Digital history methods and historical thinking skills

Such a great book – Guiliano’s book opened up the world of digital history to me. Hard to put down. There is no question that we should be teaching critical thinking skills – historical thinking concepts – rather than making our students suffer through the intolerable transmission of cold unrelated facts. The question however is not should we be doing this, but how can we do this. As an…

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American Culture in the 1910s: Film Audiences and Exhibition Space

“At the start of the decade, most urban film-going Americans saw their films in nickelodeons. (Rural and small- town audiences formed an important market for films but were initially served by travelling shows in often makeshift venues.) Nickelodeons, which were usually small, poorly ventilated and cheaply run venues – often utilising old storefronts, with wooden benches for seating and a sheet of muslin for a projection screen – were then nearing the end of their extraordinary vogue, which had begun in 1905. 

Estimates vary but, at their peak year of 1908, there were approximately eight thousand nickelodeons nationwide; in Indianapolis in 1908, for example, there were twenty-one, only three years after the city’s first one opened. For a nickel, one gained admission to a theatre playing a programme on continuous loop. Usually with only one (hand-cranked) projector, the nickelodeons covered the changing of reels – or merely mixed up the programme – with vaudeville acts, ‘illustrated songs’ (projected slides accompanied by a local singer who performed in- house) or illustrated lectures. 

Westerns, melodrama and slapstick comedy were all popular, and ‘daily changes’ saw the programmes alter each day. The audiences were typically working class, were often immigrants and contained many children; on occasion nickelodeons even aggressively marketed their services as providing cheap, secure (and entertaining) childcare. As Roy Rosenzweig has noted, in 1912 in Worcester, Massachusetts, a labour report noted the average weekly leisure budget for local working-class families ran to twenty cents. 

In such circumstances the cinema – cheaper than other cheap amusements such as vaudeville, ten-cent melodrama or even saloons – had a decisive advantage, even if one discounts the enthralling nature of the films to these early audiences. But enthralled they were, and not as passive consumers of escapist fantasies, as cultural elites often charged (Young American architectural critic Lewis Mumford, for example, damned the cinema as a form of ‘spiritual masturbation’ which gave ‘jaded and throttled people the sensations of living without the direct experience of life’.)

Instead, as Steven Ross notes, ‘life inside these theaters was filled with talking, yelling, fighting, singing, and lots of laughter. Movie theaters were places where people could recapture the sense of aliveness that had been lost in the regimented factories of the era.’ The cinema was often referred to at this time as the ‘workingman’s academy’, and a survey of cinema audiences in Manhattan in 1910 found that 72 percent came from the blue-collar sector, 25 percent from the clerical workforce, and 3 percent from what the surveyors named the ‘leisure class’.

Exactly when, and how, the middle class was enticed into film-going is a matter of debate among film historians but this was one of the decisive shifts of the decade, and one which the far-sighted in the film industry assiduously encouraged. As with many forms of working-class recreation in the era, such as dancing and the saloon, nickelodeons attracted the attention of Progressive reformers and morality campaigners. 

They consistently critiqued their poorly lit, poorly ventilated halls, where ‘darkness afforded a cover for familiarity and sometimes even for immorality’, in the words of one report in Chicago. (Indeed, such concerns led to the widespread instigation of low-level lighting, rather than screenings in complete darkness.) Reformers worried about the sheer imaginative and ideological power of the cinema, how it was ‘literally making the minds of our urban populations today’, and functioning as ‘a place where people learn how to think, act, and feel’.

They praised ‘educational’ fare, such as the popular ‘travel films’ of the early decade, but agonised over other aspects of this new entertainment; these included the risks of white slavery to unescorted girls, the moral and socialising impact of films on an audience disproportionately composed of children, and the potential for copycat crime in films glamorising robbery, abduction and violence. More practically, reformers pointed out the very real risks of fi re, especially in an era of flammable nitrate film stock. 

‘Vulgar’ vaudeville shows, foreign (and especially French) films or films with strong working- class political sympathies were also regularly targeted, and this often dovetailed with industry attempts to ‘clean up’ the movies to attract the ‘better classes’. Voluntary self- censorship, as would be the case for much of the life of Hollywood, was seen as the answer to the issue of the moral and political governance of film content, and to this end the National Board of Censorship was instituted in 1909. 

Increasingly, and tied in with the move to feature- length productions, film- makers drew upon stories with the cultural cachet to attract the middle class; biblical and classical narratives were popular, as were adaptations of classic plays and novels, often featuring big-name stars from the ‘legitimate’ theatre. This was in contrast to early genres of film, such as chase movies, slapstick and fight films, which borrowed from the more ‘morally dubious’ styles of vaudeville.

Another factor enticing the middle class to the cinema was the development of converted high-class theatrical venues and purpose- built cinemas. With more seats and luxury than the typical nickelodeon, these began to occupy a larger percentage of the nation’s seating capacity in the decade. The nation’s film trade press lavished attention on spectacular ventures such as Samuel L. ‘Roxy’ Rothapfel’s Strand Theatre – the first purpose- built cinema on Broadway, which opened to its 3,500 capacity in April 1914 – even though such venues initially served only a fraction of the national film audience. (The average capacity in 1916 was 502 seats.) 

A sensation, the Strand’s decorative opulence attracted forty thousand patrons in its first week, all of whom paid more than five cents (a box seat cost half a dollar). As Rothapfel later commented, he aimed to make his patron feel ‘that he is our special guest and that nothing for his comfort and convenience has been overlooked’, and that ‘a policy of dignity, honesty, and good taste’ governed his programming. 

In May 1918 the weekly programme at the Strand included a live orchestral rendition of Franz Suppe’s ‘Light Cavalry’ Overture, a newsreel, an educational ‘scenic’ film, four popular songs, the Screen Classics feature Toys of Fate, and the First National comedy ‘Here Comes the Groom’. 

Nonetheless, as Richard Koszarski has pointed out, film viewing conditions in such venues were far from what contemporary audiences would expect: films were regularly butchered by exhibitors in these prestigious ‘first run’ houses to cut them to a length which fitted the overall programme, and projectionists would regularly speed up the projection through dull moments. Marcus Loew, one of the major forces in film exhibition of the era, summed up well the general disregard for the artefact of the film print: ‘We sell tickets to theaters, not movies.’”

- Mark Whalan, “Film and Vaudeville.” in American Culture in the 1910s

Digital History

To quote former President Lincoln “Never believe everything you read on the internet,” also “Tom Taylor’s play Our American Cousin gave me a splitting headache.”  As historians, Daniel J Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig argued in their book Digital History the internet and digital technology changed historical studies, making history more open and accessible to both access and create.  Typing Abraham Lincoln’s name into the search engine Google would lead to a website made not by historical scholars but to the Abraham Lincoln Research Site run by a former high school history teacher Roger Norton.  For most subjects, the search results led to the website Wikipedia, the open-sourced online encyclopedia that anyone can contribute to.  This website with no owners and anonymous authors is unfathomable compared to academic circles, as noted by historian Roy Rosenzweig.  Wikipedia’s articles are not peer-reviewed, and fact-checked as academic journals would, anyone can become an author with the caveat that they need to write what they know or what they’re willing to learn.  It is not a platform to create original research but, as its namesake, is an encyclopedia, written summaries that need to be cited by reliable sources.

