Digital Humanities Projects

Abdou’s Directory

This extensive project digitizes and analyzes Dr. Nagib Abdou’s directory, which records extensive 7,337 names of “Syrian” businesses and their owners and discusses Abdou’s travels across the world.

Mapping the Mahjar in the Mashriq

The project, led by Dr. Graham Auman Pitts of Georgetown University with visualization by the Khayrallah Center, maps and analyzes remittances sent to relieve suffering in Lebanon during World War I

Mapping Arab-American Businesses

Through interactive maps, this project tells the story of early Arab-American business owners in the United States.

Syrians in New York: Mapping Movement

This project traces New York City’s Syrian/Lebanese immigrants across three decades to examine important historical questions.

The Migration of Hanna Gaith

In 2023, the Khayrallah Center was gifted a diary written by Hanna Gaith who came from Yabroud in modern-day Syria and emigrated to Capilla del Monte, Argentina in 1908. In the diary, written in a common 19th century calligraphic style, Hanna narrates his own childhood, education, and political thoughts.

Index of Arab American Archives

The Index of Arab American Archives offers a gateway for researchers to access various collections of Arab American histories housed in US institutions.

Arab American Labor – اليد العاملة العربية الأمريكية

This project reclaims the hidden stories of the Arab American working class. In so doing invites us to rethink the prevalent narrative of Arab immigration and to move beyond its one-dimensionality to include the richer—and more complicated—diversity of immigrant experiences.

Voices of the Mahjar

From the Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, Voices of the Mahjar is a podcast that brings to life the histories of the Lebanese diaspora and discusses the issues diasporic communities face across the world today.

Texas Bound

This project explores the stories and lives of Syrian-Lebanese immigrants in Texas beginning in the 1870s. Includes interviews, archival images, interactive maps and more.

Angele Hobeich Kmeid-Ellis Collection

In this project, The Khayrallah Center explores in depth, a unique collection of letters from immigrant Angele Hobeiche Kmeid-Ellis to her family in Lebanon, through digital storytelling, a pod-cast, and a digitized archival collection.

The Romey Lynchings

This multi-part project featuring a documentary film and explorative webpage tell the story of N’oula and Hasna Romey, Lebanese immigrants who encountered racial terror in 1920s Florida, leading to their deaths at the hands of police and a Lynch mob.

Legacies of Labor

This project highlights the stories of Lebanese mill workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts from 1890 to 1950 uncovering the rich stories of industrial workers in a New England mill town.

An Arbeely Family Album

This project written by Dr. Linda Jacobs with visualization by the Khayrallah Center, explores the lives of the Arbeely family, who are broadly recognized as the first Syrian family to emigrate to the US. 

Migration and Health

Using death certificates of Lebanese-Americans from 19 states, this project examines how migration impacted the health of immigrants.

Counting Lebanese-Americans

Using decennial census records from 1900 to 1940, the center compiled demographic portraits of Lebanese in the United States.

Documentaries

Herbert Nassour: The People’s Doctor

This documentary tells the story of Dr. Herbert Nassour, A Lebanese-American surgeon, Herbert Nassour, tried to provide quality healthcare to the racially and economically marginalized people of Texas, but his heavily discounted procedures threatened the economic foundation of the American Medical Association which tirelessly worked to shut him down.

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The Romey Lynchings

This multi-part project featuring a documentary film and explorative webpage tell the story of N’oula and Hasna Romey, Lebanese immigrants who encountered racial terror in 1920s Florida, leading to their deaths at the hands of police and a lynch mob

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Cedars in the Pines

The documentary, Cedars in the Pines, narrates the lives of Lebanese immigrants who have journeyed from Lebanon to North Carolina and labored here to build new homes, raise families and enrich the state with their culture and hard work. It tells of a legacy that is as much about great accomplishments as it rests in the quiet and unassuming. A singular doctor in a small mountain town or a car mechanic at a Piedmont crossroads become vital threads in the fabric of this state: Lebanese cedars among the pines of North Carolina.

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Exhibits

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Turath

The Khayrallah Center invites you to visit Turath, a groundbreaking virtual exhibition about early Arab American cultural life. It narrates this rich heritage through a multimedia exhibit that explores Arab American artists, writers, poets, performers, musicians and journalists who built  a remarkable legacy of creativity.

View the Exhibition

The Lebanese in America

The Lebanese in America is a traveling exhibit detailing the history of Lebanese immigration to the U.S. from 1880 through today. It is composed of eight conveniently transportable panels and designed to easily display in a myriad of locations from community centers and churches, to libraries and museums.

Book The Lebanese in America at your location

Cedars in the Pines

This exhibit told the story of Lebanese immigration to North Carolina and was a companion to the documentary film of the same name. Cedars in the Pines premiered at the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh in February of 2014 and traveled to New Bern and Charlotte, NC before closing in August of 2015.

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Past Projects

•  Ameen Rihani Preservation Project: In collaboration with the Rihani Museum in Freike, Lebanon, the center digitized and remastered a 1937 speech by Ameen Rihani. In addition, the center is digitizing a large portion of the museum’s archival holdings.
•  Philanthropy Survey: In collaboration with NC State University, the Khayrallah Center undertook a research survey aimed at understanding philanthropy trends within the Lebanese Diaspora.
•  Mapping “Syrian-American” Businesses in 1908:  Based on “The Syrian Business Directory,” published by Salloum Mokarzel and H.F. Otash in 1908, this project maps business owners in the U.S. and Lebanon. This project was a pre-curser to “Mapping the Mahjar: Phase 1.”