About this Website
The Arcade History Page is part of the Dayton History Project, a series of interconnecting pages created by Dr. James Todd Uhlman, other faculty at University of Dayton, and the departments history majors. Students in the departments senior history capstone seminar collectively conduct research on a topic, write a history of it, building a website, thereby transforming their work into a teaching tool for K-12 teachers , University classrooms, and the community as a whole.
The goal is to provide history majors at the University of Dayton with hands on experience of working collaboratively in creative work environments. They gain valuable computer abilities to augment the hard won research and knowledge production skills they learn as history majors. Another goal is to cross the campus and community divide, giving the students on the program an understanding of their connection and responsibility to the world in which they live.
To learn more about the Dayton History Project, or DHP, click on the image link above and visit the DHP home page.
The Arcade Project’s History
The Arcade project began in the Spring of 2019. Fourteen students in that class combined their efforts to 1) research and write a history of the Arcade, 2) conduct oral history interviews with older Daytonians who had stories of the Arcade to tell, 3) and then build a website to show their work. The visited local archives and interviewed nearly twenty Daytonians. To write the history they divided into four groups of three. Each group focused on a time period. In each group the students wrote parts of the essay and then they combined them. To conduct the interviews they worked in teams of two, and traveled to locations that were convenient for the interviewees. As they were doing this they began to build the website. Once again, they formed teams to build pages on the site. Each writing team was also responsible for building their own essay page. Working in teams was not easy for the students, nor was building the website, something almost none of them had done before. They succeeded admirably.
The Students of the Spring 2019 Capstone Seminar
In the Spring of 2020 the Arcade project resumed. In this semester the ten student built upon the labors of the former class. They studied the Spring 2019 essays and developed topical subjects to write about. In the end each individual in the class selected one of these topics. The students also set out to conduct a dozen additional interviews. Finally, they planned on creating podcasts about their topics. Unfortunately, their efforts were significantly hampered by the outbreak of the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19). Before they were able to complete their research the students had to leave campus and return home. They were unable to visit the archives, finish the scheduled interviews, or benefit from working closely with each other in the development of their essays. Nevertheless, the students made the best of the situation. The produced a number of strong essays, completed six interviews, and added dramatic elements to the website. They carefully edited the transcripts of all the previous interviews, built primary document archive galleries, a teaching page for K-12 instructors to use, added video and audio clips in which they discussed aspects of their research, and linked the webpage to other internet sites, including Wikipedia pages. These students did fantastic work under less than ideal conditions.
The Students of the Fall 2020 Capstone Seminar
Because of the outbreak of CV-19 pandemic the students were unable to present their research at the UD annual undergraduate Stander Conference. I had hoped to capture a nice picture of the group at that time. The photograph above was taken one day in class as we worked on the project. Below is a photo taken of use during one of our zoom sessions.
The students in both classes benefited from the help of local archivist and librarians at the University of Dayton, Dayton Metro Library, and Wright State Archives and Special Collections. They worked tirelessly with the students to dig-up information on the Arcade. Moreover, they and the institutions for which they work have generously allowed the webpage to reproduce some of these historical artifacts. Others in the city also played a major role. We received encouragement and support from the Cross Street Partners who are overseeing the redevelopment of the Arcade. We also worked closely with WYSO Public Radio, the grassroots civic organizations Friends of the Arcade, and received help from the administration at 10 Wilmington Place Retirement Center. We received financial and logistical support from The Cross Street Partners, the University of Dayton Office of Experiential Learning, the University of Dayton Department of History, and the Metro Public Library. For further details about each of these groups and the many others who supported the construction of this site, visit the pages linked below.