and Johnson City High Schools and Cornell University are working in collaboration with Binghamton’s Center for Technology & Innovation, and the Four County Library System to create an historic soundscape with first-person stories documenting growth of technology and industry in Endicott and Johnson City.
The History Channel has made a $9,800 grant for the History Works! Project. The work is designed to preserve local history and excite teenagers about journalistic reporting as both history and an art form.
About a dozen high school students from each district will interview veterans of the local workforce and prepare broadcast quality excerpts. These stories will be mapped in a living landscape of voices and sounds, creating a digital soundscape of Endicott and Johnson City, in a continuing collaboration with Cornell. The soundscapes will be accessible through the web and the library system.
The audio short stories will be heard on News Radio 1290 WNBF and National Public Radio (NPR). The stories will be compiled on DVDs for distribution by the library system.
Student interviews will focus on the ethnically diverse history of the area, the rise of technology, 20th century globalization and job decline. The students will produce full length spoken history recordings, a DVD of audio short stories illustrated with vintage photos, audio walking tours of Endicott and Johnson City, and a soundscape featuring the sounds and stories of their community.
The History Channel, which awarded $250,000 in grants to 27 organizations across the country during the 2007-08 year, has donated more than $1 million to historic development projects since its inception. The History Channel is carried locally by Time Warner Cable, Channel 55.
January 3, 2008
History Channel Grant for History Works!