The Rebecca Harding Davis Archive is an online source that provides users with access to more than 200 writings by Rebecca Harding Davis. As a tool that prioritizes accessibility and easy navigation, the Rebecca Harding Davis Archive assists public audiences, educators, and students with their questions, research, and writings. While preserving Davis’s legacy and restoring neglected texts remains the site’s initial goal, providing users with a centralized location of Davis’s works allows the archive to fulfill a secondary objective: enabling audiences to develop an understanding of Davis’s social advocacy and her life as a nineteenth-century writer. 

 

The original online Rebecca Harding Davis Archive was created by Sharon M. Harris, founder of the Society for the Study of American Women Writers and Emeritus Professor at the University of Connecticut. Harris was instrumental in digitalizing Davis’ letters and writings; further digitization efforts were undertaken by Alicia Mischa Renfroe (Middle Tennessee State University). Together, Harris and Renfroe built the Rebecca Harding Davis Complete Works website and provided users with access to over 200 of Davis’s texts.

 

As a project continuing the work of scholars dedicated to archival recovery work for Rebecca Harding Davis, the online archive began its second phase of development in 2023. During this time, Arielle Zibrak (University of Wyoming) inherited the pre-existing archive with the intention of migrating its contents to a more dynamic platform. By offering users a website that prioritized accessibility and easy navigation, Zibrak and her graduate assistant, Sydney Schmidt, developed the current Rebecca Harding Davis Archive with the hopes of making Davis’ writing available to public audiences, educators, and students. 

 

Future goals for the site include a compilation of resources promoting interdisciplinary collaboration—such as Davis scholarship, interviews from nineteenth-century researchers, lesson plans for educators, and contemporary reviews featuring Davis’s work.

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Already, the Archive has connected scholars and researchers throughout the United States. Currently, the Archive is directed by Arielle Zibrak at the University of Wyoming and overseen by the following board of advisors: Robin L. Cadwallader, St. Francis University; Donna Campbell, Washington State University; Anna Mae Duane, University of Connecticut; Sharon M. Harris, University of Connecticut; Janice Lasseter, Samford University; and Alicia Mischa Renfroe, Middle Tennessee State University.