PAST FORWARD: Kristen Gwinn-Becker ’97 uses technology to preserve the past
By John Ripley ’90
KRISTEN GWINN-BECKER ’97 is redefining the future of how we document the past. Gwinn-Becker made history herself when she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in U.S. history from UMaine at age 19, the youngest to do so since at least 1991. No stranger to the fast track, Gwinn-Becker completed studies at Bangor High School in three years and enrolled in Orono at age 16. Since then, she has studied in Ireland, earned a doctorate, traveled, settled back in Maine, and merged her love of history and technology. Her company, HistoryIT, specializes in digitizing historical records for an impressively disparate group of clients, ranging from the Episcopal Diocese of Maine to the Junior League of Fort Worth (Texas) to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Earlier this year, Gwinn-Becker was one of 250 women included in Inc. Today’s annual Female Founders list, which honors those “whose innovations and ideas are shaping the world into a better place.” The list included such icons as tennis legend Billie Jean King and pop icon Selena Gomez. “It’s such an honor to be named alongside these women who are using their businesses, their brilliance, and their resilience to make a difference,” she said. “I mean, Billie Jean King? And me? On the same list? Amazing.”
But the list, while perhaps intimidating to some of the recipients, reflects the breadth of which female leaders continue to blaze new paths in pretty much every category.
Not just a mission, HistoryIT has become a successful business model. “Business is gangbusters,” Gwinn-Becker said.
“History really is everywhere so there is no end to the amount of work we need to do.” For more than 30 years, the Episcopal Diocese of Maine struggled to create a physical archive of its nearly two centuries of history in Maine. But then the diocese’s archivist retired, and the church was introduced to HistoryIT by Katie Clark, formerly the diocese communications director and now a HistoryIT executive. In 2024 alone, HistoryIT will catalog more than 400
items for the diocese, helping them to create an online museum. “HistoryIT’s work enables us to give access to our history, not only to Episcopalians in Maine, but to anybody who visits our website,” said the Right Rev. Thomas J. Brown, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Maine.
“Working with HistoryIT means that every one of our congregations will be able to find something of their story online, and it also means that individuals will be able to access the thousands of records which heretofore could only be accessed by making an appointment to visit our offices in Portland.”
Similarly, another notable institution, the Delta Delta Delta Foundation, signed HistoryIT to manage a vast resource of archives and make it accessible to generations of sorority members and others.
Founded in 1888 to empower collegiate women, the group has more than 130 years of archives, of which some 75 percent has been digitized by HistoryIT since 2020.
“We have a story to tell about how sorority has advanced women throughout history and now we can do just that,” said Beth Burkes, the Tri Delta Foundation leader. “We can also tell you what was on the breakfast menu for those who were traveling by train to our 1952 Convention (halibut or cold boiled ham), how we volunteered during World War I, and that in a letter to our executive office in 1987 (in advance of our 100th anniversary), Leeza Gibbons wrote, “I knew my experience as a sorority president was invaluable.’”
GWINN-BECKER’S OWN history was not nearly as linear as an archive of any flavor, complete with tempting career sidetracks and lessons learned about running a successful business. After completing her master’s degree at Trinity College in Dublin in 1999, she was accepted into the Ph.D. program but demurred, opting instead for witnessing life outside of a classroom. “So I took a few years and ambled about . . . mostly working IT jobs in Boston and San Francisco,”she said. After earning her doctorate at George Washington University, Gwinn-Becker still had no desire to teach, but after landing a “research fellowship at (George Washington) to work on the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers while spending a few years drinking coffee and talking about history with other geeks, I thought it sounded like a great way to spend my time!” She founded the company in Chicago, but moved it to Maine in 2015, while still keeping satellite presences in Chicago, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Tucson, and Los Angeles.
HistoryIT’s client list, while certainly disparate, includes a depth that can only be enjoyed by a company that has earned a reputation for excellence: more than 400,000 items at the University of Indianapolis; other sorority and fraternal groups, including Kappa Kappa Gamma; the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies; and even the Friends of Hog Island, an Audubon camp in Maine. Long gone are the days of simply scanning and storing digital versions of hard archives. With a decidedly strategic approach, HistoryIT’s work begins with an in-depth assessment of a client’s collection and then digs deeper to understand audiences and potential audiences. This means using keywords in an archive to digitally tag a record so that audiences can search effectively.
“The true key to accessibility is how the digital materials are tagged and made available, explains Gwinn-Becker. “We build a plan that allows us to tag the materials in the ways that are most usable by those audiences, using the natural language of the way those people search
online.” In addition, HistoryIT has created its own software, Odyssey Preservation, which provides a secure and cloud-based archive, a service used by clients such as the Muhammad Ali Center, the ProRodeo Hall of Fame, and the Alabama African American Civil Rights Heritage
Sites Consortium.
At any given time, the company is juggling between 50–70 projects, and actually saw its business increase during the pandemic. “I spent the better part of a decade ranting on and on about how crucial it was that we be able to have access to our primary sources and have the capabilities to tell our stories in the digital space,” she said. “Nothing made that argument more powerfully than millions of people stuck at home desperate for content online.” But while HistoryIT has certainly proved to be a successful business, one could easily argue that the cornerstone of that achievement is not Gwinn-Becker’s education or varied work experience, but the passion she brings to the work she and her team do each day.
SHE HAS A DEEP commitment to the idea that preserving history and ensuring it is more accessible to the general public is crucial to preserving democracy itself. Or, as she notes, “If we lose access to our history, our social fabric deteriorates.” “This is not just a business for Kristen,” said Burkes. “Saving and sharing history is her passion. And that passion is contagious! It also means that she and her team are committed to giving us the best possible experience. And that means that anyone visiting our digital museum also has the best possible experience.”
That passion was perhaps born of her own inquisitive personality, but it also was nurtured at the University of Maine, which her two brothers, her mother, and her grandfather also attended. In 1997, Bangor Daily News story about her early graduation, Gwinn Becker pronounced, “I have a million dreams . . . I’d like to be in a position where I can work for change, work for peace?”
And how has that turned out, she was asked. “Well,” Gwinn-Becker replied. “I’d certainly say that I work for change. I didn’t end up in the Peace Corps or something similar, but I think working to #savehistory has kept me pretty focused on contributing to a better future.”