Acknowledgements
Heidi Kaufman is Associate Professor of English at the University of Oregon. She specializes in nineteenth-century literary culture, archives, and Digital Humanities.
The following people and organizations have played a tremendous role in helping to shape and give life to The Lyon Archive. Heidi offers her most sincere thanks to their generosity and expertise.
Public Support
The Lyon Archive would not exist without the generous support of three members of the Lyon family: Annabel Foster-Davis (California, US), Naomi Cream (London, UK), and Diane Lyon Wead (Florida, US).
Annabel Foster-Davis, a descendant of Solomon Lyon and keeper of the family archive, has taken the lead with her care of the diaries. Annabel's dedication to preserving the past has made possible an abundance of research on the Lyon family's literary legacy, Jewish Jamaican culture, and Anglo-Jewish culture.
Naomi Cream, another descendant of Solomon Lyon, has worked tirelessly to transcribe the faded, crumbling, hand-written diaries of her ancestors. The combination of Naomi’s careful scholarship and detailed transcriptions have made hard-to-read documents accessible to the public. Her painstaking work enables us to contextualize and interact with rare manuscript materials.
Diane Lyon Wead, a third descendant of Solomon Lyon, has worked exhaustively through collaborations with the University of Florida’s Digital Library of the Caribbean (DLOC), a growing archive of materials relating to Caribbean culture. Diane has also donated her time to CVE (Caribbean Volunteers Expeditions) to preserve Jamaican Jewish culture. Diane was among the first group of volunteers to begin an inventory of the Windward Cemetery in Kingston where A.S. Lyon and his wife, Sarah Lindo Lyon, are buried.
It has been a privilege to learn from this amazing family of scholars, archivists, activists, writers, and preservationists.
Grant Support
Work on The Lyon Archive was made possible by three grants from the University of Oregon.
Digital Scholarship Center (DSC) Faculty Projects Grant (2018) which helped with a re-design of The Lyon Archive and the development of a Map of A. S. Lyon's travels throughout London. Azle Malinao-Alvarez, Interactive Technology Consultant at the DSC, has collaborated on the creation of a Neatline exhibit.
A CAS Web Services Development Grant (2016) helped with the creation and design of a new Omeka plugin that will allow the diaries and their transcriptions to appear as interactive digital objects. I am grateful for help from Daniel Mundra, Senior Developer and Cameron Seright, Analyst Programmer, both from CASIT at the University of Oregon, worked with me to design TREATOOL and develop an early version of The Lyon Archive.
A Coleman-Guitteau Teaching Professorship Award (2015-16) from the Oregon Humanities Center provided essential support for the development of teaching materials to integrate archive building as a classroom project in Fall 2016. The Coleman-Guitteau Professorship also made possible a trip to Annabel Foster-Davis’s home to photograph materials from the family archive, including the diaries.
Student Contributions
Students at the University of Oregon and beyond have contributed content, aided with editing, engaged with transcription of manuscripts, and in various other ways helped me to make content on this site ready for publication. I am extremely grateful for their help and sense of adventure.
Rachel Elkins, a double major in English Literature and Cinema Studies from San Jose, California. She plans to pursue a career in the entertainment industry as a writer-director. Her favorite part of working on The Lyon Archive was reading and analyzing the unpublished diary of A.S. Lyon as well as researching his family’s roots in past newspapers and lineage texts.
Madeleine Jones was born and raised in Saratoga, California, and is currently a junior at the University of Oregon majoring in Cinema Studies. She writes, "My passion in life is film and telling people's stories. I hope to get involved in documentary work while traveling around the world upon graduating in the spring of 2018. I really enjoyed working on The Lyon Archive because I was able to learn about a truly fascinating man, the people in his life, and the adventures he took. Words from a diary really came to life as I read all about his travels and interactions with his family and friends. It was truly an honor to have been in Professor Kaufman's class and be given the opportunity to create something so wonderful. I hope you have and will enjoy the archive as I have."
