My digital history project will examine the story of one immigrant group, the Carpatho-Rusyns in the United States, and the process of Americanization among this group and their descendants. This will be accomplished by analyzing one of the major institutions established by Carptho-Rusyns in the United States, the Byzantine Catholic Church (also known as the Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church). Examining the establishment and evolution of the Byzantine Catholic Church over time, provides an insight into how the Carpatho-Rusyns were Americanized. The project will organized in a narrative style that will tell the story of how the Byzantine Catholic Church was established in the United States and how it adapted over time to reflect the values and concerns of its members.
There are a few different history questions that this project will address. To begin the project, I will first provide a brief background of the religious characteristics of the Carptho-Rusyns in their European homeland. Then I will examine what the religious situation was like in the United States when the Carpatho-Rusyns began arriving in the late nineteenth century. From there I will look at why these immigrants felt the need to established their own unique church in the United States. The project will then progress to examine what were some of the changes that the Byzantine Catholic Church made as its members began to Americanize. Finally, the project will end by reflecting on how changes in the Byzantine Catholic Church reflect the larger process of Americanization among Carpatho-Rusyn immigrants and their descendants. This reflects the major question that this project looks to answer, how does the establishment and evolution of the Byzantine Catholic Church, in the twentieth century, reflect the assimilation process of Carptho-Rusyn immigrants in the United States.
The content for the project will come from a variety of different sources. Most of the primary sources will consist of photos and documents of the Byzantine Catholic Church and its members. These items will consist of personal family photos depicting events such as marriages and First Holy Communions and religious books and texts, all of which reflect the importance of the Byzantine Catholic Church in the lives of Carpatho-Rusyns. These will help to create a more personal narrative by placing one family in the context of the Byzantine Catholic Church. The project will also include photos and documents gathered from other cultural organizations that specifically focus on Carptho-Rusyns. These sources will help to provide the background to the important events that occurred in the evolution of the Byzantine Catholic Church.
This project will be created using Omeka. Through Omeka I will create a digital exhibit that user can navigate through in chronological order. The information will be organized into different exhibit pages that will follow the establishment and evolution of the Byzantine Catholic Church in the United States from the late nineteenth century up to the present day. The items displayed in the project will all be digitized by either being photographed or scanned and then uploaded onto Omeka. Finally, I will also be using Leaflet to create two different maps to provide context to my project. One map will be the location of the Carptho-Rusyn homeland in Europe, and the other map will show the locations of Byzantine Catholic churches in the United States.
There are two different target audience for this project . The primary audience for my project will be members of what is called either the Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church or the Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Church that are interested in learning more about their family history and heritage. These individuals will be located mostly in the Northeastern United States, be about 40-60 years old, and will have a high interest in genealogy and learning more about their ancestors. The secondary audience of my project would be scholars interested in the development of religious communities in the United States. This group would consist of scholars that study the development of different religious communities in the United States and how distinct religious communities were created and developed. The Byzantine Catholic Church is an example of the type of unique religious community that these type of scholars would be interested in.
