The Digital Past Course Blog

For the first week of class, we were able to go through a snapshot of the beginning of the 20^th century and reviewed many of the important events that occurred. We began the teachings of the class at the start of the Great Depression and learned about the history of the Digital Humanities. I was originally interested in seeing how technology has changed through time, but after learning that this class is centered around the 1930s specifically, I feel that this will be an interesting era in which to relate the growth of tech.

We learned how closely connected ideas from the past are with innovations of today and saw this brought to life by looking at a piece of technology that we all use frequently (computers). This part of the lecture stayed in my mind as I was able to picture the advancement of the computer, and how the icons we see today are interpretations of what was originally used at the beginning.

Through Miriam Posner’s framework, I investigated the source, processing, and presentation of my assigned project, the “Passamaquoddy People” (Posner, 2019). Just like in her video, I started at the about page. The source of the project is a collection of wax cylinder sound recordings designed to teach the future children of the Passamaquoddy people about their ancestry through their own words, and to welcome the world to their heritage (Soctomah, et al, 2018). The information is processed through the transcription of the recording, done so by a language specialist, David Francis (Soctomah, et al, 2018). For human viewing, the project is presented as modern voice recordings of phrases. On the right side of the page, an introduction into who the Passamaquoddy are is outlined in both English and their native language. These recordings, both the transcriptions and newer translations, are vitally important to these people, as they feel it connects them to their ancestors (Soctomah, et al, 2018).

I like the combined use of audio and text. As a visual learner, it helps me to see what information is being relayed, and the written section with both languages made me feel connected with the message that was being presented. It was interesting to be able to listen to the translations of the cylinder recordings, and this concept further defends the topics from last week’s class where we learned about the progression of technology.

References:

Posner, Miriam. (2019, August 28). How Did They Make That? Retrieved from

Soctomah, D., Apt, M., Soctomah, M. D., Davis, G., Homan, L., & Leavitt, R. (2018, April 10). Passamaquoddy People. Retrieved from https://passamaquoddypeople.com/

The New Deal, Great Depression, Stock Market Crash, etc. have always been huge topics in history, I have heard a lot about them before this class. Originally when hearing we were going to go over them again, I wasn’t very enthused about it. However, hearing about these events from a Digital History aspect instead of the usual History aspect was way more intriguing than what I thought it would be. For instance, I found it especially fascinating how things back then are actually “ideas borrowed and reused” from the past. How music was originally hard for everyone to hear through a radiophone so they wore headphones and now there are events such as silent discos where everyone wears headphones and listens to a DJ play music. I also think it was interesting how symbols on computers now were everyday things we used to use in the past. Instead of changing them we just implemented them onto technology ie. The save icon, the search icon, and folders. Another thing I connected to was how the Turning Test was a human and a computer both “trying” to be humans and the Evaluator had to determine which was the real human. In today’s world we have to compete a series of tests to tell the computer that we aren’t a computer. I think that is a crazy example to show how technology has evolved and taken over in our lives. This test was also the start of AI’s which have advanced so much already. Although they have yet to fully be able to replace humans we have things like Google Home, Alexa, and such where they can speak clearly and have responses like normal humans; but that’s just the baseline! There are still many different types of technology that can do more things like humans all because of Alan Turning cracking the Enigma Code and then creating things such as the Turning Test.

I was assigned to analyze Virtual Tourisms. In this the writer, Megan Kendrick, describes a virtual tour through Los Angles in the 1880’s-1890’s. She is trying to reconstruct Los Angeles during this time frame to give the viewer a real-life experience of what someone would be experiencing this time. Her main focus is the landmark hotels. How this project is displayed uses the mapping concept according to Miriam Posner’s Framework. Although in the video Posner states that the 3D imaging would take place on an artifact, I feel for this project would be better fully comprehended as multiple 3D images put together seamlessly for the viewer to experience these hotels like they are walking though the buildings. In the writing of how Kendrick explains the project it would be better than a map, I feel the 3D concept would be a full on virtual step into the past. However; from viewing the project there are pinpoints on the map as to where the popular hotels are. In each pinpoint you can view documents of that explains the history of that landmark hotel. 

Sources: 

Dauterive, Jessica. What is Digital Humanities? Retrieved from https://slides.com/jdauteri/what-is-digital-humanities#/1.

