Viewing the physical material history and remains of the\nFederal Theater Project when visiting Special collections was enlightening. For\nsome objects like the costumes and puppets, seeing photos from the plays, most\nof which we\u2019ve seen only in black and white negatives, do not truly show the\ndetail that went into the making of the play. A deeper understanding of the\nFederal Theater Project comes with the realization that these objects were made\nby the seamstresses and stagehands hired by the FTP; this is the skill that the\nFTP sought to preserve and provide employment for. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other objects and materials we viewed in Special Collections,\nlike copies of Hallie Flanagan\u2019s notes for the first meeting with the directors\nof the Federal Theater Project, were also interesting but not as profound. My\ngroup viewed an onion paper copy of the notes, which included Flanagan\u2019s\nrenowned moving speech, \u201cIs This the Time and Place?\u201d as well as a manuscript\nof the discussion among the directors. The information expressed by the source\nwas certainly valuable; we learned the personal beliefs of those who objected the\nFederal Theater Project, we learned of Flanagan\u2019s motivations in pursuing the\nFTP. However, this source in particular did not give much more information than\na digital copy would.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We learned however, that this source is not one that is likely to be digitized any time soon. When deciding which materials to digitize, it is important for archivists to prioritize items which are fragile or have high research value, while also considering rights or privacy<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span>. While this material could contribute to interesting research, paper stored properly should not be fragile and should last quite a while. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For these reasons, scholars and the general public can both benefit from the process by which archivists store collections, whether it be digitally or physically. For the general public who may wish to interact with these resources purely out of curiosity and interest, they can request to view and handle items of great novelty, such as the puppets, costumes, and printer stamps that we got to interact with. Items such as manuscripts and posters that aren\u2019t quite as interesting to someone without a scholastic interest in the topic, can be stored digitally in a way that is easier for scholars to access and study. This allows for text analysis and distance reading, which can contribute to their research better than closely examining numerous physical copies. Digitizing physical copies of texts such as these allow for modern research to equitably apply to pre-internet resources just as it does to sources \u201cborn\u201d digitally<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span>. This process of digitizing records therefore serves the purposes of digital humanities in allowing for democratization of history. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Viewing the physical material history and remains of the Federal Theater Project when visiting Special collections was enlightening. For some objects like the costumes and puppets, seeing photos from the plays, most of which we\u2019ve seen only in black and white negatives, do not truly show the detail that went into the making of the … Continue reading “Special Perspectives”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-special"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1573"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1575,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1573\/revisions\/1575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}