Heather Dietz – The Digital Past Course Blog

Final Blog Post

When I used to hear the words “history” and “the Great Depression” I would instantly tune out any information following the matter because I have never been one to be interested in history. I never thought about history further than the word. I never thought about the process of digitization or how important archives are. I especially never thought to combine history with my major, criminology, and form a research project out of it. I think this class not only taught me the importance of digitizing history, but also many different ways (skills) in which we do so.

My final project was an exhibit that was centered around the question “how did the New Deal influence crime rates?”. According to History.com, “During the Great Depression, with much of the United States mired in grinding poverty and unemployment, some Americans found increased opportunities in criminal activities like bootlegging, robbing banks, loan-sharking—even murder”(2018). When Franklin D. Roosevelt implemented the New Deal, one of the purposes was to deter crime in the slums through his housing plans. In my exhibit, I showcased three skills I learned over the course of the semester: image annotation, mapping, and image glitching.

Image annotation is describing and illustrating ideas on a picture through annotations rather than paragraphs of analysis. I chose to use image annotation as my first skill as a way to address and introduce the historical argument of the fact that the New Deal had a positive impact on crime rates in the sense that it lowered them. The image I chose for my image annotation skill depicts a man of color being arrested during a protest. The image was taken after the New Deal was implemented. While the man is being arrested in the picture, no true crime is being committed. This supports the argument on the fact that the New Deal lowered crime rates. It can be concluded that while the New Deal can be seen to have lowered crime rates, it gave way to a rise in protests and therefore can be seen to have raised arrest rates.

Mapping is a little more complicated than image annotation. Mapping is the use of pictures depicting historical events being placed in a geographic location relevant to their history and using these locations to tell a story or show a pattern of a broader historical event. I chose to use the mapping skill in my exhibit as a way to relate how the map showcases the argument/question through a pattern of location. The map I created showcases the impact of the New Deal through three different images. The pattern shown between these three images can be seen as the first two represent the attempt to deter and prevent crime while the third shows the great impact on the implementation of the New Deal as the image depicts no real crime being committed because there is nothing illegal about protesting.

Image glitching, in my opinion, is more of an artistical take on the digitization of history in the sense that I believe it tells a story through the glitched image. How glitching works is you simply take any regular image and edit the code to where it “distorts” the image in a sense. I wanted to use this skill to show how the glitched image portrays the argument upon the question of how crime was influenced by the Great Depression. The image I chose is one of the slums behind the Metropolitan Police Department. The New Deal, as stated by the posters in the map, was partially set in place to “solve crime” in the slums. Therefore, the glitched picture of the slums is an artistic representation of the rebuilding and rebirth of a new “house” in the sense that it depicts the destruction and rebuilding process of these slums on behalf of the New Deal.

After taking this class, I have become more aware of the importance of digitizing history. I believe that by digitizing history, we not only make it more available to the public, but the fragility and limitation of it is eliminated entirely as it is made “infinite” in a sense on the internet. I find the many skills in which we use to digitize history artistically appealing and educationally appealing because it stimulates different learning styles through each skill and shows history from a different perspective as well.

http://jessicadoeshistory.com/cnd/exhibits/show/hdietz/intro

Crime in the Great Depression—HISTORY. (n.d.). Retrieved December 12, 2019, from https://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/crime-in-the-great-depression

How Did The Great Depression Shape Religion?

The Great Depression was the worst economic downfall in the history of the industrialized world. This economic downfall has a large impact on the United States populations, more specifically those in the southern regions. President Roosevelt saw these conditions and according to Paul Sparrow, director of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and Museum “He had never seen poverty like that. He saw a family of eight living in a tar paper shack, farming on depleted soil” (Kaufman, 2019). Roosevelt had seen that the sorrows in the South specifically had become pervasive after the Great Depression set in.

From my perspective, I perceive that the South turned to religion in this dire time. I feel that because of this, religion was greatly influenced by the Great Depression as it was seen as an escape and not only that, but a sign of hope as well. From my understanding, the South turned to religion mainly in the form of song.

For this assignment, I chose two different audio sources and chose one clip from each. I did this because I felt it served a vast perspective on my research question, “how did the Great Depression shape religion in the south?”. I feel that those in the South felt that there was a sort of “light” at the end of this depression. and when they felt that light was reached or they had been given a sign that the “light” was near, they were overcome with a sense of joy as their hope grew due to their religious beliefs. It can be concluded that because of the Great Depression, religion was greatly influenced as it served as an escape from the sadness and despair. While religion provided an escape, I believe it also had the potential to create a community, in turn creating the music that is seen used in this assignment.

I feel that embedding audio in text analysis adds a sense of interaction with the text. I feel that by incorporating more than one of your senses, it brings the reader a better understanding of the text because they are appealed in more than one aspect, one through sight and another through sound. I also feel that embedding audio is a very unique way to provide analysis on an argument in the sense that it is more dimensional than the two-dimensional visual an image or text provides.

Green New Deal: Historians on the immense scale required to succeed. (n.d.). Retrieved December 4, 2019, from https://mashable.com/article/green-new-deal-historians/

“Daniel Saw The Stone”, Now What a Time: Blues, Gospel, and the Fort Valley Music Festivals, 1938 to 1943, Library of Congress, https://stream-media.loc.gov/afc/fortvalley/afc1941035_afs05148a1.mp3

“Jesus Touched Me”, Now What a Time: Blues, Gospel, and the Fort Valley Music Festivals, 1938 to 1943, Library of Congress, https://stream-media.loc.gov/afc/fortvalley/afc1944003_afs07039a1.mp3

Blog Post 8

Two classes ago we met in Fenwick Library to visit Special Collections to explore the Federal Theater Project. I found the experience very interesting in the sense that it was different from my other “out of classroom” class sessions. I had never dealt with physical archives before and had little knowledge that George Mason University had archives, let alone that students were allowed to view them. I think the significance of the Special Collections archive for scholars is that it provides a more in depth look to further their research. These are records that are not openly available to the general public and need permission to view due to their fragility. According to Thomas Padilla’s Bias. Perception, and Archival Praxis, “Archival work requires an ethics of care for the deeply personal and the deeply political. […] Record creation, keeping, obstruction, or misrepresentation are all acts of identity and power”(2017). Padilla also notes that “there is a definite value to be gained from working across physical and digital legacies. The work helps us recognize our shortcomings”(2017).

Regarding the archivist’s decisions about which materials should be digitized or not, I think they make these decisions based off of how well they are able to physically preserve the archive. Susan Manus addresses this in her blog, The Artifactual Elements of Born-Digital Records, Part 1 by saying “ preserving the artifactual elements of a digital record introduces a unique set of intellectual and technical challenges” (2011). Padilla answers this subject in his article as well stating, “Of course privacy and volume are issues present in analog collections, but they are further problematized when we consider the digital deluge and the responsibility of determining permanent historical value. In analog archival collections donors and creators can physically comb through and filter materials they do not want to deposit in an archival repository due to the presence of sensitive or personal information. Acquisition of entire hard drives makes appraisal for donors a lot more difficult and places the responsibility of protecting sensitive or personal data on archivists, who, on the whole are not nearly paid enough; not equipped with the necessary tools and infrastructure; and do not have enough hours of the day to devote the labor necessary to peruse every file” (2017).

Visiting the Special Collections changed how I viewed the Federal Theater Project in the sense that I saw it on a more fragile scale. I always just considered it as some point in time that happened and passed, sort of like a start up company that never exactly took off. Having seen the records in front of me made me realize that it was much bigger and important than I had thought. Having the actual brochures in front of me and learning how they gave off different messages than intended and how political this project had gotten was interesting because when I thought of the project all I considered was the arts portion and never the messages.

Manus, S. (2011, November 28). The Artifactual Elements of Born-Digital Records, Part 1 | The Signal [Webpage]. Retrieved November 13, 2019, from //blogs.loc.gov/thesignal/2011/11/the-artifactual-elements-of-born-digital-records-part-1/

Padilla, T. (2017, September 13). Bias, Perception, and Archival Praxis [Text]. Retrieved November 13, 2019, from Dh+lib website: https://acrl.ala.org/dh/2017/09/13/archivalpraxis/

Blog Post 6

My historical question was “how were crime rates influenced by the Great Depression?”. I chose this topic because I am a criminology major and figured it would be interesting to research. I assumed the answer already due to crime trends I have learned from my other classes. I assumed the answer would be that the rates increased due to high levels of poverty. As I continued researching more, however, I realized I forgot to take into account unreported/undocumented crimes, which would be most likely prevalent in this area due to the high poverty and unemployment; it would most likely become somewhat of a “norm” so to speak.

To find my sources, I used filters such as law or crime assuming that would lead me somewhere. I didn’t have a specific method in how I selected my sources. I selected ones that were different in the sense that I could have a wide variety of perspective and types of crime. I also selected ones I found interesting because I didn’t see a point in not making my research fun.

Using Voyant Tools was a bit of a challenge. The help/support page was referenced a lot. However, after my many attempts to figure it out, I did and it was actually really helpful. It helps analyze all these documents and condense the similarities among them. My favorite part was that I could control how many words were displayed in the word cloud feature. Sadly, I could not get the bubbles to work, but I did find another useful tool which was the DreamScape tool which displayed the locations of each document. I chose my own corpus to use for Voyant Tools because the zip folder on Slack was unsupported by the document selector so I was unable to upload the full class corpus to Voyant Tools. If that is an error on my end, I understand because I am not the most tech savvy person. However, I did find it useful to use my own corpus as I felt it was the most relevant to my historical question.

Performing text analysis on my corpus did not change much for me except for maybe my idea of how the crime rates were portrayed. My question also changed to be more racially centered: “Were crime reports racially biased in the Great Depression era?”. I believe crime trends were more racially targeted during the Great Depression. This can be observed using previous knowledge and relating it to the DreamScape tool which shows my corpus is based in the more southern region of the United States where racism was very prevalent. Analyzing the word cloud, the words “man” and “negro” and “court” stand out to me the most. It brings me to the conclusion that crimes were extremely racially biased in the Great Depression era.

Blog Post #3

http://jessicadoeshistory.com/cnd/exhibits/show/heather-dietz–answering-the-n/heatherdietzannotation

http://jessicadoeshistory.com/cnd/admin/items/show/182

I chose my image at first by clicking randomly through the pages of the FSA photographs to see which of the many would catch my eye. I came across a page that seemed to be focused on the working class of America in the 1930s and the images caught my attention. My image in particular caught my attention because I felt it represented the working woman very well and it was very empowering to me. I feel it revealed that the documentary evidence was very unfiltered in the 1930s. I feel that it is because they wanted to capture every moment, such as women entering the workplace. The picture depicts a woman, Virginia Davis, working in a factory which surprised me in a sense because I did not think there would be photographs depicting women in the workplace published in 1940. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized its validity. The background of the image was given. The background stated that Virginia Davis “made arrangement for the care of her two children during the day and joined her husband at work in the Naval Air Base, Corpus Christi, Texas. Both are employed under Civil Service in the Assembly and repair department. Mrs. Davis’ training will enable her to take the place of her husband should he be called by the armed service” (Hollem 1942).

What made me understand the validity of the picture was the fact that I considered the description of the picture and realized that the photographer, Howard Hollem, was most likely attempting to promote women in the workplace. By promoting them, he was not only empowering these women and showing them they were equally capable of performing a “man’s job”, but he was also doing their families a service as the women would work in place of the men causing no negative affect on the income or well being of the family. I believe the picture has a very strong impact socially. I think it portrays women as strong and in a different light than they have been portrayed in before as housewives.

