ISSUED: 2 June 2021
MEDIA CONTACT: Valerie Owens
SHEPHERDSTOWN, WV — A Shepherd University history professor and two alumni are guests in the May 27 podcast Conversations at the Washington Library produced by the Center for Digital History at the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington at Mount Vernon.
Dr. Benjamin Bankhurst, associate professor of history, and 2020 graduates Claire Tryon and Michael Mastrianni are guests discussing The Maryland Loyalism Project on the episode “Digitizing the Maryland Loyalist Experience with Dr. Kyle Roberts and Dr. Benjamin Bankhurst.”
Bankhurst and Dr. Kyle Roberts of the American Philosophical Society created the Maryland Loyalism Project, a digital archive that brings together the stories of Maryland women and men who remained loyal to the Crown during the American Revolution and gives students in Bankhurst’s history class the opportunity to conduct research and serve in internships. Mastrianni was a digital history intern in 2019 and Tryon served as content editor and Lapidus Digital Initiatives intern in 2019.
Bankhurst said he is thrilled that groundbreaking research by Shepherd students is included in the Maryland Loyalism Project.
“Claire’s census of people mentioned in the Loyalist Claims Commission records, created while Claire served as the Lapidus intern during summer 2019, forms the foundation for the public database of Maryland Loyalists,” Bankhurst said. “Similarly, Michael’s work on the formerly enslaved people who freed themselves from bondage by escaping to British lines is central to the transcription and presentation of the Black Loyalist experience in the upper Chesapeake.”
Conversations at the Washington Library is a podcast about George Washington and his Early American world. The podcast is available online.
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