The Faculty of Humanities and Education congratulates the Social History Project (SHP) on completing twenty-five years of solid research and quality publications. Established in 1979 in the then Department of History, now the Department of History and Archaeology, the SHP has functioned as an important research base for Jamaica’s social history, providing assistance to graduate students in that Department through the acquisition and compilation of useful source material and aids.

The SHP has also demonstrated a strong commitment to oral history, and has over the years, primarily through the attachment of Research Fellows to the Project, spearheaded the gathering of oral testimonies from Jamaicans from all walks of life. This collection of over 200 tape recordings includes eyewitness accounts of Jamaican social and economic conditions in the late 1930s, and of the labour rebellion in 1938. Indeed, thirty five of these interviews, suitably edited, are reproduced in the most recent SHP publication, Not For Wages Alone. Eyewitness Summaries of the 1938 Labour Rebellion in Jamaica (2003).

The Faculty welcomes the SHP’s plans to extend its work to the wider community by way of collaboration with institutions such as the National Library of Jamaica and the recently re-opened Liberty Hall/the Legacy of Marcus Garvey, and also through the mounting of touring exhibitions. This aspect of its work continues a long tradition of outreach in the Department of History and Archaeology.

The Faculty of Humanities and Education extends its best wishes and pledges its continued support for the SHP. May it continue to flourish as an important base for productive and relevant research.