by Library News
Berachah Home Online Exhibit
In an often overlooked corner of the UT Arlington campus lies a graveyard. Its flat stones are all that remain of a 67-acre complex known as the Berachah Industrial Home for the Redemption of Erring Girls. Now, UT Arlington Libraries is highlighting this piece of local history with an online pilot project of 18 digital images.
The Berachah Home was established in 1903 by the Rev. J. T. Upchurch and his wife, Maggie Mae, as a place for homeless, usually pregnant, young women. The Upchurches strongly believed that mother and child should not be separated, so they helped the women learn to care for their children and taught them a trade so they could support their families.
One of those trades was printing. The Berachah Home had its own printing facility and printed the Purity Journal, a periodical which campaigned against brothels and saloons, but also shared stories of redemption and salvation. Three Purity Journal covers are included in the online collection. The Berachah home closed in 1942 and the land sold to Arlington State College (now UTA) in 1963. UTA Libraries Special Collections acquired the Berachah Home materials in 1982 and 1984.
The Berachah Home digital collection is the first in what UTA Libraries hopes will be many more digital projects supported by Omeka, a content management and web publishing tool. Lynn Johnson, the digital projects librarian managing the project, chose the Berachah Home as a learning opportunity for the new software.
“Omeka was a new product and we had to learn it from the ground up,” Johnson said. With her and her team’s new-found experience, library staff wants to help others learn the software, too.
“We plan to help faculty, students, and other staff use Omeka for their digital humanities projects,” she said.
To see the Berachah Home project, go to https://library.uta.edu/berachah-home.
For more information about the home or the project, contact Special Collections at spcoref@uta.edu or 817-272-3393.
For information about publishing your own digital collection, contact Rafia Mirza at rafia@uta.edu.
Special Collections
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