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ECHO Greenfield

Exploring and Creating Histories Ourselves

Local Institutions as Resources: Historical Societies

Overview

Carol Aleman discusses and shares artifacts from her own research on African Americans in historic Greenfield.

Guiding Questions

  • How do a number of individual artifacts begin, taken together, to suggest a story?
  • What sorts of historical records and artifacts are likely to be housed in a historical society?
  • What sorts of historical records and artifacts might be in your own attic, basement, or scrapbooks?

Quotation

“For me, the Historical Society is both study hall and playground.” – Carol Aleman

Links

  • HS of Greenfield, MA | (historicalsocietygreenfieldma.org)

Carol Aleman bio

Carol Aleman grew up in Shelburne and spent her early years mostly unaware of the rich history that lay within the hills and valleys and along the streets and meadows of the county she called home. It wasn’t until she edged closer to her 2018 retirement from the Five College Consortium in Amherst, that she began to volunteer for the historical society in Greenfield. 

On discovering there was little in Greenfield’s formal written history that addressed people of color, Carol began a very personal mission to identify as many members of Greenfield’s black population of the past with an eye toward who they were, what their lives were like, and how they had participated in and contributed to community life. Marrying into a Black family in 1972, she was equipped with a starting point and despite the divorce that had come to follow, she stayed close to the O’Hare family. Over the next four decades, they shared fragments of their past and unwittingly prepared her for the quest she would later take and the goals she would later pursue.

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About ECHO

ECHO Greenfield (Exploring and Creating History Ourselves) provides support, resources, and space for people of all ages to be curious about the histories that surround us, both known and forgotten, and the histories that live within us. There are ongoing hands-on activities, discussions, and support for expressing learning creatively at The LAVA Center as well as resources on this website. [Learn More]

This program is funded in part by Mass Humanities, which receives support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and is an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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