Blog Post 2

I thought Tony Guidone had a very interesting presentation. My favorite part was when he brought out the two newspaper articles and the coin to pass around the class. It showed what is lost by using digital media. By that I mean the use of paper and currency is lost through the digital world. I feel as if the physical news and use of currency has become irrelevant due to the fact that they have essentially become nonexistent. From personal experience, my parents no longer get the newspaper due to the fact that the local news and advertisements are free online, and they use credit/debit cards out of convenience. The evolution of digital media can, in my opinion, be seen to be influenced by pure convenience.

Drawing back towards what we have lost due to digital media, I believe the answer is quite clear. We have lost everything physical to the touch, which in a sense can be seen as we have lost touch with the reality of media. According to Bilal Kaiser, we have lost restaurant reviews in the newspaper, phone books, and libraries. However, when he writes this, he does not put it in a negative light, but more in a hopeful one for the future. He does this by saying, “ It goes without saying that as more technological advances come into the mainstream, we’ll start to walk away from the old ways of doing things and step into a new frontier of the human experience. Which is quite exciting… And won’t require you to rewind before returning” (Kaiser 2011)[1].

While we have lost a physical connection to media, we have also gained something. I believe we have gained a sense of realization. In her blog, “Simply As That”, Rebecca Cooper explains what she gained when she lost her social media addiction. She claimed it was “disconnecting her from the most important things in life” (Cooper 2018). With this sense of disconnection, her realization grew to be that she needed a break and she states how she “experienced things more fully, with all of her senses” (Cooper 2018). She was brought back to the reality that was lost to digitalization in media[2]. I think that we can use Rebecca’s experience along with many others’ regarding social media hiatuses to further our knowledge in the true impact of digital media.

[1] Kaiser, Blial. “7 Things We’ve Lost – and Gained – in the Internet Age.” Legalzoom.com, 21 July 2014, www.legalzoom.com/articles/7-things-weve-lost-and-gained-in-the-internet-age.

[2] Cooper, Rebecca. “What I Gained When I Lost My Social Media Addiction.” Simpleasthatblog.com, 6 May 2018, simpleasthatblog.com/what-i-gained-when-i-lost-my-social-media-addiction/.

Blog Post #1

In class I learned that there is no direct consensus as to what digital history is. There are many definitions, however through the course we will be developing our own definition to better understand. Moving on to technology, digital technology is always referential to something else. For instance, present day silent discos can be traced back to the Radiophone Dance in 1920 where teenagers set up a radiophone to listen to a nearby concert that they could not attend. Information technology can be traced all the way back to the codex, a bound handwritten book which was a revolution to bind information together and preserve it. The codex the moved onto a printed book which can be seen through the invention of the printing press. Finally in our present day, we see information technology in the forms of eBooks. In this class, I hope to learn more about the tools that have digitized history. The concept of them is very foreign to me as I don’t use technology to access history often. I am interested to learn more about the different cultures that have shaped these technologies and what is to come in the future for us.

The project I have been assigned to focus on is “Freedom Ring: King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ Speech”. At first, I listened to it as a background noise because I was confused on how everything worked at first. When I listened a second time, I watched the animation and was blown away. Miriam Posner would most likely describe this project as a multimedia narrative as it uses a multimedia design along with text to illustrate Martin Luther King’s speech. With the design of the website you can see both the written and spoken speech, explore multimedia images, listen to movement activists, and uncover the historical context of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. I found the set up of the website helpful in the sense that you could visualize and listen to the historical context. I think it helped me to visualize as it brought me to have a better understanding of the meaning of his speech.

Posner, Miriam, director. How Did They Make That?How Did They Make That, UCLA Digital Humanities, 4 Apr. 2014, archive.org/details/howdidtheymakethat.

Dauterive, Jessica. “What is Digital Humanities?” https://slides.com/jdauteri/what-is-digital-humanities#/1 . Date Accessed 3rd September 2019.

Bissel, Evan. “Freedom’s Ring.” Edited by Andrea Spero, Freedom’s Ring: King’s “I Have a Dream” Speech, freedomsring.stanford.edu/?view=Speech.