Collaboration

Queens College:
Professor Johnathan Thayer's LBSCI 790.3 Public History

Professor Thayer's graduate level course on Public History tasked students with creating material on the Olde Towne of Flushing Burial Ground. The resulting projects were notable in terms of research depth, audience engagement and level of refinement. We share their work below and applaud their efforts in creating meaningful works.

Documentary on the Olde Towne of Flushing Burial Ground Conservancy

Creators:
Gabriella Lacza
Kevin O'Leary and
Melissa Lino

In 2009, a park in Queens known as Martin's Field was given a new name: The Olde Town of Flushing Burial Ground. From the point of view of an ordinary resident, the change may have seemed to happen out of nowhere. The site's century old history was acknowledged, but why all of a sudden? As it turns out, there was nothing sudden about it. In the 90s, an activist named Mandingo Tschaka spearheaded an effort to gain recognition for the land and the people buried there. Our group wanted to shed light on the stories of those who believed that the location's legacy was worth saving from obscurity. We conducted interviews with local historians and active conservancy members to shed light on the burial ground's past, present, and future.

Interactive Map:
Historic Burial Grounds of Queens Public Parks

Creator:
Aimee Lusty

Download Project PDF

Click here to visit the online map or use it on our website below.

This virtual tour and interactive map features ten historic burial grounds within public parks of Queens County, New York. The tour tells the story of historic cemeteries that have undergone transformations into sites of recreation after purchase by the New York City Parks Department. The tour aims to educate the view of the history of these parks as burial grounds and to address challenges these sites have with recognition as cemeteries and places of historical significance. It intends to promote reclamation of these sites as cemeteries through proper naming, the inclusion of historical signage, placing limitations on renovations and excavations, and including the sites in state and national regiters of historic places. Experience the map directly below.

Volunteer Handbook

Creator:
Kim Cabrera

Many organizations rely on volunteers to fill out their workforce or to complete tasks that the organization would be unable to pay someone to do. Volunteers are an important part of such institutions, and the recruitment, management, and retention of dedicated and skilled volunteers are all key to an organization's productivity and well-being. Volunteers have a variety of reasons for choosing to work for an organization, and these motives can affect their level of work or the amount of time they choose to stay. In this guide, each overarching theme is broken down into subsections for easier reference. It is the hope that this handbook will provide both guidance on issues currently facing an organization, as well as ideas for the future of growing volunteer programs.

Download the Volunteer Handbook

Lesson Plan Series for The Olde Towne of Flushing Burial Ground

Creators:
Maura Johnson and
Sinead Lamel

This series of lesson plans focuses on using primary source materials to encourage students to think critically about the history and legacy of the historic Olde Towne of Flushing Burial Ground in Flushing, Queens. Each lesson incorporates a central theme, discussion questions, and archival source materials.

Grade level: 11th & 12th

Lesson 1: Introduction

Lesson 2: Poor Houses and Potter’s Fields

Lesson 3: Pandemics of 19th Century New York

Lesson 4: African American Communities in Post-Emancipation NYC

Lesson Plan 5: Reflection and Discussion

Download the Lesson Plans

Queens Recall:
Wiki of Historic Places in Queens

Creators:
Alexander Rettie and
Gregory Stanger

Our goal, with this wiki website, is to develop a comprehensive finding aid for historical locations and groups around Queens. Our aim is to create a wiki website that is read-only to the public and directly managed by Queens Memory. For the public, Queens Recall will serve as a general index, or Yellow Pages, of Queens’ historical sites. We will try to incorporate all of Flushing as a proof-of-concept, but PmWiki’s extensibility allows for a much greater scope and distribution of access (a sub-wiki for partner organizations). This will be approached by creating:

A main page that will act as a directory for the rest of the site
A page for each site of the Flushing Freedom Mile (Kingsland House, etc.)
On each page: site, contact, and map information, etc.
Internal and external (Wikipedia) hyperlinks to relevant pages and information resources

Visit the Queens Recall Wiki here: https://queensrecall.000webhostapp.com/