The American nation went through many obstacles, cycles and events. The country evolved and built its own story. “The Digital Past” course focuses on main episodes of the History of the U.S.A in the 1930s, from the Great Depression, to the New Deal, and the digital history. This course brings the audience to a different approach of history. This original perspective leads to a unique vision of the use of digital between past and present. For example, it was interesting to understand how humanity went from the Codex to the printed book and finally to the Ebook, and how it allowed to democratize literature (Dauterive). I look forward to understanding how the digital field evolved and impacted the past century in the United States. We are using digital tools, which are new to me, to do history. It will bring an interesting outcome. I also hope learning about cultural, political and social movements from the 1930s and how the digital tools of this period influenced them. Using WordPress, Slack, Dropbox and Omeka, I would like to deepen my knowledge and understanding in digital humanities and the history of the U.S.A.
I will analyze a digital project titled “New Orleans Historical” by Niall Mitchell, Mary et al. It is a project from the Midlo Center for New Orleans Studies in the History Department of the University of New Orleans and the Communication Department of Tulane University. The concept is to democratize historical scholarships. The idea is simple and extremely efficient. Using Miriam Posner’s framework, we can understand the sources, the process and the presentation of this digital project. “New Orleans Historical” used sources from New Orleans History. The idea is to gather “[h]istorical photographs sourced from archives, in addition to oral histories and videos created by scholars, community members, and students.” The main interest in this project resides in the connection in between historical stories. Indeed, the process they used consist on attaching stories to particular sites in the city. They found the best way to present them: a map. This interactive map allows to navigate through the city and from a simple click, enjoy a different a historical story. The idea is smart and it does invite the audience to discover and learn more about New Orleans. It also answers the need to make historical scholarships freely and publicly available. I think they overpassed their goal and made this project attractive and exciting for the new generation.
Works Cited
Dauterive, Jessica. “What is Digital Humanities?” https://slides.com/jdauteri/what-is-digital-humanities#/1 . Date Accessed 1st September 2019.
Niall Mitchell, Mary et al. “New Orleans Historical”. Midlo Center for New Orleans Studies in the History Department of the University of New Orleans and the Communication Department of Tulane University. https://neworleanshistorical.org/items/browse/ . Date Accessed 1st September 2019.
Posner, Miriam. “How did they make that?” UCLA Digital Humanities. http://jessicadoeshistory.com/cnd/exhibits/show/fall-2019/dh Date Accessed 1st September 2019.
This is a great blog post! The project you looked at sounds very interesting and I love how they used an interactive map. I think using interactive things makes the digital project much more enjoyable.
I love that they used archival photos. This past weekend was the National Book Festival in DC and the dept that handles photographs for the Library of Congress was there. They had a slide show and url for each photograph they displayed. I imagine that it is much the same as the way that NewOrleansHistorical.org does it. I was really glad that New Orleans had full photos as opposed to just thumbnails. I loved looking through some of the pictures! I’d like to visit there one day and this tool could help me narrow down what would be worthwhile and what I could save for a later visit!
I love hearing that history is becoming exciting for a new generation. My project was boring, uninteractive, and not appealing at all. People have such a narrow idea of history, but they just need lively way of learning it to really begin to absorbed it’s importance. The same attractive aspect of your project is the same reason that games like Assassin’s Creed is popular.