Mukurtu, the Spalding-Allen Collection, and the Plateau Peoples’ Web Portal
This illustrated presentation will describe the origins and development of the Mukurtu platform, an open source platform built with Indigenous communities to manage and share digital cultural heritage, with a focus on the Niimíipuu (Nez Perce) Tribe’s presentation of the Spalding-Allen Collection.
In 1847, missionary Henry Spalding shipped two barrels of “Indian curiosities”—exquisite Nez Perce shirts, dresses, baskets, horse regalia, and more—to an Ohio friend, Dudley Allen. Given just six months in 1993 by the Ohio Historical Society to purchase the collection, the Nez Perce Tribe launched a brilliant grassroots campaign and raised $608,100 to reclaim their exploited cultural heritage.
Trevor James Bond, co-director of the Center for Digital Scholarship and Curation, and associate dean for Digital Initiatives and Special Collections at the Washington State University Libraries, will describe the process of adding the Spalding-Allen Collection to the Plateau Peoples' Web Portal, including the creation of community records and the sharing of research materials.
Anu Vedantham, assistant university librarian for research services at Princeton University Library, joins as respondent, and Keely Smith, PhD student in Princeton's department of history, joins as moderator.
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- Date:
- Friday, March 26, 2021
- Time:
- 3:00pm - 4:15pm
- Audience:
- Member of the Public
- Categories:
- Events
Speaker: Trevor James Bond received his Master's in Library and Information Science with a specialization in Archives and Preservation Management and a Masters in Ancient History at UCLA. He completed his Ph.D. at WSU in the Department of History in 2017. He received the Washington State Historical Society’s 2018 Charles Gates Memorial Award for his article "Documenting Missionaries and Indians: The Archive of Myron Eells.” His book "Coming Home to Nez Perce Country: The Niimíipuu Campaign to Repatriate Their Exploited Heritage" will be published May 2021 by the WSU Press.
Respondent: Anu Vedantham chairs the Princeton University Library’s Indigenous Studies Working Group.
Moderator: Keely Smith studies the intersection between Native American and colonial European folkways in the 17th and 18th centuries. Keely is the graduate assistant for the Indigenous Studies Digital Humanities Working Group.
This event is part of CDH-PUL Collections as Data series. Sponsored by the CDH Indigenous Studies Digital Humanities Working Group and Princeton University Library.
To request disability-related accommodations for this event, please contact pulcomm@princeton.edu at least 3 working days in advance.