When Greenbelt was founded in 1937 as a planned cooperative community in the New Deal era, residents were forbidden to own and keep pets. That was the rule for 22 years.
For the last three years, archival studies students in UMD’s College of Information Studies, also known as INFO, have been preserving and digitizing old newspaper articles, photos and other materials from the original establishment of Greenbelt. Now, that research includes materials on the town’s pets.
They’re preparing the materials for display in the Greenbelt Branch Library on Crescent Road. On Wednesday, students in the program, along with Prince George’s County Library employees, sponsored “Greenbelt Best Friends Fest,” an event that brought pet owners to the Greenbelt Branch with their pets to have photos archived and talk about the history of Greenbelt.
“This is a project done by my community archives class, mostly students in the … Master of Library and Information Science program,” UMD professor Eric Hung said. “My students have been working with this collection. They’ve been processing it. They have been appraising new things that have been donated.”
The students will work to process material for the Tugwell Collection at the Greenbelt Branch. Their topic this semester is the history of pets in Greenbelt.
Students are getting hands-on experience working with a community archive.
“It’s really powerful to have that tangible connection into history, and it’s something personally that I hope to pursue after graduating,” Shom Tiwari, a student in the INFO program, said. “I looked through some poetry books from the ’50s, and there were a lot of elementary schoolers who were writing very beautiful poems about their cats, their bunnies, their dogs.”
All of the pieces are now digitally preserved in the archive.
“We found the history of pets in Greenbelt pretty fascinating,” student Anna Jones said.
“We all have pets and are passionate about them and care for them,” Jones said. “This was something we were interested in showcasing because we have such a love for (pets), and we know other people do, too.”
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