The Digital Past Course Blog

Within the first week of class, I’ve learned a lot more about the 1930s and FDR’s New Deal programs. I remember learning about this topic during 6^thgrade history, but it hasn’t surfaced in my mind since then. I always admired FDR’s New Deal because I was impressed as to how one man could think of so many generally positive programs and pull an entire country out of a Depression. Through the readings, I’ve learned what specifically some of the programs did, as well as the fact that in order to get some of them passed, FDR had to ignore some of the racial inequalities in the South. This hasn’t clouded my views of him and the belief that he was a great and successful president. However, I think I would’ve just admired him even more if he didadvocate for African Americans during that time. One could argue that this advocating was done through the form of his New Deal projects; though, I’m referring more towards civil rights initiatives. Then again, according to the readings, the civil rights movement as we know of today came out of FDR’s lack of action in the 1930s/1940s. So, I suppose, everything worked out positively in the end.

I’ve never taken a class that’s mixed history with technology, so I’m excited for what’s in store for the rest of the semester. Just from this past week, I’m excited to learn more about the 1930s decade and what the country looked like beyond the Great Depression. I’m also not technologically savvy, other than knowing more about social media and my Apple products than my parents, so I’m interested in learning more about the history of technology. How did we get from giant, million-dollar computers to me typing this blog post out on my Mac? More important, why is technology so important to society in general? I think I take for granted going on websites and retrieving information, but it’s rarely that I think about how a website or a technological system is made. Even when I do, I feel like it’s too advanced for me to understand. I hope that through this class, I’ll no longer feel that way and be confident in the fact that I can be a successful, informed creator of technology, too.

The digital project that I analyzed was titled, “Virtual Harlem,” an interactive, visual representation of what Harlem, New York looked like during the Harlem Renaissance. The source is the Harlem Renaissance, “circa 1920 – 1934.” The process included sorting information using radial, index, path, and media visualizations to show connections between prominent figures and their works. Dr. Bryan Carter and students at the University of Arizona presented the website by numbering artists, musicians, and writers vertically down the left-hand sidebar, and providing biographical information, pictures, and/or videos when clicked on their names. They also created the “Virtual Harlem” demo using the Virtual World Web. Additionally, all the website was created using Scalar. I think this was a creative way to show this research because it creates a digital environment that lets students who have no connection or knowledge of the Harlem Renaissance really imagine themselves there, interacting with the times, in a way that I don’t believe a textbook, lecture, or movie can.

Johnston, Jessica. “Virtual Harlem.” An Archive for Virtual Harlem, Scalar, 29 Apr. 2015, scalar.usc.edu/works/harlem-renaissance/title-page. Accessed 2 Sep. 2019.

Boyle, Kevin. “The President Proposes . . .” The New York Times, The New York Times, 5 Apr. 2013, www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/books/review/fear-itself-by-ira-katznelson.html. Accessed 2 Sep. 2019.

Blog post 1

I have learned a lot this week about the New deal, great depression, and digital history. The stock market crash in October of 1929 was the major cause of the great depression. During the great depression, people were leaving in areas called “shanty towns” are “Hooverville’s”. These areas had horrible living conditions, and many did not survive. The term Hooverville’s comes from the president during the great depression and his name is Herbert Hoover. Obviously, as you can tell from the name “Hooverville’s” many people did not like what he was doing to try and help the great depression. The New Deal was created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The New deal was a series of programs that were able to help respond to the needs for relief, reform, and recovery from the great depression. It was also able to provide jobs for millions of people. I have also learned that digital humanities are the use of digital technologies and tools to ask questions, do research, hypothesize and analyze. I also know how humanities computing and digital humanities relate to each other. Humanities computing was the shift from computing with an emphasis on humanities. This led to digital humanities which are humanities that are inherently digital in design, form, and publication. I am looking forward to learning more about digital humanities and how it affects our technology today.

For this project, I was assigned “The garden of earthly delights” by Hieronymus Bosch. It is a modern title given to a triptych by the Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch during the Northern Renaissance. Using Miriam Posner’s framework, we can understand the sources, the process, and the presentation of this digital project. “The garden of earthly delights” used sources from Northern Renaissance such as paintings by the painter Hieronymus Bosch. The main interest in this project is breaking down the painting “The garden of earthly delights” and understanding each part of the painting. In presenting this project they made an interactive version of the painting. It was visualized very well. There is a total of 9 panels they can click on and find out what that section is about and what it represents. Overall, they made this digital project very enjoyable, knowledgeable, and attractive to the public.

Works Cited

Dauterive, Jessica. “What is Digital Humanities?” https://slides.com/jdauteri/what-is-digital-humanities#/1 . Date Accessed 2^nd  September 2019.

Hieronymus Bosch’s “Garden of Earthly Delights” – StoryMapJS – Northwestern University KnightLab. https://storymap.knightlab.com/examples/bosch-garden/. Date Accessed 2^nd September 2019.

Posner, Miriam. “How did they make that?” UCLA Digital Humanities. http://jessicadoeshistory.com/cnd/exhibits/show/fall-2019/dh Date Accessed 2^nd September 2019.

Throughout last week, I was able to have a better understanding of the importance of revolutionary technology throughout the early 20th century. Radios, televisions, and computers were starting to become more advanced which sparked a rapidly growing communication of ideas and knowledge. I learned that even though the technology that we have today seems very different from that of the early 20th century, technology was all built for the same purpose and the only difference is that in the modern era, it’s more advanced. Something else I learned that particularly piqued my interest was the advancement of AI. I was not aware that the advancements of Artificial Intelligence stemmed back all the way to the mid-twentieth century! Today, we have common AI’s such as “Siri” and “Alexa,” but back then Artificial Intelligence was not yet out for commercial use. The technology we have today has been tested and improved for decades and it’s inspiring to see how far AI’s have come.

I hope to learn more about how much technology has improved throughout the decades and I’d love to learn why some changes to technology have been made. I’d like to learn about why certain kinds of technology become obsolete and how people have learned to improve technology.

For this project, I was assigned “Performing Archive” by Jacqueline Wernimont, Kim et al. This digital humanities project takes pride in the fact that it is the “first to use an experimental new interface for Scalar” (Wernimont). In using this platform, viewers will be able to explore the website as a gallery, thus enriching the experience of the information. “Performing Archive” is an online exhibit that aims to display and analyze the photographs in the set the “Vanishing Race” shot by Edward S. Curtis. The photographs were taken by Mr. Curtis whereas the analytical excerpts of his work, most notably from newspapers and journals, have been collected from various scholarly libraries.

This exhibit was processed by categorizing one to three photos of similar nature along with the critiques about the photos and Curtis’s work as a whole, which included morality and authenticity. Along with this, the chronological life of Edward S. Curtis is explained throughout the entirety of the exhibit starting with his birth in the first section of the exhibit, and ending with his death in the last section.

“Performing Archive” is presented as an exhibit with a very straightforward pathway as it numbers off the links to go through in the Introduction. It allows for a very museum-like feel because of how you can only look at 1-3 pictures and the background story of those pictures on each page. Each page of the gallery has its own name in order to emphasize the subject of that page. The website is relatively interactive which allows for the brain to be more stimulated compared to if one were just merely scrolling through the pictures and articles.

Works Cited:

Wernimont, Jacqueline, et al. “Visualizing the ‘Vanishing Race’: the Photogravures of Edward S. Curtis.” Performing Archive, scalar.usc.edu/works/performingarchive/visualizingvanishingraceexhibit?path=intro.

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

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.

After our first two classes of The Digital Past and the introduction to the New Deal, I have already learned quite a bit. Everyone in the class has a different perspective on what we discussed, whether it is having a grandparent who lived during the Great Depression or only ever learning about it from a text book. Using many different online tools that I had never heard of will be challenging, however, I am curious to see how we can build a bridge between our digital age and our past, using these tools. I have only ever learned about the 1930’s from textbooks and lectures. It will be very interesting to see how we are still learning lessons from America’s past through technology that didn’t exist then.

I was assigned Digital Humanities project number 25, America’s Public Bible: Biblical Quotations in U.S. Newspapers created by Lincoln Mullen. The basis of this online resource is to explore the history of the Bible in American newspapers and to discover the trends of the quoted verses. This site also looks to explore the relation of these quotes to what was happening at the time of their use. This resource looks at the different interpretations of the quoted verses as well. “[God] hath made of one blood all nations of men” (Acts 17:26) This was quoted at the time when people began to speak out against slavery. This quote was the “crucial text with which American Christians thought about race and slavery, especially since it was a proof text for the unity of human beings regardless of race.” (Mullen, America’s Public Bible) This is just one example of the thousands of quotes found in American Newspapers.

When looking at the trends of the number of quotes used, one can see that the number increases during a period of national hardship. The number of quotes used during the 1920’s and The Great Depression is much larger than in 1910. Mullen provided, on the website, two graphics showing these trends. One is a graph showing the difference in number of quotes between The Bible, The Old Testament, and The New Testament. The second graphic shows the trends for the different verses, Acts 17:26, John 15:13, Luke 18:16, and Proverbs 14:34. All of these quotations can be found on the Explore the Quotations tab. You can also find specific quotes separated by decade and passages that were frequently quoted together on the Topics and Verses tab. This page I found particularly helpful as I do not know very much about the bible. This page helped me understand better the use of specific quotes. Since quotes were put into time periods in which they were used and I had prior knowledge of these times I could connect what the quote really meant. The Final page on this site is the sources and methods. Muller includes on this page not only all of his sources, but the code he used to collect the quotes.

Sources

Lincoln Mullen, America’s Public Bible: Biblical Quotations in U.S. Newspapers, website, code, and datasets (2016): <http://americaspublicbible.org>.

The Denver star. [volume] (Denver, Colo.), 09 Jan. 1915. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84025887/1915-01-09/ed-1/seq-4/>

After this first week of The Digital Past and the introduction to the New Deal I am looking forward to finding the silver lining and the best parts of the era. I have previously learned about a few of the New Deal programs, the National Register of Historic Places and the Civil Conservation Corps. I find those areas really interesting and I am hoping we explore those more. As far as the tech side I am treading water, using so many different programs is a bit confusing, I am used to a more streamlined way of addressing classes. I know that as a history professional I will need to create digital projects at some point, so knowing how will be a fantastic skill to have. I am looking forward to understanding and trying my hand at it. 

I analyzed project 6 this week “Sensory Maps”. In keeping with Posner’s “black box” way of decoding a digital project I headed to the “about” section. I found that the creator/designer is Dr. Kate McLean. Her project is a new way of looking at cities, using how they smell. I instantly thought of Willy Wonka and “smell-o-vision”. Smell-o-vision is the use of incorporating smell to enhance an experience. It is used in tandem with television, one example is when they introduced the smell of chocolate in a screening of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory at The Lincoln Theatre. Disney is also known for the smells they pump down main street in Disney World and DisneyLand. It invites the visitor to follow their nose straight into a confectionery shop. This same idea is what Dr. McLean was studying. How people follow their noses around a city. Her project is a collection of maps of how people experience a city sensory ways beyond the strictly visual. She has made the collection interactive in that the user can click through the collection and determine which sensory experience and map they want to learn more about.  

The next part of Posner’s analysis tool addresses how a creator makes their data usable in a digital way. For this aspect Dr. McLean has taken information from “smell walks” she has done, or has done with others. They track what they smell as they move about a city. She then built infographics from the data collected. As for how she did this, I am not sure what tools or the intricacies are to be completely honest. I am hoping we cover some of that in this class. The video was really helpful in learning a framework for examining a digital project. 

Sources

Posner, Miriam. “ How did they make that?” Miriam Posner’s Blog.Wordpress. Published 4/17/2014. http://miriamposner.com/blog/how-did-they-make-that-the-video/

McLean, Kate. “Sensory Maps”.2014. https://sensorymaps.com/

https://lincolntheatre.org/film/willy-wonka-and-chocolate-factory-smell-o-vision