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| These renderings of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center will take shape along Cincinnati's Ohio River in 2004. -- illustrations courtesy of the Freedom Center |
Underground RR depot at UC
Connecting
UC to the $110 million National Underground Railroad Freedom Center was
natural for a museum dedicated to education about freedom and for an educational
institution whose mission espouses community service and "the freedom
of intellectual interchange." The fact that the two facilities will
be located only a few miles apart reinforced the idea of designating UC
a "Freedom Station."
Due to open along the Ohio River in 2004, the center is working with UC
to create a digital library of oral-history interviews, maps, photographs,
articles and correspondence. Not only can scholars and researchers around
the world access it 24 hours a day, but the public can view the collection
by visiting University Libraries.
The "Freedom Station" designation places the university in an
international network that includes Yale's Gilder Lehrman Center for the
Study of Slavery and Abolition, as well as Youngstown State University.
The alliance with the Freedom Center is not the university's only connection
to the Underground Railroad:
- The UC Archives and Rare Books Department has the handwritten will, dated 1877, of Cincinnati resident Levi Coffin, "President of the Underground Railroad."
- The UC College of Law edits the Freedom Center Journal.
- Two
UC professors, Kevin Burke and Keith Griffler, have won grants to create
a documentary on the Underground Railroad and the Ohio River Valley
and have formed a partnership with WCET-48 for production and distribution
assistance.
Links:
Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery and Abolition
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| photos/Andrew Higley |
Long
time coming
Out
of the more than 4,000 degrees awarded in June, no one waited longer for
theirs than Robert Brotherton. Rather than marching to "Pomp and
Circumstance" in 1943 when he would have graduated, the engineering-ROTC
student found himself marching into battle on the island of Iwo Jima.
After the war, he joined his father in business rather than finishing
the final credit needed for his degree. This year, his wife and former
college sweetheart, Ann LaForce (pictured right), wrote the college asking
if he had waited long enough.
Following the letter's procession through the dean, the provost and the
college faculty, the appropriate parties voted to award Brotherton his
degree at long last. In May, his family surprised him with the news on
his 83rd birthday.
"He cried when we told him," said daughter Roberta. "It
was an incredible loving thing my mother did."