Dan Cohen noted in his article Is Google Good for History? that Google Books became the largest digital preservation program in the world, scanning over a billion written works.  While the Google Books program is flawed, some of the scans are too illegible to read, one book had an entire hand scanned instead of a page, and they cannot be downloaded for offline storage.  However, no other entity, especially an academic one, can scan or “digitize” past works on the scale a for-profit company such as Google can do.  They would need a network of volunteer contributors on the scale of Wikipedia.  For the future of such digitalization to drive forward engineers need to work contingently with historians in developing further technologies documenting history.  The computer cannot be the new teacher of history but just the tool to analyze and showcase data.  Douglas Seefeldt and William G. Thomas mentioned the kind of digital works historians can create in their article Intersections: History and New Media: What Is Digital History?  Examples are digital interactive maps with Geographic Information Systems, short-form documentary videos, and even podcasts.

While these new digital platforms are more accessible to everyday people, creating them can be done by anyone as well, ripe for anyone to create false information.  No longer would we need to worry about photoshopped images but deepfake videos and audio as well. Because of this, historians have to play an active part in the digital humanities beyond scanning and digitizing past works. Without that false information will spread faster than ever before and we will be unable to thwart it, because after all who do you trust, me or your lying eyes.

Transatlantic Encounter Digital Tools

The Transatlantic Encounter digital tools developed by the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media give students, educators, scholars, and archivists an open-access digital tool for research, collaboration, and sharing of information on the worldwide Web. This digital tool explores Latin American artists in the Parisian art scene during the Interwar years in Paris. It has the chronicles of residency, training, exhibition history, and Parisian contacts of about three hundred Latin American artists living and working in Paris between 1918 and 1939. This digital tool shows the rise of an exhibition format that would continue for the rest of the twentieth century. The reason why it is significant is that there was no exhibition held in Latin America or the United States and the exhibition was a catalyst for Latin American art and was a turning point in Latin American art history.

              The Transatlantic Encounter uses Zotero which is a part of the Firefox browser that enables users of the Transatlantic Encounter to save citations. For example, the Transatlantic Encounter uses Zotero as their bibliography which is helpful to users trying to save information and where to locate digital citations. However, I believe that the bibliography has some areas of improvement. For example, some of the citations do not include a creator or date but when you click on the citations it does include the creator and date. However, these are small improvements that can easily be fixed by Zotero.

              The Transatlantic Encounter uses Omeka which is a web publishing tool that displays information and archival material in an easy-to-use web format. Omeka has done a great job with the Transatlantic in that the home page is easy to navigate to where you need to go. For example, on the home page, if you want to look for an artist, there is a toolbar on the top and bottom while you’re browsing the digital tool including a tile that brings you to the multiple artists. Although it has not been updated since 2021, the digital tool is still user-friendly to use. I would like to see an update on the digital tool since it is outdated by two years, but it is still useful for users.

              When I first started exploring this digital tool, I found that the home page was simply easy to use. The digital tool mentioned earlier has a toolbar and tiles to navigate to either the home, artists, galleries, subjects, maps, about, contact, and bibliography. Also, the design of the website is nice and attractive for users which you tell Omeka does a great job in the design. Also, I like that it gives a brief description of what the Transatlantic Encounters digital tool is. I think the combination of a brief description, the design of the homepage, and user-friendly web design makes it a great digital tool for the user.

              Exploring the toolbar and tiles, I found them to be user-friendly as well. For example, when searching for artists, it is listed in alphabetical order by last name and even includes, for the most part, the artist's painting or work. However, when searching the galleries, I have noticed that many of the galleries do not include a picture or photograph. If there is no picture or photograph, there is no use in including the gallery. This is why it is important to maintain updating these digital tools, so they are useful to the user. What I found interesting was the way they formatted the subject. They put it in a word cloud and when you click on any of the hyperlinks, it brings you to anything related to that word. For example, if you click on "Venezuela" it will pull anything related to Venezuela. I thought this was a great way to make it user-friendly for users.

               However, the most useful tool I found was the maps in the toolbar and tiles. They listed all the Latin American Artists by country residing in Paris and the Parisian Galleries that exhibited Latin American art throughout Paris. When looking at the Latin American Artists Residing in Paris, they created a legend that included the artist's nationality and put a color to it to make it easy to identify where they resided. The majority of artists resided in Paris, however, the digital tool even included other artists living throughout France and even one artist residing in Italy. I find this to be so helpful for historians to explore because it gives a visual of where these artists resided. Using the Parisian galleries that exhibited Latin American art in Paris gives you a perspective of how much Latin American art was exhibited throughout Paris.

              The Transatlantic Encounters is a great digital tool that gives users an experience of Latin American art exhibits that did not even exist in Latin America and the US during the time. Some of the strength of this digital tool is its user-friendly home page, the word count in subjects, and the maps usage. Also, I enjoyed how they utilized Zotero for their bibliography which makes it easy for users to get citations. However, the biggest flaw I have about this digital tool is that it was last updated in 2021. For example, as mentioned earlier, the galleries and artists do not include pictures or photographs which makes the digital tool useless unless it is updated. Also, the bibliography does not include the creator and date sometimes and you must manually search for the creator and date. This may be a result of funding and time to update the digital tool. Nonetheless, this is still a great digital tool for those exploring Latin American art during the interwar period in Paris.

Week 3

There were two goals this week, and both were up to date at the end of the week. The first goal was to continue progress on the digital history project that is the focus of this internship. While the second objective was to prepare for the historiography essay due as a part of the internship. This week's goals helped establish a direction for the research and refresh the context as to why this project matters. The research aspect comes nearly second nature as the habits formed over the summer are still fresh. While identifying and remembering the essential historiographical components appropriate to write a historiography paper validates the project in development for this internship. The first goal to accomplish this week is to finish charting the schools of the last state I was working on. The previous state in development was Alabama. When I first started the project, the schools were listed differently. They were recorded based on notoriety, and the list of states was discovered later. Sticking to the list of states has helped keep the school volume in check. This week the remainder of the schools in Alabama were charted to complete a State set and refresh researching capabilities. Many of the skills established during the spring are still fresh. Skills such as organization, efficiency, and ability to be thorough. Next week I will continue with Arkansas. This week's second goal was to begin establishing a bibliography for the historiography essay due at the end of the term. I wanted to refresh myself and not rely too heavily on my supervisor for guidance. After two semesters of education, I hope to construct this paper effectively and meaningfully in a way that supports the project in development. The resources began with The Valley of the Shadow project by Dr. Edward L. Ayers in 1991. Continues with the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, AHR Exchange: Reviewing Digital History, Interactive Visualization: Insight Through Inquiry, and What is Digital History? A Look at Some Exemplar Projects Douglas. This list features authors and works that outline and define the field of digital history. Digital history is a subfield of the humanities still in its infancy. The historiography of this field may be narrower than other topics. However, the effort to preserve the area within a dynamically changing is evident in the Exchanges and developments of projects that exemplify the field. Recalling the authors and projects took a lot of work. It took much reflection and computer searching to remember the primary historians and projects to include in the historiography. Dr. French taught me well. As the articles and projects became uncovered, the past research and writing made the selection of sources almost second nature. Organizing and formatting the historiography assignment coincides nicely with the development of sources related to the creation of the field of digital history. I will construct the paper based on the chronological development of the area and place my project within the appropriate context, identifying why the project matters.