Mai-Ling Maas is from Arlington, TX and is majoring in English with a minor in Business. She explains, "My career isn't set in stone yet, but I want to do something creative, challenging, and fulfilling. My favorite thing about the Lyon Archive was how open-ended it was. I got the chance to do an in-depth exploration of an aspect of someone else's life, and there really were no limits other than the information available to me. Creating this project was a lot like being a detective and not only finding puzzle pieces that fit together, but also creating my own at times."
Sarah Wyer is from San Diego, California and has a Bachelor degree in Anthropology and Folklore. She will graduate from the University of Oregon in 2017 with two Masters degrees in Arts Management and Folklore, respectively. After graduation, Sarah will be moving to Washington, DC to pursue a career as a museum professional, arts administrator, and folklorist. Sarah loved working on the Lyon Archive project because it provided an accessible way to share information about lived experiences from the past. She has studied Victorian England as a lifelong hobby and was thrilled to put her background knowledge to use in this project.
Joseph Walters studied the 1823 A.S. Lyon diary in an independent study in Spring 2016. A student of English Literature and Creative Writing, Joseph works in the Architecture Department as a Cartographic Technician for the Roma Project, mapping Ancient Rome. His work on the journals has led him to think about his personal journal differently, shaping it for better research by future historians. Joey helped to prepare photographic materials and conducted research on the places mentioned in the 1823 diary.
Nathan M. Asman is a musician, composer, music technologist, and instrument designer. Focusing on the intersection of popular and academic music, he strives to unite the two musical styles utilizing the endless musical and artistic opportunities afforded him by the world of music technology and computer-based music. Nathan is currently pursuing his D.M.A. (Doctor of Musical Arts) in Data-Driven Instruments from the University of Oregon under the direction of Dr. Jeffrey Stolet.
Joey Brundan is a senior at South Eugene High School, and plans to study mathematics in college. One of his favorite past times is playing golf. Joey gave his time and voice to the recordings of A.S. Lyon's voice for the Soundscapes Map.
Paige York is a student at the University of Oregon Robert D. Clark Honors College (Class of ’19). She is double-majoring in English and French. Following graduation, she hopes to pursue an MLIS degree focusing on metadata and information architecture. Page assisted with the Soundscape Map and served as Metadata editor.
Ainsley Davis is a recent graduate of the Master's program in English at the University of Oregon. She transcribed podcast interviews, edited photos of the Diary of Sarah Lindo Lyon and the "Mystery" Diary, and uploaded several digital editions to the Archive.
Support from The University of Oregon Libraries
Jennifer R. O'Neal is the University Historian and Archivist at the University of Oregon, and affiliated teaching faculty with the Robert D. Clark Honors College, History Department, and Native Studies program. She specializes in American West and Native American history, with an emphasis on decolonizing methodologies and social movements. Her research and teaching are dedicated to Indigenous research methodologies, cultural placed-based pedagogy, and collaborative research models with source communities. She holds a Masters in History from Utah State University and a Masters in Library and Information Science from the University of Arizona. She is a member of The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde.
Azle Malinao-Alvarez, Interactive Design Consultant at University of Oregon Libraries, leads and designs multimedia and instructional web projects. In 2018, Azle provided web development consultation and and services to Dr. Kaufman related to Omeka and Neatline’s interface design specifications, functionality, technical research and solutions, and platform configuration and training. Additionally, she contributed to streaming digital media instruction using iMovie and YouTube in conjunction with Neatline.
Kate Thornhill, Digital Projects Librarian at University of Oregon Libraries, provides leadership to plan, execute, and finalize digital scholarship projects and other digital initiatives in the Libraries. In 2018, Kate led the coordination of project team members, content creation, quality assurance, and Neatline plugin upgrade and Google API configurations. Additionally, Kate provided digital scholarship consultation services to Dr. Kaufman related to content management system web hosting using Reclaim Hosting.
Franny Gaede, Head of Digital Scholarship Services for the University of Oregon Libraries, is responsible for leadership and support of digital scholarship, digital collections, digital preservation, scholarly communication, and library-led open access publishing. In 2018, Franny supported the Lyon Archive with Omeka and Neatline technical debugging and strategic project support.