“Spanning the Gap: Commemorating the 75th Anniversary of the Transition from World War II to Peace in London, Ontario”: A Historypin Collection!
This year in History 3813E: Public History, three students worked with Archivist Tom Belton at Western Archives to create a fabulous new collection on the Historypin website. “Spanning the Gap: Commemorating the 75th Anniversary of the Transition from World War II to Peace in London, Ontario” displays and describes eleven relevant photographs taken between 1944 and 1947 and contained within the London Free Press Collection of Photographic Negatives at Western Archives.
The objective is to remind those visiting the Historypin collection of the celebrations at the end of the war, SW Western Ontario's contribution to the victory, and the tremendous transition from wartime to peacetime experienced by the returning servicemen and women and by educational and industrial institutions. Each photograph is individually pinned to its date and location, and succinctly described based on investigative research from both the original London Free Press article accompanying the photograph and contextual secondary sources. The Historypin site also presents a collection description and a call for crowdsourcing from the local community.
It is hoped that the Historypin collection will become a place where the community can engage in this local historical topic by contributing photographs and personal stories, and by helping the archives, in a type of crowdsourcing initiative, to identify dates, places, and people.
This Historypin collection was created by Mike Bartlett, Hope Tracey and Aidan Marr. Great work!
Please have a look: https://www.historypin.org/en/returning-veterans-and-higher-education/geo/42.984923,-81.245277,11/bounds/42.79224,-81.38369,43.177004,-81.106864/paging/1
Article contributed by Professor Mike Dove.