Lit Review/Discussion Prep #4

In this week's reading for Public History, we dive into the digital aspect of Public History and how Digital Tool allows these historians to create a history that the public can see. Digital History is one of the newer forms of designing and producing history for the world and using the online world to show the public and the academic world how their work can be displayed and how people from all over the world can see their work online. This new field of history allows contemporary historians to branch out and integrate with a wide range of people through their work and through the World Wide Web. Digital History, while younger than Public history, faces the same problems and reactions to this new field of historical understanding.

In chapter 4 of the book Public History, Thomas Calvin writes about the subfield that is made up of Digital Historians and Public Historians called Digital Public historians, and this field helps support both areas in how they produce and publish their work online. He starts by writing about the rise of Digital history and how computers have impacted the whole field of history.1 Historians have used computers since the 1960s to analyze and compute enormous amounts of information to organize and present this information in books and articles.2 Historians used computers just for data computing and organizing. However, computers got advanced, and historians can do more to that data to show the public and other people in the academic world.3 While these two fields mix to form this new subfield of Digital Public History, this field helps Public historians produce their works for the online world. 

In the article, What is Digital History, Douglas Seefeldt and William G. Thomas create questions that traditional historians have about Digital History because this is a new topic and field in the historical and academic world. They write that Digital History is "an approach to examining and representing the past that works with the new communication technologies of the computer, the internet network." this piece sums up Digital History and how we use it to understand History.4 Also, this quote allows the academic community to understand the field, what digital historians are doing to create their work, and how the public interacts with their work online. I enjoyed reading this article and understanding more about Digital History and what it means to be a Digital Historian. Also, in the article, Computing, and the Historical Imagination, William G. Thomas II writes about the history of Digital History and how it started in the 1960s when Public History was making more of presents in the historical field.5 I liked how he divided the history of Digital History into different eras to see the impact that Digital history had over the years and in the different eras.6

While the previous articles have dived into how and what Digital History was and the goals of this field, the article, Promises and Perils of Digital History, Daniel J. Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig write about how Digital History affected the field of history and how this impact caused historians to question the power of the internet and what works are shown in this new online world.7 The quote that stands out in this article is "the Internet does not distinguish between the true and the false, the important and the trivial, the enduring and the ephemeral. . . . Every source appearing on the screen has the same weight and credibility as every other; no authority is 'privileged' over any other." while reading this quote, I understand now the feelings of the traditional historian felt during the rise of digital history.8 These questions and concerns of Digital History are also talked about in the article "JAH “Interchange: The Promise of Digital History,” where digital historians sit and talk about digital history so that the academic world can see and not fear using digital tools in their projects in the future.9 Having this roundtable helped sell digital history to the historical community and academia as a whole.8

Overall, this week's sections of readings help show the digital history impact on Public history from the 1960s to 2023, over 60 years of hit and forming this new field called Digital Public History. While I took Digital History last semester and Digital Tools this semester, I did not know the impact this field has on Public history so much that it created its subfield of Digital Public History. I enjoyed reading this week's readings about the relationship between Public and Digital History. 

Footnotes:

1. Cauvin, Thomas (2016). Public History: A Textbook of Practice (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315718255 pg. 174

2. Cauvin, Thomas (2016). Public History: A Textbook of Practice (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315718255. pg, 175

3. Cauvin, Thomas (2016). Public History: A Textbook of Practice (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315718255. pg. 176

4.Seefeldt, Douglas, and William G. Thomas "What Is Digital History?: Perspectives on History: AHA." What Is Digital History? | Perspectives on History | AHA. Accessed January 18, 2023. https://www.historians.org/research-and-publications/perspectives-on-history/may-2009/what-is-digital-history. pg. 1

5. Thomas, William G. II. "Computing and the Historical Imagination." In A Companion to Digital Humanities. Eds. Susan Schreibman, Ray Siemens, John Unsworth. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. Accessed January 31, 2023, https://companions.digitalhumanities.org/DH/? pg. 1 chapter=content/9781405103213_chapter_5.html

6. Thomas, William G. II. "Computing and the Historical Imagination." In A Companion to Digital Humanities. Eds. Susan Schreibman, Ray Siemens, John Unsworth. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. Accessed January 31, 2023, https://companions.digitalhumanities.org/DH/? pg.1 chapter=content/9781405103213_chapter_5.html

7.Cohen, Daniel J. and Roy Rosenzweig, "Introduction: Promises and Perils of Digital History," in Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Presenting, and Preserving the Past on the Web. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006. Accessed January 17, 2023, pg.1

8.Cohen, Daniel J. and Roy Rosenzweig, "Introduction: Promises and Perils of Digital History," in Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Presenting, and Preserving the Past on the Web. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006. Accessed January 17, 2023,pg.1

9. Cohen, Daniel J., et al. “Interchange: The Promise of Digital History.” The Journal of American History 95, no. 2 (September 2008). 452-491. Accessed January 31, 2023,  https://www.jstor.org/stable/25095630 pg. 452

10. Cohen, Daniel J., et al. “Interchange: The Promise of Digital History.” The Journal of American History 95, no. 2 (September 2008). 452-491. Accessed January 31, 2023,  https://www.jstor.org/stable/25095630 pg. 453

Bib

Cauvin, Thomas (2016). Public History: A Textbook of Practice (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315718255

Cohen, Daniel J. and Roy Rosenzweig, "Introduction: Promises and Perils of Digital History," in Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Presenting, and Preserving the Past on the Web. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006. Accessed January 17, 2023, https://chnm.gmu.edu/digitalhistory/introduction/

Cohen, Daniel J., et al. “Interchange: The Promise of Digital History.” The Journal of American History 95, no. 2 (September 2008). 452-491. Accessed January 31, 2023,  https://www.jstor.org/stable/25095630

Seefeldt, Douglas, and William G. Thomas "What Is Digital History?: Perspectives on History: AHA." What Is Digital History? | Perspectives on History | AHA. Accessed January 18, 2023. https://www.historians.org/research-and-publications/perspectives-on-history/may-2009/what-is-digital-history.

Thomas, William G. II. "Computing and the Historical Imagination." In A Companion to Digital Humanities. Eds. Susan Schreibman, Ray Siemens, John Unsworth. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. Accessed January 31, 2023, https://companions.digitalhumanities.org/DH/?chapter=content/9781405103213_chapter_5.html

HIS5067 - Lit Review/Discussion Prep #4

The concept of shared authority – the belief that meaning making and interpretation are shared, communal experiences rather than perspectives dictated by an authoritarian voice (Cauvin 2016, 216) --  was coined by oral historian Michael Frisch in the late 1980s /1990s. In the decades since that time, there has been a concerted effort, fueled by the participatory capabilities of social networks and media, to expand its application within the discipline of history. However, as this week’s readings question: what are the limits to shared authority? Who determines the movement’s boundaries and possibilities? And how do we measure findings grounded in public opinion?

In “Shared Authority: Purposes, Challenges, and Limits” (from Public History: A Textbook of Practice), Thomas Cauvin examines the opportunities and challenges of shared authority. According to Cauvin, history, as a discipline, has not been a supportive framework for the concept (Cauvin 2016, 216). Public interrogation on matters of the past necessitates engagement with strong emotions and passions that are often ignored by professional in favor of hierarchical ideals of objectivity. Cauvin advocates for spaces of discussion that prioritize and contextualize our relationship to the past; foster responsible participation and collaboration; and uphold critical interpretations of history (Cauvin 2016, 226). In order to support these efforts, professional historians should not just cede control or disseminate results but engage in interpretive activities that share processes and promote transparency (Cauvin 2016, 226).

