The Marchand Center For Public Engagement facilitates multiple History Labs. Each lab brings together diverse history practitioners to address a common theme or historical question. Lab participants include faculty, graduate students, undergraduates, outside scholars, archivists, teachers, and teacher leaders as they collaborate. History labs advance publicly engaged scholarship and research outputs.
Expand the modules below to learn more about past, current, and upcoming UC Davis History Labs and check the "History Labs in Action" page to read longer posts about or updates from these labs.
The California Women's Conference 1977
Title: 1977 California Women's Conference History Lab
Term: Winter 2022
Participants: Lisa G. Materson was the Principle Investigator for this lab which brought together undergraduate student researchers, archivists, and faculty, graduate students, and independent researchers.
Related Course: HIS102
Description:
Materson led her Winter 2022 HIS102 course as a history lab on the 1977 California Convention. The California Women's Conference was one of 56 state and territorial pre-conferences in which delegates raised issues and agreed upon resolutions to present at the national conference that took place later that year.
Materson designed this lab to contribute to a wider initiative to commemorate the 1977 California Women's Conference which was spearheaded by UCI Professor and Sharing Stories lead Judy Tzu-Chun Wu. See blog post for a more detailed description of Wu's initiative and the multi-campus collaboration.
Student researchers in Materson's history lab researched the life histories of several of these California delegates. They wrote short biographies about these delegates that will be published on Sharing Stories, and they prepared delegate pages for the Nothing Less than Justice virtual exhibit that Wu's research team designed. Lab Participants also presented their research findings, along with other UC research teams, at a virtual conference. This conference was a valuable opportunity for faculty researchers, graduate researchers, and undergraduate researchers from all the researchers from all the participating campuses to talk about what they learned.
The Reynoso Project
Title: The Reynoso Project History Lab
Term: Part 1 (Exhibit and Curriculum) May 2022-February 2023
Part 2 (Summer Institute and Primary Source Development with California Revealed)
Partner Agency: California Revealed
Participants: UC Davis History PhD Candidate Daniel Castaneda led the Cruz Reynoso project as an extension of both his dissertation research his then role as one of the inaugural Marchand Center for Public Engagement Interns. The Reynoso Project was completed through the work of Castaneda, UC Davis Head of Archival Processing Jason Sarmiento, CHSSP Teacher-Leaders, CHSSP Staff, Graduate Student Researchers, Undergraduate Student Researchers, and UC Davis Faculty.
Description: The Reynoso Project was a multi-stage research initiative that used the archive of Cruz Reynoso, the first Latino CA Supreme Court Justice and former King Hall Law Professor, to create physical and digital exhibits on his legacy for the University, a curriculum guide for K-12 teachers, a public event unveiling the exhibit, a three day summer institute using archival sources, and small primary source sets.
Part one of the Reynoso Project not only consisted of the design, development of a library exhibit showcasing archival materials, but also the "Reynoso Curriculum Project" which produced 5 curriculum guides for k-12 teachers using the same materials. A public reception on May 26th provided an opportunity for the public to meet and engage with the exhibit and the scholars who produced it. The physical exhibit washoused at UC Davis's Shields Library from May 2022 to February 2023 and used archival materials curated by Sarmiento to celebrate and explore Reynoso's political, legal, and educational career in California. A smaller digital exhibit is available here.
The curriculum project brought together graduate student researchers, undergraduate student researchers, CHSSP staff and teacher-leaders, and archivists to produce five curriculum guides for 2nd grade, 4th grade, and 11th grade History course as well as one Ethnic Studies curriculum guide and one guide for 12th grade Government. Each of these resources used archival materials to create lesson plans about Reynoso, Latinx history, California history, and civics engagement.
The second part of the Reynoso Project centered around the Reynoso Summer Institute. The summer institute was a three-day program that brought together K-12 teachers, graduate students, undergraduates, other scholars, and librarians to work with Cruz Reynoso's Archive at UC Davis and to work with the California Revealed Archives alongside California State Archivists. At the Institute, the participants worked together to create six brief primary source sets for K-12 education using material from the Reynoso Archives and from California Revealed.
