Recently Dr. Jennifer Guiliano of IU Indianapolis visited Butler University discussing the benefits of using Digital History to help recover/craft Indigenous Histories. Digital History promotes technology as an integral tool to historians by bringing in modern communication tools to help gather, organize, and display research. Digital History is increasingly accessible allowing undervalued and marginalized narratives to rise to the public surface.

Dr. Guiliano began her historical journey alongside her genealogist mom, joining her on trips across the Midwest growing up. By the time she was ten she knew she wanted to tell stories about the past. Thus, she started working on Indigenous history through the lens of Native American sports mascots through her undergraduate years as a history major.

In focusing on the broader range of uplifting indigenous narratives Dr. Guiliano suggests,

“1) talking about Native peoples in Indiana as a general term and instead talk about specific tribal communities: the Miami, Potawatomi, Shawnee, Delaware, and Wea. Each of these groups have their own specific histories and peoples and deserve to be recognized as independent sovereign peoples; 2) using terms like founding and settlement which ignore that role of war, violence, and trauma in the history of founding and living in Indiana.”

In addition, Indigenous Peoples are not of the past, there are many communities alive and active around the country with 13,000 in Indiana as of the 2020 census.

Now the question comes to what can we as students do to help? Students can help by just engaging with local indigenous communities and learning resources like the Eiteljorg Museum. Students can also work to organize access to indigenous resources and class on campus. Digital History has opened the doors on these narratives but students need to also make the effort to learn.

Brooks Hosfeld is a Butler University 2019 graduate in History & Anthropology and Gender, Women, & Sexuality Studies (now Race, Gender, & Sexuality Studies). He currently works as the Development Director of Sprout City Farms in Denver CO.

Q: How has your experience in the HAC Department helped you after graduation?

A: My experience in what was previously just the History & Anthropology department has been foundational to the ways I see the world and approach my career. I got into fundraising through museum work, in which various museum and archive collections internships during college introduced me to grant writing. My academic writing within the department made me a very strong grant-writer, and this department equipped me to build the professional insight necessary to intersect my passions for justice and community into professional spheres.

Q: How have your Majors helped in your current position?

A: The COVID-19 pandemic moved me away from museums and into more fundraising roles through small community organizations, and I have since ended up flourishing in nonprofit development. Skill-building aside, my degrees and the support I received from Butler faculty have been essential to the ways I perceive current events, communicate with people who want to build a better future (in part by avoiding mistakes of the past), and build relationships in both personal and professional spheres. I love when I’m asked how I got into fundraising for an urban farming nonprofit, because I get to offer a surprise of saying that I was professionally trained in history and anthropology, and that every step to get me where I have been a happy, semi-intentional accident.

Q: Any plans moving forward?

A: After doubling the organization’s operating budget in three years, I am currently seeking other professional opportunities to grow. In and out of work, I root myself in community and the belief that collective liberation is possible.