Cauvin provides a basis for understanding the comprehensive work by scholars Roy Rosenzweig and David Thelen. The Presence of the Past: Populare Uses of History in American Life (1998), by Rosenzweig and Thelen, presents a collection of essays that interpret data from a national survey. Notably, the authors research, which focuses on qualifying how the Americans use the past, serves to counter the false assumption that Americans are ignorant of history. Instead, through the development and implementation of national interviews, they illustrate the complex ways history is used to support social and cultural beliefs and counter dominant narratives. For example, in chapter 6, their interpretation of survey results for African Americans and Native Americans insinuates a collective focus on communal history and connection (with words such as “we” and “us” used frequently). Rosenzweig suggests that participatory culture has a direct role to play in how people move from the personal to the collective and advocates listening; looking to the alternative pasts to improve the present; and utilizing history to create institutions that are relevant to social needs (Rosenzweig and Thelen 1998, 204). The publication received myriad responses to the interpretation of its findings and the limitation of its approach – so much so that The Public Historian devoted an entire issue to hosting these debates. Rosenzweig and Thelen respectively address critiques to the survey’s perceived misrepresentation of data, while standing firm in advocating the role of public history, cultural institutions, and museums (Rosenzweig 2000, 37).   

For later scholars writing on the issue of authority, the division between academic researchers and amateur “outsiders” takes center-stage. In “Passionate Histories: ‘Outsider’ History-Makers and What They Teach Us,” Benjamin Filene examines the role of genealogists, heritage tourism, and historic re-enactors in “personalizing the past” for a wide range of audiences (Filene 2012, 17). A tension exists within these roles. On the one hand, outsider history-makers are an important vehicle for disseminating individual stories and engaging audiences, but on the other hand, these practitioners fail, at least according to academic standards, to contextualize the “big picture” (Filene 2012, 20). Filene argues that passionate engagement with the past is driven by what’s happening outside of history as a profession (Filene 2012, 30) – a dynamic that the research of Katharine Corbett and Howard Miller underscores. In “Shared Inquiry into Shared Inquiry, they demonstrate that ethical avenues for shared authority are the result of processes that are both reflexive and responsive (Corbett and Miller 2006, 18) and messy and experimental (Corbett and Miller 2006, 19). Corbett and Miller effective assert that public history has no “one size fits all methodology” but must share a commitment to engagement (Corbett and Miller 2006, 37). Collectively, the researchers from this week’s readings demonstrate the ongoing challenges inherent in debates concerning the role and use of authority – both within and outside of the academy.

Bibliography

Cauvin, Thomas. Public History: A Textbook of Practice. New York, NY: Routledge, 2016.

Corbett, Katharine T., and Howard S. (Dick) Miller. “A Shared Inquiry into Shared Inquiry.” The Public Historian 28, no. 1 (2006): 15–38. https://doi.org/10.1525/tph.2006.28.1.15.

Filene, Benjamin. “Passionate Histories: ‘Outsider’ History-Makers and What They Teach Us.” The Public Historian 34, no. 1 (2012): 11–33. https://doi.org/10.1525/tph.2012.34.1.11.

Rosenzweig, Roy. “Introduction.” The Public Historian 22, no. 1 (2000): 13–13. https://doi.org/10.2307/3379324.

———. “‘Not a Simple Task’: Professional Historians Meet Popular Historymakers.” The Public Historian 22, no. 1 (2000): 35–38. https://doi.org/10.2307/3379330.

Rosenzweig, Roy, and David Paul Thelen. The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1998.

Thelen, David. “But Is It History?” The Public Historian 22, no. 1 (2000): 39–44. https://doi.org/10.2307/3379331.

A Study in Digital Projects

Roy Rosenzweig was an influential historian who had a vision of a democratized history field that was accessible by all outside of academia circles.  Because of this mindset, he helped pave the way for digital history through his work and writing during the 1990s and the creation of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, which was originally founded in his own office at George Mason University[1].  He wanted to create a center that could be used by everyone, but especially those that taught history, to better preserve and present historical narratives without the need for expensive milestones such as a university or textbook through the embracing of emerging technologies and digital exploration[2].  It is also no surprise that many of the projects were public history based, and he likely helped to give the public sector of history validity in the eyes of traditional academia through the use of internet-based tools[3].  His contribution of public history might be up for debate, but his benefice of digital history is difficult to overstate.    

One of the largest takeaways from Rosenzweig multitude of work is the embracing of change.  The historical field does not like change as a general rule, and certain practices continue in spite of possible updates that can be made.  The embracing of multiple authors and having your work out for everyone to see, and possibly steal, was and still is somewhat novel[4].  The hope in sharing something like this was to be open and allow anyone to interact with historical methods and research.  This could be something as simple as a high school student or community member in a marginalized area, to interdisciplinary work across the humanities.  

Doing so though would bring about large amounts of data that would have to be sorted, and the creation of platforms for such ideas to work would be needed[5].  This need for platforms was addressed, particularly in regards to the creation and maintenance of bibliographies and sourcing.  Tools like Zotero, Omeko, and Scripto all came about to help the compilation of such personal archives both for digital bibliographies and physical artifacts.  All of these contribute not just to us as historians now, but helps to bolster the original goal of making history more accessible and open source.

All of these an be seen in addition to projects founded by Rosenzweig and the CHNM.  It is no surprise that most of these projects are centered around public history and interacting with communities.  As mentioned before in the blog, one of the largest advantages of digital projects is the ability to interact and communicate across time and locations, making it ideal for anything involving multiple shareholders.  With this in mind, the most compelling project I felt was the Consolation Prize podcast.  While personally I do not like podcasts, they are an effective and popular form of historical learning.  This topic also delves into an area of history that is essentially unknown, and allows as a gateway for further exploration.  Regardless, all of these help to create a digital presence online that the humanities can and will be around for all to learn from and contribute towards.

[1]  “Roy Rosenzweig Founded the Center for History and New Media,” Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, accessed February 1, 2023, https://rrchnm.org/our-history/.

[2]  “Roy Rosenzweig and the Future of the Past: Perspectives on History: AHA,” Roy Rosenzweig and the Future of the Past | Perspectives on History | AHA, accessed February 1, 2023, https://www.historians.org/research-and-publications/perspectives-on-history/may-2009/roy-rosenzweig-and-the-future-of-the-past.

[3]  “Making the History of 1989,” Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, accessed February 1, 2023, https://rrchnm.org/our-work/.

[4]  “Can History Be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past,” Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, accessed February 1, 2023, https://rrchnm.org/essays/can-history-be-open-source-wikipedia-and-the-future-of-the-past/.

[5]  “Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Preserving, and Presenting the Past on the Web,” Digital History | Promises and Perils of Digital History, accessed February 1, 2023, https://chnm.gmu.edu/digitalhistory/introduction/.

