Over the past 18 months, through the support of a $107,400 Museums for America program grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Historic Columbia Foundation has made strides in bridging the divide between now and then through an extensive research project.  Using elements of built history, material culture, and traditional research and collecting oral histories, the Foundation has assisted residents of six historic downtown neighborhoods in retracing the stories of their respective neighborhoods while also illuminating how these communities are connected with one another and other areas of capital city.

Much ground has been covered in what promises to be one of the Foundation’s most exciting initiatives since the institution’s founding almost 50 years ago. Work within both the Arsenal Hill and Lower Waverly neighborhoods has revealed the nuances under which their residents lived throughout the past century.  Race, socio-economic status, age, and even the streets on which people lived, worked or recreated – all played roles in how residents within the neighborhoods perceived themselves and how others within the capital city may have viewed these communities.  Stories of struggle, fortune, success, and failure have been captured in memories, vintage pictures, and streetscapes.  Intertwined, the experiences of extraordinary and average citizens have provided a picture of both communities’ character as they have evolved over multiple generations.

Building upon its work within Arsenal Hill and Lower Waverly, the Foundation will turn its attention this spring to working with representatives of Old Shandon and Hollywood-Rose Hill to retrace these neighborhoods’ stories.  Civic engagement within these communities within recent years has resulted in significant information being amassed and the Foundation hopes its support will further these significant accomplishments.  This summer Foundation staff and community volunteers will then engage current and former residents of Cottontown and Heathwood in weaving their area’s “institutional memory” into Columbia’s larger story.  Like those of other areas within the overall initiative’s study, the experiences held with these latter two neighborhoods will further enhance the understanding of how Columbia developed from the first years of suburbanization in the early 20th century through the present.

By the end of 2010, the efforts of Historic Columbia Foundation and members within these neighborhoods will have resulted in walking/driving tour brochures, wayside exhibits, and web-based virtual tours. Most recently, the Foundation launched its website version of the Arsenal Hill neighborhood tour. Other tours will follow in the coming months.

Historic Columbia Foundation will accept historic images or information about any of the six downtown neighborhoods pertinent to this grant-funded study or of other historic neighborhoods. Contact John Sherrer at 803-252-1770, ext. 28, or email jsherrer@historiccolumbia.org for more information.