BLACK CRAFTSPEOPLE DIGITAL ARCHIVE
Discovering • Interpreting • Digitizing
From 1619 to beyond, Black craftspeople, both free and enslaved, worked to produce the valued architecture, handcrafts, and decorative arts of the American South. The Black Craftspeople Digital Archive seeks to enhance what we know about Black craftspeople by telling both a spatial story and a historically informed story that highlights the lives of Black craftspeople and the objects they produced. The first and second phases of this project focus on Black craftspeople living and laboring in the eighteenth-century South Carolina Lowcountry and mid-nineteenth century Tennessee.
BCDA DIGITAL COLLECTIONS
Browse records documenting the lives and experiences of Black craftspeople
Recall the trials, triumphs, and artisanship of numerous Black craftspeople
Navigate a digital map of trade counts and active years among Black craftspeople
BCDA DIRECTORS
BCDA Founder and Co-Director, Dr. Tiffany Momon, is a public historian and Assistant Professor of History and Mellon Fellow at Sewanee, The University of the South. Her work focuses on exploring African American placemaking throughout the southeast, documenting cemeteries, churches, schools, and lodges. Momon serves as the research lead for South Carolina.
Co-Director, Dr. Torren Gatson, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. He is a trained public historian and scholar of United States and Southern History with an emphasis in nineteenth and twentieth-century African American built environments.
Dr. Tiffany Momon
Founder and Co-Director
Dr. Torren Gatson
Co-Director
BCDA TEAM MEMBERS
Victoria Hensley
Research Director and Social Media Manager
Maya Brooks
User Experience Designer
Sarah Calise
Project Archivist
Joseph Roberts
GIS Developer
