Kristin M. Szylvian
Kristin M. Szylvian
Associate
Professor Office: 4402
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Teaching Szylvian is teaching Museum Studies, a core course in the undergraduate Public History major, during the Fall 2006 and U.S. History 1920 to 1940 during the Spring 2007 semester. A U.S. History graduate seminar focusing on cities and suburbs will begin in January 2007. During the Summer II 2007 semester a Local History Workshop will be offered for advanced undergraduate and graduate students. Workshop students will research, conceptualize and assist in the design of a series of wayside historical markers relating to the maritime history of St. Joseph, Michigan. Funding for the project was secured by the City of St. Joseph from Coastal Zone Management. Research 2006 saw the completion of a “Preserve the Fruit Belt,” a three-year research project focusing on the Southwest Michigan fruit growing area known as the “Fruit Belt.” Linked by steamship lines, railroads, and later trucks to the markets of Chicago, Detroit, and other metropolitan areas, the economies and culture of the three Fruit Belt counties on the Southeast shore of Lake Michigan were heavily shaped by the fruit-growing industry. Working in conjunction with the staff of the Heritage Museum and Cultural Center (HMCC) of St. Joseph, Michigan, and formally and informally guided by community members, Szylvian and her students combed through public and private collections of documents, photographs, and artifacts, visited numerous orchards, packing sheds, migrant worker houses, and other sites and met dozens of people associated with fruit growing, research, marketing, processing, and agri-tourism. They worked with Kenneth Pott, HMCC Executive Director and his staff to produce “’World's Largest’: the Benton Harbor Fruit Market and the Southwest Michigan Fruit Belt,” a museum exhibit that will be open to the public through 2007, “A Fruitful Land,” a radio documentary produced by Andy Robins and Jill Straub that aired on National Public radio affiliate station WMUK-FM, An Educators’ Guide to the Local and Regional History of Southwest Michigan's Fruit Belt , a World Wide Web site, www.michiganfruitbelt.org, and a series of public educational programs. A special issue of Michigan History and Michigan History for Kids was published in May and June 2006 respectively. An archives of transcribed oral history interviews and documents relating to Southwest's Michigan's fruit growing history is now available to the public at the HMCC as a result of the “Preserve the Fruit Belt” project. Szylvian is working to complete The Camden Plan: Mutual Home Ownership for America's Middle-Income Families, a study that examines the construction of eight communities by the U.S. Federal Works Agency (FWA) for defense workers in 1941 in New Jersey, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Texas. Under the terms of the Camden Plan developed by former New Dealer Lawrence Westbrook, workers were offered an opportunity to mutually purchase architect-designed dwellings in communities that resembled the earlier Greenbelt Towns. The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) eager to break into the home building industry, promoted mutual home ownership among the rank and file as an economic and social alternative to traditional home ownership. Today, seven of the eight original Camden Plan communities are still owned by the residents on a mutual basis. Although they are no longer public housing, they constitute an all too unusual public housing policy success story. Most Recent Publicationss: “The Voices of the Growers,” Michigan History, vol. 90, no. 3. (May/June 2006): 14-20. “The Joads Come to Michigan,” Michigan History, vol. 90, no. 3 (May/June 2006): 52-63. Other Selected Professional Activities:
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