The Digital Past Course Blog

The historical question that I focused on was “Why were ghost stories common across America in the 1930s? What does this say about the time period?”. Ghost stories were common across America in the 1930s because it was a way to bring communities closer together. Having a common topic, one everyone in the town knew about, that was a distraction from their current economic crisis would’ve been a relief to a lot of people. I’m sure many were scared, but as we’ve seen from how popular ghost stories are, people enjoy that kind of fear. Especially how not everyone who told a ghost story believed in it, many were skeptics. But it’s more about how ghost stories and scaring each other is a form of bonding, one that many communities take part in.

I got all of my sources from the Library of Congress Federal Writers Project interviews which meant that I only had what people talked about. We didn’t mention ghost stories at all in class because there isn’t much on it from the 1930s, but I’ve always been interested in ghost stories and I thought it would be a unique idea for my final project. I’d already had a corpus from our project on Voyant to go off of, but I decided to create a new list of ghost stories so I could gain insight into ghost stories from around America rather than random ones that I had chosen a month ago. I wanted to see if there were regional differences in the stories, and I had decided that along with Voyant, my project was going to have a map. I wasn’t really aware of how helpful maps can be to enhance a project until we read the introduction to Discovering the South: One Man’s Travels through a Changing America in the 1930s and had the accompanying website that marked Jonathan Daniels’ travels ¹. The map allowed me to go on the journey with Daniels as he worked to document his travels and the general feelings of southerners at the time. The map gave me visuals and a brief description of where he was and why it’s important that he stopped there. A few weeks after going through Daniels’ journey, we created our projects on mapping, and with it read an article about how digital mapping has evolved to allow digital historians and professors to be able to teach in a more tangible way ². These mapping projects give a real insight into what it was like to live as a black person immediately after emancipation or be able to understand how many lynchings happened in the South between 1877 and 1950. Seeing racism plainly shown, with data to back it up, can be very impactful, especially for students who don’t have much experience in learning about racism. I also included an image analysis in my project because I felt like the picture I found perfectly encapsulating what I meant when I talk about people enjoying being scared.

This class has really helped me understand the digital world and the 1930s in ways I hadn’t before. Many of the websites and ideas we learned were completely new to me but were still relatively simple to understand. I enjoyed when we had to go to a New Deal site near us, because not only did it give me an excuse to explore DC, but it also put the New Deal into a realistic context so that we could see that the effects are still around us in many ways. I had no idea how many parks and structures across the country came from the 1930s, and how much we use them in our everyday lives. The lessons we had on copyrights and data usage have been eye-opening into how complicated and restrictive they are ³. I was also fascinated by our conversation about how memes are completely changing how we interact, and how information gets spread ⁴. Both relevant and important topics today, and connecting them to the 1930s only enhanced the topic more in my mind.

Before this class, I didn’t know much about the 1930s, only that it was when the Great Depression happened and FDR was elected. I had no idea the New Deal included so much art, writing, and theater and wasn’t just infrastructure and economics. Being able to directly connect consequences from the 1930s to today’s world is a valuable skill and I’m glad this class was able to offer me the chance to do just that.

            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

Link to Project: http://jessicadoeshistory.com/cnd/exhibits/show/robertcookfinal

In my project I used Omeka’s image annotation feature, Soundcite’s embedded audio feature, and my previous glitch project to try to explore how the Great Depression affected children’s culture and experience in that time period.  I chose this due to there seeming to be little attention paid to children of this age, as so much politically and economically was going on.

I chose the image annotation feature because I find that annotation can really assist researchers in discovering new things about an image.  Perhaps it’s part of a picture one might not have noticed before, or an idea that never crossed one’s mind that the annotation adds.  Either way, annotation can be a very good way to get an audience thinking more about the contents of a picture.

By using Soundcite’s embedded audio feature, I assist the audience in listening to specific parts of the audio that I was talking about.  Not only does it assist me in explaining my points made on the page, but it also helps the audience with listening to a, not so perfect recording.  Parts of the audio was the performer talking to the people recording the audio, which I wanted to avoid as it doesn’t add much to what I wanted to talk about.  However, I still included the full audio after the paragraph as a way to let the audience decide if they wanted to sit through it all.

At first, I didn’t really understand the point of glitching, as I’m not really into more “modern art”, however as I used it, I realized that it can be an excellent way to find new meaning in certain images as mentioned in an article we read. ⁸   I chose the glitch project I did before as a way to connect the old with the new, an old photograph with a new art form.  By doing this, I hope to get the audience thinking about how other photographs can be glitched.

The history of the 1930’s isn’t really one that has interested me much before this class.  I’m greatly interested in history; however, I find that the closer to the modern age we get, the less interested I am in learning.  Of course, after this class I find that the 1930’s is more interesting than I gave it credit for. 

