This website is part of the thesis project by Tyler Brinkerhoff for his Masters Degree in Public History from James Madison University.
His thesis project has three parts, a physical exhibit located at Rocktown History museum in Dayton, Virginia, this website showcasing shape-note traditions in the Shenandoah Valley, and a collection of scanned documents stored in the Omeka online platform called Histories Along the Blue Ridge which is connected to the website. This is a public history project, and as such has involved the public in accessing information which is included in each part of the project. In the research and planning process, through the help of his advisor and committee, Tyler contacted individuals and institutions throughout the Shenandoah Valley who were knowledgeable about the subject of shape-note music. They provided him with information for further research which he used to broaden his own personal knowledge of the subject.
Through this process he came across records which had been scattered throughout the Shenandoah Valley which were all originally part of the same collection over one hundred years ago, but since that time have been divided up into separate collections at various institutions and in private collections. The exhibit at Rocktown History museum is based around a specific collection found in the archives at Rocktown History which had previously not been on display. Tyler used these records to unearth a story of the people contained in them which had not been discovered before this point.
This project has been a collaborative project from the very onset, and could not have been accomplished without Tyler’s thesis director Dr. Andrew Witmer, and thesis committee members Dr. Kevin Borg and Dr. Gabrielle Lanier. Collaboration with Penny Imeson and the volunteers at Rocktown History Museum, the History Department at JMU and the staff at JMU Libraries turned this project from a dream into a reality. A key factor throughout this project has been reformatting analog records into a digital online platform. Putting the digitized documents, which were collected from various library archives throughout the Shenandoah Valley as part of this project, on the Histories along the Blue Ridge Omeka website would not have been possible to complete without Kevin Hegg, the head of digital projects at JMU Libraries. This Shape Note Singing Traditions of the Shenandoah Valley website would not be possible without the help of Kirsten Mlodynia, a Digital Projects Specialist at JMU Libraries.
