Bronx Community College Archives has completed a large-scale digitization project of our Hall of Fame for Great Americans collection to enable faculty and the general public to continue using this landmarked monument as a tool for teaching, learning, and engagement in the Humanities. This project provides a visual history of the Hall of Fame for Great Americans, bringing to life classroom discussions of history, historical  remembrance, and the impact of those luminaries whose busts line the Hall. The project also includes the development of an accompanying curriculum that will support faculty in continuing to use the landmarked Hall of Fame for Great Americans as a tool for teaching and learning. The goal of this project is to document the Hall’s history and illustrate the decisive battles it survived—including funding struggles and conflicts—to remain a vital part of the Bronx and New York City.

 

The Hall of Fame for Great Americans was designed by legendary architect Stanford White for what was, from 1900 to 1973, the uptown campus of New York University. The first Hall of Fame in the nation, it remains the  largest such Hall devoted to persons of achievement in the Humanities, arts, and sciences. Unusual for its time,  this Hall commemorates the achievements of women, African-Americans, and leaders in education, social work, and others who sought to improve the lives of ordinary Americans. It was named to the National Register of Historic Places in 2012. 

 

This project was headed by Professor Cynthia Tobar (Archives) who oversaw the digitization and quality-review of ~4,000 archival images, including  photographs, negatives, slides, and documents with Hudson Archival, a leading preservation and digitization company, and their partner Pixel Acuity, a firm dedicated to the  preservation of our cultural heritage. Thanks to Eric Silberberg who smoothly implemented the upload of the Hall of Fame digital collection to the Internet Archive, ensuring access to this digital collection to our campus community as well as the general public. Many thanks to Dr. Grisel Acosta (English) for developing the accompanying humanities-focused curriculum. We wish to thank the National Endowment for the Humanities for giving us the opportunity to digitize and increase access to this important collection for teaching and research while our campus remained closed due to COVID-19.

 

Browse our collection on Internet Archive.

 

View/download the curriculum here: