I chose my final exhibit to be about crime and the fluctuations of crime rates. Being a criminology major all I do is research crime, but I have never actually looked into crime happening during the 1930’s. I knew of the Prohibition and what J. Edgar Hoover did for the Federal Bureau of Investigations, but I have never looked at them in great detail. America had gained a slogan during that decade, “Lawless in the Depression Era.” The more I researched, the more apparent it became to me that the criminals and the general public had more power than the actual law did. Mobsters would gun down the law enforcement agents, eventually the officers/ agents would not try to intervene. The public was being controlled by fear of powerful Mobsters or Gangsters. Half of the population would partake in crime itself by becoming a bootlegger/ rum-runner, or speakeasies. Serial killers started to become widely active in this decade, and drugs were being trafficking out of every possible source. Places like Canada, China or Mexico flourished economically because America was desperate. Hoover’s changes to the FBI structure helped more than he thought they would. Trained agents now walked the streets and helped take down the high profile criminals. New divisions were started to be developed such as, forensic laboratories and counterintelligence.
Breaking up the exhibit was a challenge, I knew what I wanted to share but did not know how to format it. The information did double over in some of the pages. The major thing that increased crime was the prohibition. That caused mobsters and gangs to gain more power, and illegal running of alcohol to become more popular. Then the New Deal Programs was one of the major things that happen to decrease the crime rates. Millions got jobs, and had a stable income. That led many away from crime such as robbery, or being involved in a gang.
During this semester I learned so much. I am not a computer person by any means, I could care-less about them to be honest. But the tools used during this semester were so easy to use and displayed information in a way anyone can understand. Granted I did get frustrated a lot during this semester, looking back I can use the tools I learned in the future. My favorite project was the glitching project, I found it fascinating how easily it was to distort an image. Then after is was glitch how many interpretations you can gather from just one image. Another thing that was useful was learning how to navigate the Library of Congress, library resources, and online databases. I would spend hours trying to search through this huge databases, but learning tips from our readings, and from Tony Guidone made it so much easier to narrow down sources. Already these tools and tricks helped me in research papers done this semester. Even though this semester taught me a lot, History and IT (computers) are still my least favorite subjects.
Sources:
Kramer, and Michael J. “Glitching History: Using Image Deformance to Rethink Agency and Authenticity in the 1960s American Folk Music Revival.” Current Research in Digital History, 1 Jan. 1970, http://crdh.rrchnm.org/essays/v01-08-glitching-history/.
Milligan, Ian. “Illusionary Order: Online Databases, Optical Character Recognition, and Canadian History, 1997–2010.” The Canadian Historical Review, University of Toronto Press, 27 Nov. 2013, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/527016.
