About the Project

A scrapbook documenting the early years of the Edith McIntosh School of Music on Hillside Avenue was the inspiration for this project. The history of the music school always intrigued me. With a background in libraries, archives, and public history projects, I decided to digitize the scrapbook so that it would be accessible to everyone, and then seek out stories from the community. Adding voices provides a richer, more complete version of the past. I believe that sharing historical authority is more important than ever. It can be easy for the stories of regular people to get lost among traditional "founding fathers" narratives. Yet these everyday experiences are what shapes the history of a place and the lives of its residents.