The age is filled with revolutionary new ideas, progressive thought and social movements that caused change for the modern world.  Federal projects shaped American culture, and this is where we can really see a truly United States form.  Thanks to FDR and in large part the Federal One project, we now have a much more unified idea of what it means to be an American, and a more powerful federal government.⁹  Whether it be through song, theater, or photography, being an American was shaped during this age.¹⁰

Turning back to the modern age, being an ethical digital citizen is truly an important, yet seriously difficult task.  So much of modern society is being shaped by fairly unethical means, such as algorithms and mega corporations slicing up parts of the internet. ¹¹  From this class I can take away that we have a responsibility to protect the free flow and democratization of information and ideas. 

In conclusion, we now live in an age with so much unprecedented knowledge spreading as insane rates, that it can be hard to realize how much is at stake at times.  To protect what we have now seems more important than ever, and to make sure that it stays in the hands of the people, where it belongs should be a goal for everyone who calls themselves a netizen.

The New Deal has had a lasting impact in so many ways around Washington D.C. Many of its buildings and artwork is a direct result of the New Deal. However, just because the impact of the New Deal is long lasting does not mean that its message has been preserved. In D.C. today it is very likely that most of the sites that are products of the New Deal are still physically in tact. This does not extend to the ideological preservation. While they have not been destroyed. But merely that the message the original sites held has been pushed away, hidden, or in some small cases removed.

The notion that one can use mapping projects to show the success of something or the message of something is talked about in a piece by Sarah Bond ¹². The piece shows an example of racism as core idea to map. With the sites of the New Deal in Washington D.C. one can largely do the same thing. This is especially apparent with what is discussed as the “success” of something. In the article the success of Digital Humanities is discussed. In the Capital, however, one can discuss the success of the message of New Deal Sites using mapping. This is because in D.C. many of the surrounding area is largely the similarly preserved as the site itself. Two of the best kept sites are the West Wing and the Lockkeeper’s House. One can look at the surrounding area, in this case the Federal Triangle, and it is clear there will be a high level of preservation. The buildings being such well preserved structures, some also products of the New Deal, indicate through mapping that areas around them will also be well preserved. This is also equivalent inversely, one example is the Recorder of Deeds building. Many of the buildings around the Old ROC building have been destroyed. So, following the map trend, the ROC building and the message have also been altered or partially destroyed.

Time can also have a great effect on the the sites themselves. Using timelines one can see, visually and ideologically, how the sites have changed. The Old Post Office building which once brought the Nation together is now seen by many as a symbol of corporate greed. It is now largely rented out by the Trump Organization which has caused some bias in the original buildings preservation. It is incredibly important to be aware of this archival bias that is present in Museums ¹³. One must understand that due to the Hotel that was built, this has pushed the message of the post office away. This is meanly why a timeline comparison was chosen for sites such as this one. One can use it to both compare the old message and the new bias for or against the original message.

The Depression hit many people but due to rampant racism, it hit African Americans much harder ¹⁴. Due to this many artists of the time would express this in the murals and paintings. The murals in the ROC Building were created to represent the various important African American political figures that worked there. This in many ways is how art was used throughout the 1930’s ¹⁵. It was an expression of the reality around them and a also an escape.

The Legacies of the New Deal have extended far into the modern age. However, many of the messages have been lost or are hard to find. Through research, the many sites that once held great historical significance have been changed drastically. This has thus destroyed much of the effects that could have happened because of the New Deal. Despite this, the New Deal’s long lasting effects have had a more subtle impact today. Even though physical monuments have been changed, the ideas that were created live on in those who believe in the original messages.

REALLY IMPORTANT

There seems to be a limitation with what Omeka can do with annotated images. It seems to destroy other parts of the page if there is other content. It will also simply not show anything if it is alone. However, this only happens if you are not logged in to omeka. So, you should not have a problem with this but I am not the only one that had this happen. Secondly, if this does in some way effect the project I have attached to the site a “Part 2” which is me analyzing the images but by not using the annotating tool. Please you this if the if there are no image annotations on the other page. Thank you. gg

Also if you paste it as plain text it may also work normally.

Image Analysis

Throughout the semester in Digital History, we discovered the use of a variety of digital tools while learning about the 1930s in the USA. Thanks to the knowledge I acquired in this course, I was able to come up with a research question and answer it.

I decided to ask the following question for my Omeka exhibit: how did the FTP, FMP, and FWP influence the Folk culture in California? I picked digital tools to match the needs of my research question. Indeed, digital history implies the use of images, sounds, and text analysis.

StoryMapJS is a great tool for mapping and building a visual itinerary. Creating and mapping a tour based on the American Guide Series helps to highlight the importance of the Federal Theatre Project ¹⁶.

