We’re thrilled to welcome our newest team member to E.H. Little Library! Please say hello to Ellen Huggins, our Justice, Equality, and Community (JEC) Archives fellow. In this role, Ellen will help to advance research on Davidson’s nineteenth century involvement with enslaved peoples and its role in justice movements in the twentieth century by processing relevant collections, revitalizing digital resources for use in the JEC curriculum and collaborating on campus-wide research projects. As the JEC fellow, she’ll also be joining a cohort of researchers from Duke University, Furman University, and Johnson C. University in their second year of exploring the racial history of their respective institutions.
Ellen is a graduate of University of Iowa, where she earned her B.A. in Creative Writing with minors in American Studies and Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies. At Iowa, Ellen participated in various on campus organizations that promoted local labor rights by highlighting worker voices from the past and present, including the Iowa Women in Trades Network and The Iowa Labor History Oral Project. After graduating, she went on to work at the History Colorado museum, where she assisted in cataloging the “Chicano Elders” oral history collection, part of an exhibit celebrating the 1960’s Chicano Rights Movement, or “El Movimiento,” in Denver.
Alongside her passion for local history, Ellen has also worked as an editor/ research assistant for KPOPIANA, an academic database begun by Dr. Crystal Anderson of George Mason University dedicated to cataloging and contextualizing KPOP history. After completing her fellowship at Davidson, Ellen hopes to attend graduate school in American Studies in order to continue her study into the mysterious, but terrifyingly intense, cultural power of boy bands. In her free time, Ellen loves listening to disco music, searching for affordably priced furniture on Facebook marketplace (me too, Ellen!), and taking long naps whenever possible. Ellen shares that she’s extremely excited to join the wonderful E.H Little Library team and learn more about Davidson. Stop by her office located in Archives to say hello (and share your favorite tidbit of Davidson College history…or favorite boy band?!).