Ruth Edmonds Hill Explained

Ruth Edmonds Hill
Birth Name:Ruth Edmonds
Other Names:Sister Ruth
Occupation:Scholar, oral historian, oral storytelling editor, journal editor, educator, historic preservation advocate
Spouse:Brother Blue

Ruth Edmonds Hill (March 5, 1925 - April 15, 2023) was an American scholar, oral historian, oral storytelling editor, journal editor, educator, historic preservation advocate. Her oral history office is part of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. She is an iconic figure among oral storytellers, particularly in the United States but also abroad, and has advised storytellers' organizations. Her spouse is Dr. Hugh Morgan Hill who is also known as Brother Blue. Ruth Edmonds Hill is sometimes known as Sister Ruth. Ruth Edmonds Hill is the daughter of Florence Edmonds of western Massachusetts, whose life story is chronicled and has been critically analyzed as part of African-American oral history. Hill has degrees from Simmons College and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.[1]

Hill is most widely known among oral history researchers for conducting the Black Women Oral History Project at the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of American Women at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study which has often been cited within related fields of study in journal articles, dissertations, and in panel discussions and has been acclaimed as a pioneering work in its genre.[2]

Hill has also made oral history field recordings, including guided interviews, of Cambodians, Chinese Americans and other ethnic and sociolect communities, traveling widely in research as well as conference participation.[3]

After the death of her husband Brother Blue in 2009, Ruth Edmonds Hill hosted Memorial Tributes in the Blue Circle community of artists, ministers and educators formed during his lifetime and from his joint opus with Ruth Edmonds Hill, most recently in 2010.

Personal genealogy and historic conservation

In addition to being the daughter of health care specialist Florence Edmonds (1889–1983) of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, who was later chosen to be among the subjects of the Black Women Oral History Project which Ruth Edmonds Hill conducted, Hill is the great-granddaughter of Reverend Samuel Harrison (born April 15, 1818, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to enslaved parents, died August 11, 1900, Pittsfield, Massachusetts), pastor of the Second Congregational Church in Pittsfield and of Sanford Street Congregational Church (now St. John's Congregational Church) in Springfield, Massachusetts, who successfully crusaded to obtain equal pay for black soldiers serving in the Union Army during the Civil War.

Reverend Harrison served as chaplain of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, the first all-black infantry regiment to see action in the Civil War, whose exploits were dramatized in the motion picture Glory. Reverend Harrison also served as Chaplain of the W.W. Rockwell Post of the Grand Army of the Republic.[4]

In May 2004, Ruth Edmonds Hill and her husband, Brother Blue, met with Pittsfield residents interested in conserving, as a historic site, the modest 19th century Samuel Harrison House at 82 Third Street in the Morningside neighborhood (plot purchased by Harrison 1852 for $50, house completed and occupied by the Harrison family fall 1858[5]) which was Reverend Harrison's homestead. The City of Pittsfield had moved to demolish the structure, which was in poor condition. Hill petitioned the Massachusetts Historical Commission, citing her great-grandfather's works and "lifelong pioneering spirit," and the Commission denied the City's motion for demolition. The Samuel Harrison Society's preservation initiative gained support as a consequence of the documentary A Trumpet at the Walls of Jericho: The Untold Story of Samuel Harrison by filmmaker Mike Kirk which PBS television aired in February, 2005. Congressman John Olver secured a Save America’s Treasures matching grant of $246,000 for the Samuel Harrison Society, starting endowment of the preservation project, and the initiative which Hill had placed into historic conservation procedures resulted in the Samuel Harrison House being designated a National Register of Historic Places landmark on March 22, 2006, a National Park Service "Save America’s Treasures" Preservation Project, and a Massachusetts Historical Commission Preservation Project.[6] On August 22, 2008, Ruth Edmonds Hill participated in groundbreaking ceremonies to mark the official start of renovation work on the Samuel Harrison House. After renovations costing $500,000, the house's new function became that of a black museum.[7] [8]

The Black Women Oral History Project

In the mid 1970s, the Radcliffe College Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America responded to recommendations that selected memoirs of older living black women be collected and made available by opening The Black Women Oral History Project. Ruth Edmonds Hill and a team of black oral history interviewers recorded 71 subjects from 1976 to 1981, with work continuing after these first case studies.[9]

Subjects of the Black Women Oral History Project

Some oral histories published or exhibited by Ruth Edmonds Hill as part of the Black Women Oral History Project at the Schlesinger Library, which houses the archives of their recorded and vita materials, include those of:

Subsequently, the lives and statements of these subjects are individually treated in literature secondary to the Black Women Oral History Project's reports.

Publications and exhibitions

Honors

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Yellow Moon Press . Yellowmoon.com . 2011-10-15 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20111009134938/http://www.yellowmoon.com/AHHHHMAIN.html . 2011-10-09 .
  2. Smith, Jessie Carney, Notable Black American Women (VNR AG, 1996) p378
  3. Web site: Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study – Harvard University . Radcliffe.edu . 2011-10-15.
  4. Web site: Biography | Samuel Harrison Society . Samuelharrison.org . 2011-10-15.
  5. The Samuel Harrison Society Newsletter, Summer 2008, p5
  6. The Samuel Harrison Society Newsletter, Summer 2008, "President's Message" by Linda Tyer, p2
  7. The Samuel Harrison Society Newsletter, Fall/Winter 2008–09, p1
  8. http://extras.berkshireeagle.com/nebe/Milestones/february_2005/default.asp?id=article03 Bergman, J. Peter, "Creating a new museum," The Berkshire Eagle, February 23, 2005
  9. Web site: Exhibitions – The University of Iowa Libraries . Lib.uiowa.edu . 2011-10-15 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20111130162407/http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/exhibits/friends/courage.html . 2011-11-30 .
  10. Ware, Susan, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Notable American women: a biographical dictionary completing the twentieth century (Harvard University Press, 2004), pp16-18
  11. Smith, Jessie Carney, Notable Black American women (VNR AG, 1996) p376
  12. Web site: WOMEN OF COURAGE; AN EXHIBITION OF PHOTOGRAPHS BY JUDITH SEDWICK BASED ON THE BLACK WOMEN ORAL HISTORY PROJECT SPONSORED BY THE ARTHUR AND ELIZABETH SCHLESINGER LIBRARY ON THE HISTORY OF WOMEN IN AMERICA. – Sedwick, Judith, Ruth Edmonds Hill, editor, introductory essay by Linda M. Perkins, based on the Black Women Oral History Project – Bibliopolis: Used and Rare Books and Booksellers . Bibliopolis . 2011-10-15 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20120312051728/http://www.bibliopolis.com/main/books/fgb455_20973.html . 2012-03-12 .
  13. https://web.archive.org/web/20081118122734/http://www.oxfordjournals.org/our_journals/ohr/editorial_board.html Oxford University Press: Oxford Journals
  14. Web site: In the footsteps of Du Bois | Harvard Gazette . News.harvard.edu . 7 December 2009. 2011-10-15.
  15. Web site: Welcome to LANES – the League for the Advancement of New England Storytelling! . Lanes.org . 2011-10-15.

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