SoundCite is a fabulous tool when it comes to share with your audience the atmosphere that is emanating from your text. It is a harmonious way to introduce a sound within the text. It was of great use to present Folk songs and culture and how it was influenced by the Federal Music Project.

VoyantTool is a more serious distant reading text analysis. It is unavoidable when a corpus of text needs to be studied ¹⁷. This tool helped to emphasize the importance of Folk culture and how it was influenced by the Federal Writers’ Project.

Digital tools bring interactivity and a better understanding of the sources. They use our senses to dig into the history. They also attract the audience and makes it feel comfortable.

The 1930s brought a new dimension into the life of people. Franklin Delano Roosevelt developed the politic of the New Deal to fight against the Great Depression. FDR wanted to increase regulatory power, protect collective action, promote social reform, and regulate profiteering ¹⁸

The Federal Project Number One regrouping the Federal Theatre Project, the Federal Music Project, the Federal Art Project, and the Federal Writers’ Project entertained the population during this difficult period. It also brought employment in fields like theatre which was the will of Hopkins and Flanagan. ¹⁹

The FDR government believed in functionalism and wanted to promote this concept. In other words, all cultural forms in a given society – from superstitions to rituals of economic exchange – existed because they served functions in that society. For example, Folk songs that Alan Lomax used to record reflected a process of adaptation, an organizational superstructure and social functions ²⁰

In the 1930s, the country was changing. Many people suffered from the Dust Bowl and migrants had to move and find a new place. They shared their culture and traditions, singing together on the railroads. ²¹.

The FDR presidency period was also marked by questioning and debates around civil rights. The 1930s were notably marked by the Long Civil Rights era. The New Deal helped to make civil rights a subject for political debate like gender inequalities, racism, discrimination, the place of African American and women in the South ²².

FDR and the 1930s are still in the mind of people and we can still observe its legacies. For example, The Green New Deal is an emerging energy infrastructure plan to combat a disrupted climate ²³.

T. Mills Kelly gave us a great lesson about the credibility of sources on the Internet. He supported his argument based on his own course he taught at George Mason University Lying About the Past. He emphasized the importance of having a critic look on what we think is a reliable source of information or not. He created fake History published on Wikipedia with his students. They used part of truth and lies.

For ten days, no one noticed the discrepancy. They finally removed it from the web, but they hope that people will be more sensible in the future in picking their sources. He also explained that the growth of hoaxes on the web is an issue and they spread with social networks. We need to be careful more than ever. ²⁴

Although I came into this class having knowledge of the 1930’s, the skills and resources we have used this semester has allowed me to gain new insight and perspective on the time period and how we can view history overall. Reflecting on what we learned through the use of these digitized tools I am reminded of Tony Guidone’s presentation in which we discussed the benefits and possible downsides to use of these tools. An example of which can be found in Ian Milligan’s article where he talks about the impacts of the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star being digitized. Before digitization most newspapers were cited around the same amount. However, after the Toronto Star was digitized, it was cited far more frequently than its non-digitized counterparts.²⁵

One of my favorite skills we learned this semester was being able to glitch images and that’s why I decided to use that for my final project. The first time we saw this being used was in Michael J. Kramer’s example of glitching, which places an African American man in the forefront of the image instead of the two other white men revealing a new narrative for folk music.²⁶ I glitched an image of an older man sitting peacefully playing the violin. The glitching process not only created an entirely new feel to the image but allowed me to view details about the image I missed before.

The second tool I used was soundcite to help convey exactly what I was describing. Inserting sound clips makes what I’m talking about seem not only more personal, but real to the reader or listener. As Peggy Seeger suggests, you can’t “live those stories” without hearing the “voices on the recordings, drenched as they were in sorrow, joy, anger, poverty.”²⁷ Without this tool, the reader wouldn’t be able to fully grasp what the meanings behind any of the clips.

The third and final tool I used was the voyant tool which allows me to visualize text in a new way that furthers understanding. It was tricky to use at first, but once I was able to understand the mechanics of it, I was able to begin analyzing different texts. For my project, I compiled various different songs that were popular in the 1930’s and put all of their lyrics into voyant to analyze the songs based on specific words used. Based solely on the songs I chose, I thought that I had an idea of how the text analysis would go, however, after using the voyant tool and taking a look at these songs through a distant reading scale, I was able to notice things I didn’t before. I was initially able to see what words were most commonly used through the use of the “word cloud, with more frequently occurring words shown in a larger size.”²⁸ Some of the popular words weren’t surprising, but there were others I didn’t expect to be on there, which opened up the opportunity to look at these songs and their historical meanings in a completely new way.

Final Project Link: http://jessicadoeshistory.com/cnd/exhibits/show/introductiontomusic

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.