Week 4 Blog Post

While reading the articles for this week, my understanding of the start of Digital history and the use of Digital Tools was only focused on the Valley of the Shadows Project and no other projects until now. Roy Rosenzweig was the father of Digital Tools and the advancement of Digital Tools in the field of History. Historians need to understand that Digital History and Digital Tools are tied to the hip in the creation of Digital Humanities and that you need to understand the start of both sections in Digital Humanities to understand this new era of History and historical understanding. This blog post will explore Roy Rosenzweig and how his study into Digital Tools helps grow and makes using Digital Tools easier for students and historians all over the internet. In the article "Roy Rosenzweig and the Future of the Past: Perspectives on History: AHA.”, Steven Mintz writes that Roy Rosenzweig was an "inspiring pioneer in the magical arts of melding history and new media," and he was a person who wanted to make Digital history easy for everyone on the internet.1  Mintz continues to write that Roy Rosenzweig was the first to write a multimedia history textbook and advance online and digital archives that allow access to articles and resources to expand the field of History.2 Mintz writes that Roy Rosenzweig believed that everyone was a historian and that they should have the tools and resources that were once restricted to students and history faculty in universities and other areas in the history field.3 Until his death in 2007, Roy Rosenzweig would continue to expand the  Digital Humanities field for K-12 to create a new generation of historians in the Digital Age.4 His work would lead to the creation of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media. In the article "Scarcity or Abundance? Preserving the Past in a Digital Era", Roy Rosenzweig writes about how historians can create illustrations and advance scholarship availability for people worldwide.5 However, while people are creating history independently, they have this new power to delete their scholarship and control history online.6 This article ties in with his other article, Digital Archives Are a Gift of Wisdom to Be Used Wisely, he writes about how the Libary of Congress gets involved with creating a Digital Archive and allows people to view and send primary sources for the advancement of history and scholarship.7 However, while we create these Digital Archives for students and historians alike, we need to include education on what sources are reliable and credible because now anyone can create a Digital Archive and can create a miss understanding of primary sources and the timeline of history.8 Roy Rosenzweig writes that students and historians, when this article was written to the present day, need to understand Digital Archives and how they can be created with miss information and fake primary sources that can cause dysfunction in the field of History.9 The last article, Can History be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past, Roy Rosenzweig writes about how historians dedicate their lives to understanding historical events and trends to create well-researched, edited, and fact-checked papers and books that add to the field of history.10  Roy Rosenzweig writes that "Historical scholarship is also characterized by possessive individualism. Good professional practice (and avoiding charges of plagiarism) requires us to attribute ideas and words to specific historians—we are taught to speak of “Richard Hofstadter’s status anxiety interpretation of Progressivism.”, this quote from this article shows the work needs to produce a new and accurate result in the field of history.11 These articles show the problems and achievements that Digital Tools have on this new generation of Historians using the internet. While this new generation of historians is using the internet and Digital Tools to conduct and present their work in the historical field, they need trusted resources to help them complete their goals for understanding history. Zotero is an application that allows people to cite and organize their sources while researching and writing their people or creating their projects. Omeka is an application that will enable researchers to look through digital archives' themes to make finding sources easier. Scripto is an application that will allow researchers to transcribe works into their languages so they can understand the documents in languages the researcher does not speak. Tropy is an application that will enable researchers to organize their photos for their projects. Lastly, Data Scribe is an application that will allow researchers to show their data in their projects and papers effortlessly. The project I am looking at is The September 11 Digital Archive. I found it compelling because it has the history and what happened during 9/11 when most people were shellshock and unable to understand the event in real-time. This allows people and survivors to return and find peace in the events that happen during 9/11.

Footnotes:

1. Mintz, Steven. “Roy Rosenzweig and the Future of the Past: Perspectives on History: AHA.” Roy Rosenzweig and the Future of the Past | Perspectives on History | AHA. Accessed February 1, 2023. https://www.historians.org/research-and-publications/perspectives-on-history/may-2009/roy-rosenzweig-and-the-future-of-the-past. pg 1

2. Mintz, Steven. “Roy Rosenzweig and the Future of the Past: Perspectives on History: AHA.” Roy Rosenzweig and the Future of the Past | Perspectives on History | AHA. Accessed February 1, 2023. https://www.historians.org/research-and-publications/perspectives-on-history/may-2009/roy-rosenzweig-and-the-future-of-the-past. pg 1

3. Mintz, Steven. “Roy Rosenzweig and the Future of the Past: Perspectives on History: AHA.” Roy Rosenzweig and the Future of the Past | Perspectives on History | AHA. Accessed February 1, 2023. https://www.historians.org/research-and-publications/perspectives-on-history/may-2009/roy-rosenzweig-and-the-future-of-the-past. pg 1

4. Mintz, Steven. “Roy Rosenzweig and the Future of the Past: Perspectives on History: AHA.” Roy Rosenzweig and the Future of the Past | Perspectives on History | AHA. Accessed February 1, 2023. https://www.historians.org/research-and-publications/perspectives-on-history/may-2009/roy-rosenzweig-and-the-future-of-the-past. pg 1

5. Rosenzweig, Roy. “Scarcity or Abundance? Preserving the Past in a Digital Era.” OUP Academic. Oxford University Press, June 1, 2003. https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article/108/3/735/22504. Pg. 1

6. Rosenzweig, Roy. “Scarcity or Abundance? Preserving the Past in a Digital Era.” OUP Academic. Oxford University Press, June 1, 2003. https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article/108/3/735/22504. Pg. 1

7. “Digital Archives Are a Gift of Wisdom to Be Used Wisely.” Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media. Accessed February 1, 2023. https://rrchnm.org/essays/digital-archives-are-a-gift-of-wisdom-to-be-used-wisely/. pg. 1

8. “Digital Archives Are a Gift of Wisdom to Be Used Wisely.” Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media. Accessed February 1, 2023. https://rrchnm.org/essays/digital-archives-are-a-gift-of-wisdom-to-be-used-wisely/. pg. 1

9.”Digital Archives Are a Gift of Wisdom to Be Used Wisely.” Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media. Accessed February 1, 2023. https://rrchnm.org/essays/digital-archives-are-a-gift-of-wisdom-to-be-used-wisely/. pg. 1

10. “Can History Be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past.” Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media. Accessed February 1, 2023. https://rrchnm.org/essays/can-history-be-open-source-wikipedia-and-the-future-of-the-past/. pg. 1

11. “Can History Be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past.” Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media. Accessed February 1, 2023. https://rrchnm.org/essays/can-history-be-open-source-wikipedia-and-the-future-of-the-past/. pg. 1

Bibliograph 

Rosenzweig, Roy. “Scarcity or Abundance? Preserving the Past in a Digital Era.” OUP Academic. Oxford University Press, June 1, 2003. https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article/108/3/735/22504.

“Digital Archives Are a Gift of Wisdom to Be Used Wisely.” Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media. Accessed February 1, 2023. https://rrchnm.org/essays/digital-archives-are-a-gift-of-wisdom-to-be-used-wisely/.

“Can History Be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past.” Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media. Accessed February 1, 2023. https://rrchnm.org/essays/can-history-be-open-source-wikipedia-and-the-future-of-the-past/.

Mintz, Steven. “Roy Rosenzweig and the Future of the Past: Perspectives on History: AHA.” Roy Rosenzweig and the Future of the Past | Perspectives on History | AHA. Accessed February 1, 2023. https://www.historians.org/research-and-publications/perspectives-on-history/may-2009/roy-rosenzweig-and-the-future-of-the-past.

