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History of Sex Toys and Zoning of Adult Businesses in Ohio

The eHistory MultiMedia Course Projects were developed by students in Professor Judy Wu's History course 525 in 2008 and 2009. This project utilizes interviews and the history of Columbus zoning procedures to examine how communities can remove adult businesses from within the city limits by changing zoning laws.

History's Great Walls, Good Neighbors or Bad Policy?

A Top Ten Origins Video. In the midst of a migration crisis in Europe and strident talk by some American politicians about Mexican immigrants coming to the United States, people around the world are resorting to an old strategy: building walls. Historically, walls have a decidedly mixed record in achieving their goals to keep some people in and other out. While good fences may make good neighbors, as the old cliché has it, neighborliness has not been the reason behind most of history’s major wall projects.

HIV/AIDS: Past Present and Future (a History Talk podcast)

In the West, many think of HIV/AIDS  as a phenomenon that began in the 1980s, when news first broke of a mysterious and highly deadly disease. In reality, however, the history of HIV/AIDS stretches back more than a hundred years, and has been shaped by some of the most important trends of the 20th century: from European colonialism in Africa, to the proxy conflicts fought between allies of the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, to the globalization and economic neoliberalism that transformed the global economy in the late twentieth century.

Honduras, Temporary Protected Status, and U.S. Policy (a History Talk podcast)

The Trump administration has taken a hardline on immigration. News from the U.S. border that asylum seekers are being turned away, that parents are being separated from their children, and the termination of Temporary Protected Status for 57,000 Hondurans currently living in the U.S. has drawn widespread public attention. But why are people fleeing? What is life like in their home countries? And what role does the U.S. play in creating the conditions that spur migration?

How the History of Poindexter Village Challenges Popular Stereotypes about Public Housing

A surprising array of critics from both the political left and right agree that public housing as built has next to no redeeming features. These places are written off as havens of crime and poverty. But this is false. Like communities across the United States, the history of Columbus, Ohio’s first and all-black public housing development Poindexter Village reveals a strikingly different story. On the city’s Near East Side, African-Americans formed a neighborhood in the face of segregation, built housing, created a vibrant and supportive community, and even challenged the popular notion of historic preservation.

Human Rights In Transit (Podcasts)

Human Rights in Transit is a podcast hosted by a collaborative network of faculty and graduate students at Ohio State University invested in thinking critically about human rights, the human, and the environment. Podcasts feature dialogues and interviews on the vital and myriad forms of scholarship, critical thinking, and activism relating to human rights in transit.  In addition, the concept of “in transit” refers to the circulation of knowledge/experiences between disciplines and between the OSU campus, local community, and wider contexts.

I had the Best Childhood: Growing up in Ohio Orphanages in the 20th Century

In the course of the twentieth century hundreds of thousands of American children spent part of their childhood in orphanages or children’s homes across the country. Modern understandings of life in such institutions are typically negative, associating orphanage life with the hardships encountered by fictional characters such as Oliver Twist and Orphan Annie. Surely, growing up outside the family was associated with trauma for many children, but the reality of orphanage life was often more complex. Based on 200 oral history interviews, this talk explores the experiences of more than 200 individuals who grew up in Ohio orphanages between 1920 and 1995. How do these former orphanage children recall their childhood? What is it like to come of age in an institution? Surprisingly, many of these individuals had very fond memories of their early lives, sometimes claiming that their childhoods had been close to ideal. Why did they think so? And what can we learn from their experiences that might influence present-day child welfare policies?

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