Remembered and Forgotten Legacies of the Japanese Colonial Empire
In Spring 2024, Professor Kyu Hyun Kim conducted his Spring 2024 course HIS102N: Remembered and Forgotten Legacies of the Japanese Colonial Empire as a History Lab with the assistance of History PhD Candidate and Marchand Intern Emma Chapman. UC Davis Library's Head of Archival Processing Jason Sarmiento also visited with students to share the basics of archival work and historical research. This lab facilitated collaboration amongst these scholars as students led the creation of a digital exhibit based on their research findings.
Check this page in the future for a link to the digital exhibit!
Uncovering Diverse Histories of Yolo County
Title: Uncovering Diverse Histories of Yolo County
Term: July 2024-December 2025
Partner Agency: Yolo County Archives
Funding: UC Davis Public Impact Research Initiative (PIRI) Grant and University of California Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI) Engaging Humanities Grant
Related Course: HIS 102M, Spring 2025
Participants: Professor Cecilia Tsu is the Principal Investigator for this project. Department of History Ph.D. candidates Sareena Crawford and Frank Meyer are serving as Graduate Student Researchers. Also participating as researchers are three UC Davis undergraduates and one recent graduate. In addition, Yolo County Archives staff, CHSSP staff, and teacher-leaders are sharing their expertise to support the lab.
Description: This project brings together academic researchers, county archivists, and K-12 educators to research and share the local histories of underrepresented groups in Yolo County, translating archival research into curriculum for K-12 classrooms.
Located between Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area, Yolo County was one of the state’s original 27 counties dating to 1850. Although diverse communities of Indigenous peoples, Asian Americans, Latino/as, and African Americans have long inhabited the county, there is scant historical research or broad public awareness about their histories. Most residents do not know that three Patwin tribes consider Yolo County to be their traditional lands or that the first African American resident there arrived in 1854 as an enslaved person. During World War II, Yolo County had the largest number of Mexican braceros in California, while the U.S. government uprooted numerous local Japanese American farm families and incarcerated them.
Our team of student researchers and scholars will comb through the Yolo County Archives’ extensive primary source collections, which include property records, court cases, census records, coroner’s inquest files, newspapers, and photographs. We will identify 4-6 historical case studies involving diverse communities to investigate in depth. Working with curriculum experts and teacher leaders and in conjunction with a HIS 102M seminar, we will then develop resources to bring those stories to K-12 students in our community. The project will ultimately pilot the lessons and curriculum resources in local elementary and secondary school classrooms and provide professional learning institutes for educators.
COMING SOON - Diverse Narratives: The Middle East in Historical Context
In the Winter of 2023, the UC Office of the President granted UC Davis programmatic investments meant to combat antisemitism, Islamophobia and other forms of bias, bigotry and discrimination. In the Spring, CHSSP's Beth Slutsky and UC Davis History Professor Stacy Fahrenthold's proposal "Diverse Narratives: The Middle East in Historical Context" was selected by the UC Davis Committee as a recipient of the Addressing Bigotry and Bias Funding Opportunity.
This History Lab will involve professors, CHSSP leaders, and graduate students collaboratively creating both a lecture series and permanent public history resources.
The series will result in the following outcomes:
- Lectures by leading historians of the Middle East on the UC Davis campus, open to the campus community (students, faculty, and staff) as well as the public.
- A digital presentation in Middle Eastern history, comprising of professionally edited videos of the lectures enriched with relevant readings, primary sources, and clickable historical content. To be published on an open-access UC Davis platform.
- A related series of peer-reviewed K-12 lesson plans devised jointly by invitees and members of the UC Davis Diverse Narratives team. These materials will be co-published on a UC Davis platform and available statewide.
- New faculty/staff partnerships among project partners, as well as between project partners and additional academic units on the UC Davis campus, centered on publicly engaged historical production.
- Meaningful professional development experiences for project graduate students (GSRs) in their work with project faculty, staff, speakers, and K-12 teachers.