Roy Rosenzweig

Roy Rosenzweig was a historian that made many moves to make information available in the digital age. As noted in ROY ROSENZWEIG AND THE FUTURE OF THE PAST he was someone who was a genuine visionary in the field. He created so much to give back to the field. He spent time creating tools that people could use to build their projects with, and they came with no attached cost. Roy always focused on democratizing history. He wanted to make history available to everyone. Through both of these ideas the RRCHNM (Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media). 

Rosenweig has some writings on the impact of technology on historical research between 1995 and 2006. One of these is focused on Wikipedia. Rosenweig seemed very hopeful about the technology and community behind this website. This is because Wikipedia relies on the collaborative effort to put together articles. He notes that this is not common or easy to do in the field of history. The fact that total strangers were able to come together and work on so many articles gave him hope for the future of digital historical research and digital humanities. In another article written by Rosenweig, he discusses Scantrons and the issues that are associated with them. The struggle and annoyance that highschool and college kids face every time they go to take a test and are met with a scantron. He discussed the use of cellphones, and how he saw them as a gateway to a new way of teaching. The ability to get on your phone and ask it any question you could possibly have and have it give you the appropriate answer. He had hope that as time went on, and the technology matured, that this would be the direction that learning would head in. That using technology in the classroom would slowly become the norm and would be incorporated into the learning. He had hope that the internet would grow to a point where it could self police itself to limit misinformation. These two articles show how hopeful Rosenweig was towards the future of the digital humanities. Towards the future of technology as a whole. To an extent, some of his hopes seem to have come true. Technology is something that is much more integrated into learning in today's age. However, there is still the issue of rampant misinformation at large that he may have found quite disappointing. Rosenweig also points out some of his concerns for history in the digital age in his writing “Scarcity or Abundance”. In the digital age, there is so much information available at an instant. However, the quality of the information available as well as the permanence of this information is questionable. His concern lay in how to properly preserve this information. In the digital age, we are all so used to looking for anything and having a wealth of information to pick from. However, much of that information is subject to disappearing at any moment. A website shuts down, a server goes off line, and other issues may affect the information available. For digital humanities and history as a whole, something has to be found to save this information long term. The permanence of the internet is volatile, and not many pay attention to this issue until the information has already been scrubbed from the internet. Preserving for the long term things that are the most important is sometimes a very difficult decision as to what should be or can be saved. The loss of flash and all the projects that crashed as a result of this would have probably brought him much sadness. 

I think that the digital tools of Datascribe and Tropy would have the most use to me as a scholar in the digital age. Datascribe allows information to be transcribed and then prepares this information to be digitally analyzed. This tool works great with numbers and tables. Tropy is a tool that uses digital photos and labels them individually or in bulk. These two seem like good tools to label and sort through large amounts of data. These would make finding a needle in the hay stack of knowledge a bit easier thanks to this sorting. 

The project I find the most compelling that was created by RRCHNM is the Death by Numbers project. This project took a look at the plague (as well as other illnesses) in London. This project used Datascribe to digitize this data so that it could be analyzed. This project really reflects what can be done between STEM and history. There is room for both disciplines to play together, and this project is a great example of this.

Peaceful Revolution and the Fall of the Berlin Wall

There is no doubt that economic decline, foreign pressure, and unstable government all led to the German Democratic Republic’s removal of the Berlin Wall. However, it is important to consider the peaceful revolution that was implicitly, and sometimes explicitly demonstrated in the actions of the civilians in East and West Berlin. I will consider several pieces of evidence in support of this position, ranging from phone calls between world leaders during the Cold War to recent articles written by the Berlin government.

In the late 1980s, pressure for the destruction of the Berlin Wall was rising throughout the world, and the GDR eventually yielded to their wishes. Immediately after travel restrictions were loosened, many East Germans rushed into the West. The chancellor of West Germany, Helmut Kohl, had a conversation over the phone with U.S. president George H.W. Bush in which he discussed what was happening. The chancellor writes that Berlin has the “atmosphere of a festival” (Memorandum). This “Exodus” from the East to the West is evidence of the peaceful revolution I suggested in the introduction. East Germans simply could not wait to flee to the economic and social prosperity in the West. East Germans were demonstrating their unhappiness with the East. The East’s propaganda had been losing its grip for decades, and this events represents the climax of the GDR’s defeat.

Of all the speeches made by U.S. presidents throughout American history, Ronald Reagan’s “Tear Down This Wall” may be the greatest of them all (Reagan). The most famous line, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” was discouraged by many of the president’s advisors. However, the challenge put the ball in Gorbachev’s court. The spotlight was on him. But what is important to us now is the crowd’s reaction. The thousands of listeners in the audience give seemingly unanimous support to Reagan’s dictum. Again, the world is showing its disapproval of the GDR’s actions, and they demand change. The peaceful protest against the Berlin Wall is international.

The Berlin’s official website argues for this notion of “peaceful revolution” in their article on the “Opening and Fall of the Berlin Wall” (Berlin). On November 9th of 1989, the Central Committee member for the GDR announced a loosening of travel restrictions for East Germans. It would later be discovered that the official made the announcement prematurely, leading to confusion at the border as thousands of East Germans fled to the Berlin Wall in hopes of arriving in West Berlin. Eventually, the crowd grew so large that head of passport control units raised the barrier—without official orders. 20,000 East Germans fled to the West in the next hour. “That night, the peaceful revolution underway in the GDR and the political changes taking place in Eastern Europe had succeeded in opening the Berlin Wall.”

The primary and secondary sources concerning the fall of the Berlin Wall consistently echo a common theme: The actions of ordinary citizens demonstrated a peaceful revolution against the GDR. This peaceful revolution was an essential element of the Berlin Wall’s collapse. While we must not forget the economic decline, the political unrest, and the foreign pressure that contributed to the liberation of East Germans, we must also not ignore the profound influence that ordinary individuals have through their peaceful acts of protest.

Work Cited

Berlin. “Opening and Fall of the Berlin Wall.” Berlin.de, Berlin Senate Chancellery.

Afrimerican Academy is proud to present... 'The Great Unconstitutional'... Our discussion will take a comprehensive look at the national scope of ‘Redlining’, other Redlining practices & how to take action against Redlining legacy in your community. Virtual Interactive - February 2nd, 2023; 7-8:30pm EST Sponsored by City of Boston Office of Economic Opportunitie and Office for Black Male Advancement Free to the Public - Kindly donate here or buy a donation ticket on eventbrite to support our #BostonRedline85 events. Get your free virtual tickets on eventbrite participate virtually in our discussion & be eligible for prizes. Watch Livestream on Afrimerican TV - Please subscribe. Learn more about the #BostonRedline85 campaign and how you can get engaged click here. Meet our panelists: Leah Rothstein is co-author, with Richard Rothstein, of Just Action, a sequel to The Color of Law. While in The Color of Law, Mr. Rothstein described how government policy created residential segregation, Just Action describes how local community groups can begin to redress the wrongs of segregation. Leah has worked on public policy and community change, from the grassroots to the halls of government. Robert K. Nelson is the Director of the Digital Scholarship Lab and Head of Digital Engagement in Boatwright Library. He is the editor of American Panorama: An Atlas of United States History, which includes “Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America.” American Panorama received the 2019 Roy Rosenzweig Prize for Innovation in Digital History from the American Historical Association and was named a tech innovation by the Chronicle of Higher Education’s in 2016; “Mapping Inequality” received Honorable Mention for the 2019 Garfinkel Prize from the American Studies Association’s Digital Humanities Caucus. Other digital history projects that Nelson has developed include Mining the Dispatch and a remediated, enhanced version of Charles Paullin’s 1932 Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States. #BostonRedline85 #Culture2thrive #liveinmechallenge #livesinmechallengekaraoke #afrimericanacademy (at Boston, Massachusetts) https://www.instagram.com/p/CnpFpEbuOBe/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