Kendrick, Megan. Virtual Tourisms. Retrieved from http://vectors.usc.edu/projects/index.php?project=94&thread=AuthorsStatement#

Posner, Miriam. “How did they make that?” UCLA Digital Humanities.Retrieved from http://jessicadoeshistory.com/cnd/exhibits/show/fall-2019/dh

One of the first slides that was shown during our last lecture contained a quote by Mark Twain which said, “There is no such thing as a new idea”. At first, I didn’t fully understand this quote and was unable to agree or disagree with it. Since we’ve gone through the slides exploring the technological advancements from the 1930’s onward I have begun to understand what that quote means. That quote helped me to understand and learn that there really is no such thing as a new idea. We simply recycle old ideas and make them better, more efficient, or more appealing. We rearrange the pieces to create something that accomplishes the same task as its predecessor but in a somewhat new or more efficient way. For example, the codex paved the way for the modern-day eBook.

Looking into the assigned readings I found what I believe to be an example of that quote. In Cody White’s article titled “The CCC Indian Division” I learned about the creation of the CCC-ID which was based off the CCC. They were both created with the same end goal in mind but achieve it in different ways. Much like how the Codex and eBook were both meant to compile information and make it accessible, but they achieved it in different ways. I hope that over this semester I’ll be able to learn more about the original ideas that evolved into the technology we know now.

            I was assigned to review project number fourteen, the Valley Project, also called the Valley of the Shadow. This project is a collection of primary sources dating from the Fall of 1859 to the Fall of 1870 and gives voices to hundreds of people who were forgotten during the civil war. This project offers very different perspectives on the war by providing us with the primary sources from one northern town and one southern. Miriam Posner would most likely describe this project as an exhibit as it presents a collection of primary sources in a very similar way a museum would. The sources are divided into different groups or sections based on the time period from which they originated, they have also been sorted into a timeline and into databases if you dig around the website a bit. Looking at this project as directed by Posner we find that this a collection of primary sources, it contains things like diary entries, letters, newspapers, speeches, church records etc. from the two towns (Sources). They have been digitized, made searchable and organized into a sort of online museum that is easily accessible by the general public (Processed and Presented).

Citations:

White, Cody. “The CCC Indian Division.” Prologue Magazine, vol. 48, no. 2, Summer 2016,. National Achieves,.  Accessed 3 Sep. 2019.

Posner, Miriam, director. How Did They Make That? How Did They Make That, UCLA Digital Humanities, 4 Apr. 2014, archive.org/details/howdidtheymakethat. Accessed 3 Sep. 2019

Dauterive, Jessica. “What is Digital Humanities?” https://slides.com/jdauteri/what-is-digital-humanities#/2. Date Accessed 3Sep. 2019.

Last, First. “The Valley of the Shadow.” Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in The American Civil War, University of Virginia Library, http://valley.lib.virginia.edu/, Accessed 3 Sep. 2019.

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.

 Initially, I was very confused as to what Professor Jess meant when she said that we were going to use digital tools to look and examine the 1930’s and the Great Depression because, there wasn’t much of the “digital” aspect to technology at that time (at least to my knowledge). However, going through my readings I learned that by using interactive tools and using modern technology to look at that past in a new perspective, it opens up a new narrative that helps us understand and examine that time period in a new way. I also appreciate the different platforms we are using to discuss the events that occurred. We are talking about events during the Great Depression that maybe weren’t so talked about in high school, giving us a chance to fully comprehend the era. By giving us podcasts, videos, and articles to listen/read, it builds on that previous statement of helping us comprehend by giving us different methods of absorbing the information if one way helps us learn better than the other.

              The project given to me was “The Knotted Line”, an interactive tool that helps examine and measure “freedom” and uses miniature paintings from movements throughout the United States between the 1940’s and now to explore the question “How is freedom measured?”. It also allows for people to insert their own experiences on if they ever felt as if they weren’t allowed to publicly gather with people like them.

