About
Our Mission
WoosterHistory.org strives to provide the public with an engaging, representative, and accessible history experience. We achieve this goal by collaborating with local historians, libraries, and museums to create comprehensive exhibits that tell the story of Wayne County and the City of Wooster’s fascinating past and the people who built these communities.
Our Story
WoosterHistory.org is a project of the Wooster Digital History Program, a student and faculty-run initiative that encourages high quality research in local history and the digital humanities while collaborating with members of the community and local experts.
The Wooster Digital History Project was started in 2013 by the College of Wooster’s department of history and employed four students. Since then, the program has expanded. Each summer, students who represent a range of majors, disciplines and backgrounds give their time to collaborate on a variety of projects, from web design, oral history repositories, artifact archival and exhibit building. Production of an Omeka archive of Wayne County’s history began in 2013. Other past projects include an exhibit on Wooster’s agricultural history in 2017, and a tour on Wayne County’s local food history in 2018, which we are currently working to transfer over to the site. The WoosterHistory.org site began production in 2020, and was launched in the fall of 2021.
Our site is constantly improving and integrating the work of incoming students. In the future we hope to add more features that will make our work even more useful, interactive, and enjoyable to you, our visitors. We welcome your comments and suggestions, please visit our contact page for more information.
You can also stay up-to-date on our current projects by following us on Instagram and liking us on Facebook.
Our Researchers
Summer 2021
Faculty Advisors:
Dr. Greg Shaya, Department of History
Dr. Katie Holt, Department of History
Team Leads:
Laura Jentes: Class of 2023
Glenna Van Dyke: Class of 2023
Researchers:
Claire Berlin: Class of 2023
Tobin Chin: Class of 2023
Kai Rogers: Class of 2022
Anna Walsh: Class of 2024
Matthew Atkins: Class of 2022
Megan Conklin: Class of 2023
Aaron Huq: Class of 2024
Olivia Mittak: Class of 2022
Special Thanks
The Wooster History Digital History Project collaborates with a wide variety of professionals and experts in the fields of academia, local and public history, digital humanities, and library sciences.
WoosterHistory.org would like to thank The College of Wooster, the Wayne County Historical Society, the Wayne County Public Library, numerous local historians, and everyone else who supported and contributed to this project.
This project was made possible by a grant for interdisciplinary scholarship provided by the Mellon Foundation. Additional support was provided by The Five Colleges of Ohio Next Generations Libraries Grant and The College of Wooster.
Without the help and advice of the following people, projects like WoosterHistory.org would be impossible.
Thank you to:
Greg Shaya, Professor of History, The College of Wooster
Katie Holt, Professor of History, The College of Wooster
Fred Michel, Professor of Chemistry, The Ohio State University, and local historian
Jennifer Yandel
Mike Schenk, Photographer, The Wooster Daily Record
Mady Noble
Matt Dilyard, Photographer, The College. ofWooster
Roger Rowe, Wayne County Historical Society
Paul Locher, Reporter, The Wooster Daily Record
Ann Gasbarre, Reporter, The Wooster Daily Record
Megan Smeznik, Educational Technologist, The College of Wooster
Jenn Cassidy, Ohio Historry Connection
Lynette Mattson, Writing Center Assistant Director, The College of Wooster
Jordan Walters, Professor of History, The College of Wooster
Robert Cook, Professor of Anthropology, The Ohio State University
Deb Kitko, Genealogy Department in the Wayne County Public Library
Denise Monbarren, Special Collections Library, The College of Wooster
The Wayne County Historical Society
Nicholas Kardulias, Professor of Archaeology, The College of Wooster
Gwen Short, OARDC Library
Ed Abramson, Local Jewish Historian
Betsy Anderson
Emily Deffenbaugh
Mary Eberhart
Jerry Footlick, Trustee of the College of Wooster
James Fox, Court Administrator for Wayne County Court of Common Pleas
The Reverend Kevin Franklin
Sandra Hull, Main Street Wooster
Ann Freedlander Hunt, author of Gone but Not Forgotten
Shelley Judge, Associate Professor of Geology, The College of Wooster
Charles Lepold, Chair of the Military Committee of the Wayne County Historical Society
Matt Mariola, Associate Professor of Environmental Studies, The College of Wooster
Harry McClarran, Wooster historian
Julie Mennes, Wayne County Historical Society
Scott Nesbit, Assistant Professor of Digital Humanities, University of Georgia
Jeremy Rapport, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, The College of Wooster
Lucille Santangelo
Hayden Schilling, Professor of History, The College of Wooster
Rosella Stinebring
Lydia Thompson
Gregory C. Wiles, Professor of Geology, The College of Wooster
Yvonne Williams
Duane Wood, Wayne County Soil and Water Conservation District
OARDC Visitor Center
Robin Croft
Mark Weaver, Professor of Political Science, The College of Wooster
… and a special thank you to our past researchers, whose work acts as a foundation for future students:
Summer 2020 Research Team
Spencer Gaitsch: Class of 2022
Glenna Van Dyke: Class of 2023
Jordan Wilson: Class of 2022
Georgina Tierney: Class of 2022
Owen Arace: Class of 2022
Laura Jentes: Class of 2023
Stephanie Pokras: Class of 2021
Zdena Sinkhorn: Class of 2022
Jackson Stuff: Class 2022
Sofia Biegeleisen: Class of 2021
Nina Lupariello: Class of 2021
Erin Robichaud: Class of 2021
Tongtong Wu: Class of 2021
Summer 2019 Research Team
Spencer Gaitsch: Class of 2022
Tyler Iversen: Class of 2020
Abigail Blinka: Graduate Fellow
Summer 2018 Research Team
Sofia Biegeleisen: Class of 2021
Abigail Blinka: Class of 2019
Spencer O’Keefe: Class of 2019
Kate Padavick: Class of 2019
Summer 2017 Research Team
Rachel Tomei: Class of 2020
Thuy “Tammy” Dinh: Class of 2020
Eleanor Barker: Class of 2019
Shelley Grostefon: Class of 2018
Past Researchers:
Elisabeth Abell: Class of 2015
Brandon Bell: Class of 2018
Anna Claspy: Class of 2016
Shannon Dade: Class of 2015
Colleen Gilfether: Class of 2018,
Jacob Hailperin-Lausch: Class of 2017
Nicolaus Hajek: Class of 2016
Jacob Kowall: Class of 2017
Scott McLellan: Class of 2015
Laura Merrell: Class of 2015
Hope Nelson: Class of 2018
Brittany Previte: Class of 2016
Additional Links
The College of Wooster Special Collections
The Wayne County Historical Society