History in the Saving

by

Emil Rasen

 

     The idea of this project is to highlight how important hard drives and saving is for digital history. The project is planned to be split into two parts in order to understand how hard drives/saving have evolved and how digital projects have used it the last 20 years. While the first part of the project will focus on the history of hard drives and their development into the system that is available today, the second part of the project focuses of the use of hard drives. To demonstrate the use of hard drives The Valley of the Shadow Project will be used as the focus point of this part. How the Shadow Project used hard drives and storage and how important it became to the project itself. By showing the history of hard drives makes it easier to understand how they work and how important their involvement in digital history have been will round up the whole project. By focusing on these two parts will keep the project relatively small while keeping focus on the important aspects of the system as a whole.

 

Sources:

Computer History Museum. “Timeline of Computer History.” Computer History. 21st November, 2022. https://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/memory-storage/  

George Mason University. “Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Preserving, and Presenting the Past on the Web.” Center of History and New Media. 20th November, 2022. https://chnm.gmu.edu/digitalhistory/introduction/index.html

Rosenzweig, Roy. “Scarcity of Abundance? Preserving the Past in a Digital Era.” The American Historical Review 108, no. 3 (June 2003): 735-762. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/529596

Blog Post 10

From Ed Ayers at the Virginia Center for Digital History  to the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, the historiography of Digital History is filled with credits to great white men. While there is no question of the importance of the advancements brought about by these men in their centers, what is often overlooked is the contribution of women, ethics minorities, and individual projects not backed my established centers. Sharon Leon, Jessica Marie Johnson, Shawn Graham, Ian Milligan, and Scott Weingart all seek to add these previously over looked groups back to the narrative of Digital History. 

In her work “Complicating a ‘Great Man’ Narrative of Digital History in the United States”, Sharon Leon bring to attention the contributions of women and non-academic historians to the emergence of the Digital History field. Leon brings to attention the countless uncredited staff and contributors at large digital research centers, roles in which women are staffed far more often then leading project managing roles. Additionally, she reminds readers of the effort of librarians museums to make digital projects available to the public. She also asserts that by ignoring these works, the field ignores another position commonly held by the women of the field. 

Johnson’s work, “Markup Bodies: Black [Life] Studies and Slavery [Death] Studies at the Digital Crossroads”, addresses the dehumanizing nature of the quantification of black lives common in early Digital History projects addressing the Atlantic Slave Trade. Indeed her discussion of the early cliometrics focus a of the field showcase the her point quite well. Her call for contextualizing of data should not be unfamiliar to the historian. After all, isn’t interpretation the heart of the historian’s job?

Finally, Graham, Milligan, and Weingart sought to empower individual historians without the support of large digital research centers to pursue digital projects in their work, Exploring Big Historical Data: The Historian's Macroscope. This work provides a foundational toolkit for those interested in creating digital projects, including introductions to concept and key terms like HTML, Python, CSV, and more. By building the on information provided, as well as seeking out the additional resources cited, individual historians can begin creating digital projects and grasping big data without the support of large Digital research centers. 

Together all these work provide a retelling of the emergence of Digital History from a more fully realized perspective. These revisionist not only progress Digital History as a field to modern day but also increase accessibility through representation.

Bibliography

Graham, Shawn, Ian Milligan, and Scott Weingart. “Chapter 2: The Joy’s of Big Data for Historians.” In Exploring Big Historical Data: The Historian's Macroscope, 1st ed. London: Imperial College Press, 2015. 

Johnson, Jessica Marie. “Markup Bodies: Black [Life] Studies and Slavery [Death] Studies at the Digital Crossroads.” Social Text 1 December 2018; 36 (4 (137)): 57–79. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/01642472-7145658

Leon, Sharon M. “Complicating a ‘Great Man’ Narrative of Digital History in the United States.” In Bodies of Information: Intersectional Feminism and the Digital Humanities, edited by Elizabeth Losh and Jacqueline Wernimont, 344–66. University of Minnesota Press, 2018. https://doi.org/10.5749/j.ctv9hj9r9.22.

Arguing with Digital History / The Valley of the Shadow Project & Other Case Studies

For this week, I will be discussing the articles/projects of the Digital History and Argument White Paper, Notes on the Future of Virginia: Visualizing a 40-Year Conversation on Race and Slavery in the Correspondence of Jefferson and Short and Researching Genres in Agricultural Communities: The Role of the Farm Record Book.  Before we go into these article/projects, I need to establish some guidelines according to Guidelines for the Professional Evaluation of Digital Scholarship by Historian. There are different roles/responsibilities for departments, scholars, and the American Historical Association (AHA). According to AHA, the role/responsibility for departments are to figure out what will count as scholarly contributions toward tenure and promotion, how to evaluate sophisticated digital tools, develop protocols for evaluating collaborative work. (AHA, 2015, 3) This shows that department have a big impact on the support, development, and evaluation of digital scholarship. The role/responsibility for scholar is be prepared to explain and document any development and/or progress and/or its contributions to digital scholarship, seek support and guidance to work toward promotion or tenure, and how processes and procedures digital scholarship and teaching will have on your plans. (AHA, 2015, 3) This shows the importance of scholars establishing, owning, and seeking support to work toward the contribution of digital scholarship and working toward promotion or tenure. The role/responsibility for AHA is to get experienced digital historians together as a working group to keep informed on developments in the field and establish a directory of qualified historians to assist department looking for expert outside reviewers for candidates at times of tenure and promotion. (AHA, 2015, 4) This shows that the AHA can be a support system for all departments to work together to development digital scholarship while supporting departments on assisting with tenure and promotion.

Now that I established the roles of departments, scholars, and the AHA on digital scholarship, I will discuss first the article of Digital History and Argument White Paper. This article was written by a collaborative group organized by Stephen Robertson. Stephen Robertson is a digital historian from George Mason that served as director of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media. By simply having a project team, they are contributing to collaboration between digital scholars. In this article, they make arguments for digital history in digital collection, public history, methodological, computational history, and visualization. In the article, the DH working groups argues that it is important to equip historians to recognize these forms of argument to extend their engagement with digital history and uncovering the practices of argumentation in digital history to improve digital scholarship. (DH working group, 2017, 27) For example, visualization can be reliable means of communication that appear new and rooted in several centuries of practice and are key signs that visualizations are arguments and that they can argue with one another. (DH working group, 2017, 21-22) This shows that visualization can bridge the gap between the traditional analog historians and the digital historians. By having a collaborative group of digital historians working on visualization can have significant improvement in public history and bring it to a wider audience.

