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Echoes from the Archives: Amplifying Voices

Welcome to 'Echoes from the Archives: Amplifying Voices

These online exhibits endeavor to explore perspectives that have been pushed to the margins of historical conversations. Using archives on the University of Texas at Austin campus, the creators of these exhibits seek to uplift voices that played significant roles in social and political movements in and around the state of Texas and beyond. By highlighting these voices, we hope to explore why they were left out of mainstream narratives and emphasize the effects of this marginalization. Echoes from the Archives and the whole Hidden Histories UT-Austin site spotlights stories of immigration, racial and ethnic identity, art and music, disability, mental health, feminism, political action, and LGBTQIA+ health in hopes of uplifting marginalized voices and people from history.

Exploring the Site

Collections are sets of items that were selected based on their similarities in origin or topic. Exhibits are a collaborative makeup of collections accompanied by additional contextual information communicating a narrative. You can begin exploring this digital archive by browsing through the different exhibits under the “Browse Exhibits” tab or use the “browse by tags” function to see how the themes of separate items and collections interact with one another.

About This Project

This online digital archive was created by the students of Dr. Elon Lang's LAH/HMN350 course, Treasure Hunt in Campus Archives: Giving Voice to Hidden Histories. In this class, students engaged in direct archival research with collections related to social justice at the University of Texas at Austin's Harry Ransom Center, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, and LLILAS Benson Latin American Collection. Students learned about the theoretical approaches to archiving, as well as the role of archives as active cultural heritage institutions. The interrelated Omeka exhibits are part of the students' collaborative capstone projects. The students worked on revamping and adding to previous year’s collections as well as their own. This site aims to showcase some of the University's lesser-known archival holdings and to contextualize the archival material with research the students conducted in the University's libraries.