#WriteOut: Mapping the Immigrant Experience at the Springfield Armory

Write Out Springfield Armory Map Photo Icon

One of the hopes for Write Out — an open learning experience now underway by National Writing Project and the National Park Service — is to use mapping as a way to surface stories, and make connections. I’ve worked with the Springfield Armory now for a few years through our Western Massachusetts Writing Project. I’ve led professional development for teachers and facilitated summer camps for inner city youths at the Armory.

What often surfaces during our dives into primary sources and themes of social justice is the immigrant worker experience, and how many of the workers during the heyday of the Armory arrived in Springfield, Massachusetts, from other parts of the world, and that immigration wave changed the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts forever.

The map I created, using Google’s My Maps, is designed to visually show the country of origin of a number of Springfield Armory workers, complete with a short biography, and connections from their home countries to the Armory itself. Using primary source material, I found short bios and photographs of seventeen workers and I asked some of the other teachers and rangers involved with me at the Springfield Armory to record readings of the text.

Each pin of each immigrant worker has an image and a voice narration as a video.

What comes to visibility are the stories of these workers, with snippets of their home countries, their families here, the work they did at the Armory, and other odd facts. It’s not much but it’s enough to give a flavor of the immigrant experience, and the map makes those stories more visible than ever.

Here are all the videos, gathered together into one video:

How can maps help tell your stories? (There is a helpful guide to various maps at Write Out, if you need inspiration)

Peace (coordinate it),
Kevin

 

 

4 Comments
  1. Oh. My. This is so inspiring, Kevin. This gets me thinking about how I can help students use this tool and how I can use it for my teaching.

    Thank you. Thank you!

  2. I love that you’re promoting NWP’s Write-Out in such a wonderful way. Thanks for this, and for Richard Byrne’s mention.

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