For the past two years, students and faculty in the Public History Program at Wright State University have collaborated with area museums and archives to plan an online digital exhibit, "Making Progress: Living and Working in Ohio's Miami Valley, 1890-1929." This is not an abstract course assignment. In Fall 2001 nine students in the Introduction to Public History toured local museums, interviewed public historians, discussed plans for Dayton's 2003 Inventing Flight Celebration, and learned about Ohio and Miami Valley history. The class concluded that, while there was a great deal of attention given to Orville and Wilbur Wright, less was given to their contemporary African-American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar and still less to the context in which these pioneers of flight lived and worked, the Miami Valley in the Progressive Era.

This article reports the ongoing development of the online digital exhibit, "Making Progress: Living and Working in Ohio's Miami Valley, 1890 1929," a collaboration between Wright State University (Dayton, Ohio) students and faculty and area museums and archives. Thus far the project has enhanced student learning and extended the university's involvement with the community.