Hello! We are a group of students who are working with the Ohio Historical Society to bring Canton's history to life. Left to right; Bailey DuBois, Cody Patton and Olivia Paglialunga.
In August of 2007 the group, including our adviser, Bonnie Paglialunga, traveled up to Athens, Ohio for a week-long history field school that was funded by Ohio's Congressional Academy. Congressional Academy is a summer program that runs through the Ohio Historical Society and promotes the education of history and civics with high school students.
While participating, we traveled to Marietta to learn about the history of the Northwest territory; to Chillicothe to learn about the United State's Constitution; and to Columbus to learn how to locate, access, and interpret public records relating to national, state and local government proceedings.
Through various speakers and activities, we were able to get a better grasp on our history and community as a whole, and by the end of the field school we were challenged to take what we had learned about research and history and apply it to a community project. The project was required to be focused in our area, the city of Canton. We received a $2500 dollar grant from the U.S Department of Education of Innovation and Improvement to pay for any and all expenses.
When we began to brainstorm a topic, we realized there were a lot of places we could go with the money and initiative. But one stood out to us--it was the idea to create a free, public tour for the historical buildings of our home city's downtown! We were very pleased; just watching it flourish has been an adventure.
Since Canton has more than a few buildings with historical importance, this tour will be gradually continued over the next few years. If you have any information or insight on how we can expand the historical area that the tour covers, please contact us.
We'd like to extend a special thank you to Chad Kapper from StoneKap Productions Ltd. for recommending the Audacity program we used for our recordings.
Enjoy the tour!
Olivia, Bailey, Cody and Bonnie