Monday, January 29, 2018

Getting to Know Hespeler and the Cambridge Archives

This semester has has already been busy for the CUSP class. On January 10, we headed to Hespeler to visit the Company of Neighbours Hespeler Heritage Centre. It is an extremely informative display of the history of the community, located in the Old Hespeler town hall. A local historian, Lary Turner walked the students through the centre, sharing some rich facts about Hespeler. We then did a walking tour with Lary through the neighbourhood surrounding the Centre and learned about some of the developments and how the area has changed through time. The team who will be working in Hespeler, Great Lakes, left inspired by the potential for their project in contributing to the preservation of heritage in this great community. The other groups were intrigued to find a similar organization in their research areas. 

CUSP in Hespeler with Lary Turner


On January 17, the CUSP students went back to Cambridge, this time to downtown Galt. A deliverable of their projects this year is to complete Heritage Inventory Templates, which require significant details about the properties that could potentially be added to the Cambridge Heritage Register. Because of this need, the students were able to visit the City of Cambridge Archives and meet with Dan Schmalz. The class was split into two groups and each had the opportunity to visit the archives and see the type of resources stored there and were given a lesson on how to go about their research. This was an informative tour and the class learned how and where to get the necessary information for their projects. They had an hour to start looking into some of their properties but were also invited back to come spend more time at the archives. For many of us, this was a new experience and the visit was really beneficial. We learned just how integral the archives are to the history of a city and now appreciate the vast amount of knowledge that can be found there. 


With Dan Schmalz in the Cambridge Archives