              To analyze it using Miriam Posner’s framework, “The Knotted Line” would be considered a gallery of primary sources that uses multimedia (i.e miniature paintings from the movements) to examine the different movements and the extent that freedom had in that particular era. By making it interactive and available to insert personal experiences, it allows the user to compare changes, if any, that have occurred in terms of the “freedom” movement through the late 20^th and 21^st century. It also allows the user to move along the timeline and view other people’s responses, so one could see other people’s experiences in addition to their own. However, the timeline itself seemed a bit difficult to use. The lines would just move as you move your cursor over it and you have keep clicking until you eventually find a piece of information hidden under the interactive lines.

Sources:

Posner, Miriam. “How Did They Make That?” Miriam Posners Blog, 1 Feb. 2014, http://miriamposner.com/blog/how-did-they-make-that/#network.

The Knotted Line, http://knottedline.com/tkl.html.

Blog Post 1

During the past week, I had learned that technology is constantly evolving; nothing is considered as a new idea in today’s society because it has all already been done in earlier years in a different form such as how a radiophone dance from the roaring 20s has been modernized into what we now know as a silent disco. Technology has become such an integral part of history due to the New Deal under FDR as it paved the way for new ideas and gave birth to a new era of technological advances. I have also learned that because of this connection history and technology have a mutual connection since certain parts in history can be traced to some advancement in history. Throughout the semester, I hope to lean about how technology impacted the humanities throughout the 30s and hopefully through part of the 40s; more specifically, how technology helped progress projects covered under the new deal and how it helps us better understand the 1930s in today’s time. I’m also looking forward to learning more about these programs that the New Deal created such as the Federal Art Project and the Federal Music Project and how technology played a role in allowing these programs to thrive in the time period they were created in.

The project I was assigned to review is called “By the People”. The digital exhibit showcases different campaigns ranging from the civil war to women’s suffrage that allows you to explore the supporting documents that go with that campaign. At first, I couldn’t comprehend what I was looking at, but with further investigation I was able to better grasp the concept of the website. The layout of the website allows you to explore different subjects written by the people and for the people; once you dive further into a campaign you can see the multitude of documents that go with that specific campaign. The website itself was easy to navigate and can be accessed by anyone that would want to read about the campaigns and understand what occurred during that time period. I found it to be very insightful not only for the sheer amount of documents that the campaign includes but also because of the experiences that they went through then that we can read about now to better understand the movements that made society what it is now.

Sources:

(n.d.). By The People beta. Retrieved from https://crowd.loc.gov/campaigns-topics/

Miriam. (2014, February 1). How did they make that? Retrieved from http://miriamposner.com/blog/how-did-they-make-that/

In this first week of class, I’ve come to realize how little I know about such an influential time period in American history. While I obviously learned briefly about the Great Depression in school, it never struck me as something that bears much relevance in American life today. Unbeknownst to me, a lot of the policies and programs that are commonplace in our government today were created as a result of and in response to the problems facing the nation during this time period. At the time, programs like the Social Security Act effectively mitigated poverty for the unemployed and those soon to retire. Today, it’s something somewhat expected and, despite some efforts to discontinue the program, has helped provide benefits to many who face similar problems to those experienced during a period of grievous financial suffering. I hope to learn more throughout the semester about the effects that major changes like this have on our nation today.

 I also hope to expand my understanding of the various methods by which digital history is shared and made accessible. It has been interesting to learn already how technology allows us to share information in so many ways other than just listing it textbook style. Already we have begun to analyze different types of projects that share digital history via media and video. This has shown me how useful digital history is already, and how easily we have come across it and not realized it, taking it for granted. Different digital projects allow the virtually endless possibilities of making information accessible at an unprecedented availability, while allowing the viewer much more ease and interaction than simply reading a book. I expect we will learn a lot more about how to utilize and evaluate these resources.

This process begins with analyzing “Apartheid Heritage,” a domain where one can view a searchable and categorized list of links to resources on the history of Apartheid in South Africa. The categories include, “Nelson Mandela,” “History Mandela Nelson,” “Nelson,” “Mandela,” and “History.” The project allows those looking for information on Apartheid History to easily find reliable resources on the topic. The creator has collected these sources, organized and categorized them, and made them both web accessible and searchable.  

Dana Cochran et al., “The Great Depression,” Matthew Downs, ed., in The American Yawp, eds. Joseph Locke and Ben Wright (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2018).

Apartheid Heritage. http://apartheidheritages.org/ Retrieved from URL. Accessed August 28^th, 2019.