Creating/ Saving History and Art through Innovation

There are various organizations throughout Philadelphia that could use monetary assistance. Many of these organizations have overcome great feats to survive in an ever changing society. Instead of deciding which society to sponsor, I proposed creating a program, that could help them all collaborate. Philadelphia is home to hundreds of volunteer, historical, and artistic organizations. Each of these groups has strengths, and weakness.

What if we funded creating a program (possibly website) where these organizations could come together to provide insight, and help on other organizations work. For example: a youth community service group could find a posting from a historical society which members may be of older ages, and could use a hand with manual labor. This website would help to develop a sense of collaboration, where it could help failing organization survive, and provide other organizations with a diverse plethora of projects. The website/program could also help categorize, and document historical, and artistic work.

Philadelphia is home to a vast amount of historical artifacts. However, many of these artifacts are unknown to most. What if we helped sponsor a collaborative catalog where historians, artists, students, and everyday people could have access through the use of this program (website). I came across this idea when I had previously researched The Historic New Orleans Collection. This group made one of its key focuses the concept of providing anybody interested with access to documents within their collection. This could help promote awareness in Philadelphia, and its surrounding areas.

It could also allow some museums/organizations to transfer artifacts to museums which have programs for a specific genre, while allowing that museum/organization to focus on other artifacts, and research. This program (website) could act as a posting board, catalog of artifacts, and promotion board for these organizations. The program could also promote various artifacts, with the continued use of Steam. This new program could have its own Steam Account promoting various artifacts on a daily basis.

Although a great challenge, it could help provide artifacts, art, and history that would otherwise just sit on a shelf in a storage unit. This program would require a significant amount of set up time. We would need to gather a few historical, artistic, and community service groups interested in the projects. After that, the collaboration of these groups would most likely need a program designer, to develop this program. The program could be as simple as a website, or as cutting edge as developing an app for smart phones.

100% of the SBD rewards from this #explore1918 post will support the Philadelphia History Initiative @phillyhistory. This crypto-experiment is part of a graduate course at Temple University's Center for Public History and is exploring history and empowering education to endow meaning. To learn more click here.