Next, I will be discussing the article/project of Notes on the Future of Virginia: Visualizing a 40-Year Conversation on Race and Slavery in the Correspondence of Jefferson and Short by Dr. Scot French. Dr. French is a digital historian at the University of Central Florida that specializes in the study of collective memory and application of new technologies in teaching, learning, and historical scholarship. In this article, he is not collaborating with other scholars which is not common for digital scholars but common in analog historians. In his article/project, he utilizes visualizations to analyze Thomas Jefferson and his “adoptive son” William Short interactions regarding the fate of blacks in Virginia’s post-emancipation future. French argued that the visualization provided a stereoscopic view of the two men, bound by ties of family and social class as they conversed on topics on social, political, and economic issues during their time alive. (French, 2018, 13) This shows that visualization is an important research/presentation digital tool that can be effective in examining historical figures conversation such as Jefferson and Short.

      Last, I will be discussing the article/project of Researching Genres in Agricultural Communities: The Role of the Farm Record Book by Mary L. Galbreath and Amy L Giroux. Galbreath is English professor and has experience with digital scholarship in which was a chair for a symposium for Digital Activism in Spring 2016. Giroux is an associate director for the humanities and digital research (CHDR) at the University of Central Florida assisting faculty and graduate students with digital humanities projects. In this article/project, they are collaborating to analyze genres in agricultural communities. Galbreath and Giroux argue in their article/project that progressive ideologies were transmitted through social action of genres and are not always easily visible, but their help understand agricultural practices. (Galbreath & Giroux, 2018) They utilized ChronAm to perform their analysis of the times and contexts which were from the actual record book. (Galbreath & Giroux, 2018, 19) Utilizing search tools such as ChronAm, Galbreath and Giroux were able to utilize digital tools to analyze agricultural practices while collaborating with others to come up with this analysis. The examples of French, Galbreath, and Giroux show that digital scholar have successfully used digital tools such as visualizations and advanced search tools to help contribute to digital scholarship. As a result, it is up to departments, scholars, and the AHA to continue advocating for more digital scholarship.

Rosenzweig

RRCHNM is the center that is responsible for the development and custodianship of some of the most often-used open-access digital tools. Mr. Roy Rosenzweig is the pioneer responsible for founding this center and creating the agency for digital history scholarship; while cementing a space for digital history within the field of humanities. In his article, "Roy Rosenzweig and the Future of the Past," Stephen J. Mintz refers to Rosenzweig as a "vitai lampada," or a torchbearer that is responsible for transforming the lives of those around him (Mintz, Future of the Past). The torchbearer title is appropriate for Rosenzweig as his work is ahead of his time. His ability to analyze digital history's space, history, and future is impeccable. Classes about digital history or applying digital history tools must feature a section on Rosenzweig similar to this week, where the man's history and work are discussed to apply critical contextual information about the field.

Roy Rosenzweig is genuinely a pioneer of digital history. His analysis of the field and development of the tools needed to work in the field paved the way for remarkable contributions to the Humanities. He is credited with being the historian "who thought most intensely about how the internet and new media technologies could alter the way that history is researched, taught, and presented" (Mintz, Future of the Past). Without Rosenzweig at the forefront of this argument, digital humanities would likely not exist as we know them today. Arguably, his greatest accomplishment is establishing the ideal of "digital democracy." Digital democracy may be understood as increased access to historical content, expansion of the range of topics and voices historians can research, and create a space within the confines of historical research and conversations for nonprofessionals (Mintz, Future of the Past). Rosenzweig's ultimate contribution is evident in the provision of "guided inquiries, a wealth of annotated sources, critical evaluations of websites, and practical advice about how to use diverse sources" to teachers, thereby executing his dream of digital democracy (Mintz, Future of the Past).

In his article, "Wizards, Bureaucrats, Warriors & Hackers: Writing the History of the Internet," Rosenzweig develops a definitive historical outline of the internet. This work is vital because, as historians, the only way to find a path forward is to look back to where we have been. Rosenzweig's most significant concern in this article is the way the history of the internet will be written. He gets in front of this matter using the biographic, bureaucratic, ideological, and social perspectives of works that had already addressed the history of the internet (Rosenzweig, Wizards, Bureaucrats, Warriors & Hackers)."

 Furthermore, he considers various sources on the "creation of the internet from inventive engineers and solid government bureaucrats to the broader social context of the Cold War or the 1960s,"  he concludes that the computer systems developed to fight the Cold War justifies massive government spending. The idea that the development of a closed world under the subjugation of technological control becomes illustrated as computer systems is attempted to be controlled by powerful agencies with an anti-democratic agenda (Rosenzweig, Wizards, Bureaucrats, Warriors & Hackers)."

This brings to mind recent attempts by powerful agencies to control vis-a-vis computer systems. Some examples are the attempts to regulate and enforce the COVID-19 vaccination and the recent acquisition and overhaul of the Twitter platform by tyrannical billionaire Elon Musk. However, due to the work of Rosenzweig and the establishment of digital democracy, various alternative platforms, such as Mastodon, emerge to break the attempt to acquire further control. We as historians must understand the various political, social, and cultural contexts of the history of the internet so that we as scholars may further the work of Rosenzweig, preserving these vital ideals for future generations to continue to expand upon (Rosenzweig, Wizards, Bureaucrats, Warriors & Hackers).

Finally, after an extended period of patience and knowledge acquisition to gain context, some of the digital tools and platforms created by the team at RRCHNM can be analyzed to comprehend better how they address the needs of scholars working in the Digital Age. The best approach to understanding these digital tools and platforms when one is unfamiliar with their applications is to explore tools and platforms that will become implemented in research, such as Zotero and Omeka.

Zotero is a "free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, cite, and share research," as outlined by its introduction on the RRCHNM website (RRCHNM). Zotero is an absolute embodiment of the Rosenzweig ideals of digital democracy. Their digital projects stem from universities, schools, libraries, archives, museums, and local communities as engagement with the profession of history continues to embrace the significant concept of collaboration. Collaboratoration with the vital component of digital history that allows access, research, and execution of digital history projects to thrive and survive. Emerge from our engagement with the practice of history in universities, schools, libraries, archives, museums, and local communities.

Omeka is a "next-generation open-source web publishing platform and content management system designed for museums, libraries, historic sites, historical societies, scholars, enthusiasts, and educators." Omeka and Zotero work as a collective. While Zotero works as an agent of creation, Omeka is a force for distribution. While exploring Zotero, the question came to mind how will this work become posted once the digital history project becomes finalized? Omeka quickly becomes the most relevant answer. The platform acts as an administrative agent complimenting the collaboration efforts that Zotero produces.

A digital project that exemplifies the implementation of these aspects of digital history tools and platforms created by researchers at RRCHNM is the September 11 Digital Archive. Admittedly viewing this project is challenging as these events' memory is still quite lucid. However, pursuing a greater academic comprehension of digital history outweighs the dread of emotions. The September 11 Digital Archive "collects, preserves, and presents the history of the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania" and acts as a digital repository of source material related to the terrorist attacks on America September 11, 2001. Exploring the traumatic content of the digital history project unveils how vital digital history projects are to preserving and administrating knowledge. One day when my daughter is old enough, the hope is that she will be able to view this project so she may better understand her nation's recent history; at the same time, she may understand why her dad decided to volunteer to serve our nation military during a time of war.

In conclusion, Roy Rosenzweig and the legacy that the RRCHNM honors are significant in contextualizing the field of Digital History. Digital democracy is truly at the heart of the fundamentals of digital history. Collaboration and open access continue to be the crux of the survival of the field. Only when we as historians understand the past may we impact the future. Mr. Rosenzweig is genuinely a "vitai lampada," and as a junior historian, it is truly an honor to be guided by the signal fire.