I’ve never taken part in a course this wholly integrated with technology before, so while the learning curve has been a little steep for me so far, I think it will be a good experience. I didn’t really know what the history portion of this course would be entailing when I registered for it, but I am excited for the time period. I’ve always had a lot of interest in the culture of and surrounding the 1920s, which of course led directly into the culture of the 1930s. I knew of the New Deal and of its goals upon its implementation, but not that it was encouraging artistic growth in America alongside industrial. My arts background led me to do some independent research in high school on early American theater, but I have a feeling it was not on the same level as some of the sources this class will be covering. The other part of the Depression era that has always intrigued me is the Dust Bowl, and its impact on larger American society at the time.
Tying into this, the digital project I was assigned was an online archive of works written by African American women throughout the first two decades of the 20th Century. Its sources are almost entirely compiled of primary source documents, be that poetry, drama, or fiction. These are often accompanied by images of the women who wrote them, who in many cases seem to have been “with the times” of popular culture, so to speak, in terms of appearance. Biographies on the featured authors also hep to contextualize the environments that both might have helped to create the piece, and what sort of world the piece was emerging into. While on their own, both the individual pieces and their backgrounds would make for intriguing reading, the combination they’re presented as within the digital archive greatly helps to enhance their meaning. It is of course also worth mentioning that the opportunity to keep them on an easy to access digital plane makes the pieces much more available to scholarly analysis. A visualization on the archive’s home page also helps tie together which pieces muse on common themes, making the goal of the project both easier to interact with and helping to map for the viewer which ideas are likely to be recurring in their research.
Hi Rose, this is the first class I’ve had to not use blackboard at all, which is pretty scary. I’m so used to being able to use that site for grades, projects and everything else so it’s also a bit of a learning curve for me. For the project you reviewed, it’s great that they use mostly primary sources for the source of information, as it’s important to use voices not commonly heard in history (i.e black women).
I completely agree with you about excitement to learn about the 1930s. The 1920s have always been one of my favorite time periods to learn about, so I am interested to see a deeper view of what happened directly afterwards. I think your project has an interesting angle. A lot of what we learn is not focused solely on the viewpoints of women from these eras, so witnessing their experiences in their own voice can be beneficial as we are presented with new information about what the country went through during this time.
I was unsure about what the history portion of this course would be as well but was pleased when I found out about the time period. I was also unaware of the technology and culture that was emerging during it. My assignment was an archive as well and I think that displaying information in this kind of way helped to fully embrace the culture more. I agree with what you said about having the viewers be able to interact and map the information when it is presented in this kind of way.
I think its very important and interesting that the art and messages presented by these women are expressed to the world and the job done by the website to pool them together as a large resource is wonderful.
Rose, I also agree that I was confused on where the IT requirement stepped in. I am still shaken on the overall concept and I’m having some difficulty fully grasping the contents of this course. However, I appreciate the time period selected and it was these huge moments in history that have shaped our lives with technology. I enjoyed your post on the source, I find it intruiging that writing letters was a main part of communication and that people took their time to write down their lives in a way that would become history. Great post!
Hey Rose,
I also wasn’t sure what the historical portion of the course would entail but the history of the 20’s and 30’s has always been extremely fascinating to me as well. I really look forward to learning the cultural side as I know the other courses I’ve taken haven’t gone into as much detail on the actual programs put in place. It’s so cool to see the use of diaries and letters within history as well, because this was how people recorded their day to day lives. I really appreciate the broader access to these pieces of scholarly work, it makes it much easier to analyze a wide range of material.