Presentation Review

I reviewed Jeremy's presentation. His was a member of the group doing the Scottish Chapbooks and focused his attention on the topic of alcohol.  I found his portion of the website to be laid out nicely, clear and easy to read and navigate.  There are good descriptions of the various sections on the homepage as well, which gives the viewer a really good idea of what can be found on the site with one quick look. The concept of the project is obviously to promote the chapbooks collection at the University of Guelph and I believe that the website is an effective method of achieving this. Jeremy added pictures to his portion of the website which makes it more engaging and interesting to look at. He told us that many chapbooks didn't have pictures to do with alcohol but I think it was a nice touch that he went beyond just the chapbooks to find some illustrations.  Jeremy has compiled interesting information about alcohol in nineteenth century Scotland, and he wanted to make it available to normal observers.  This way, students and other interested parties do not have to go rooting around in the library basement looking for information from chapbooks.  I like that Jeremy copied actual pages straight from the chapbooks because it shows the authenticity of the work and its also interesting just to see what they looked like. He highlighted areas that he wanted the reader to focus on, instead of just typing out the sections from various pages.  Some of his information talks about abstinence, temperance and religious inclinations of alcohol and I think its great he touched on these subjects as well, not just the promotion of alcohol.  Overall, his information and presentation is wonderfully done, very informative and engaging. Great job!

Presentation Review

Last class I reviewed Adrienne's (sorry if that's not spelled correctly!) portion of the presentation from the group that is doing the final project on the Scottish chapbooks. Overall, I found the presentation to be really interesting and I learned a lot about the books.  Its really cool that the University of Guelph has one of (if not) the largest collection of chapbooks in the world, and its great that our class and this group has decided to do a significant amount of work on them. 
So, what I gathered from the presentation is that each individual person is selecting several chapbooks to work with as they study a specific topic they have chosen.  In Adrienne's case, she chose to look at fairy tales and folklore in the chapbooks, which I thought was a really interesting idea and something that most people can relate to, as we can probably all remember being read fairy tales as children. The ones she came across in the chapbooks were Cinderella, Robin Hood and Sleeping Beauty.  An issue she encountered was that many titles of the chapbooks sound like they could have something to do with Scottish folklore, however they don't. I can imagine how frustrating this would be and it must have been a lot of work to sort through the books to find ones that suited her needs.
I thought Adrienne did a great job presenting.  She clearly outlined what she has planned to do with her portion of the project and showed us the progress she has made thus far. She spoke clearly and steadily and I appreciated her passing around the copy of the Brothers' Grim original fairy tales book she found at the library.  I found it helped the class to stay engaged and it was fascinating to look through.  I can't wait to see the final project for the Scottish chapbooks, especially the section on fairy tales. Well done to the entire group!

After a lot of thought over the break, I've decided that it would be interesting to incorporate GIS into my final project.  I spent a great deal of time looking into the information I have on my grandfather's path through Europe during World War Two and I believe it will be enough to create a map using GIS to digitize his travels. I was also thinking about writing an essay on the experience of a World War Two soldier and using my grandfather as an example. I remember Dr. Ross telling us in one of the first classes that he wrote an essay on a video but there was really no avenue for him to display it until he created a website on it (I hope I'm remembering this correctly!). I thought I would go off that idea and create a map and do research on what life was like for an English soldier in the trenches during the war.
I'm a bit apprehensive about using the GIS software because the only experience I've had with it was during class that one day, however I think this idea will be really cool and interesting and will incorporate my love for history and my interest in my family's past.

Project Ideas

When I started thinking about project ideas I immediately thought it would be interesting to do some sort of digital family tree.  The majority of my family is from Europe, and I've very much focused my history degree around courses dealing with Western European history.  In addition, I'm interested to find out more about my mom's birth mother's family (my mom was adopted and in recent years we've come to know her birth mother, which has led to meeting dozens of half-aunts/uncles/cousins and siblings we didn't know we had). Therefore, although I'm aware of some of the history from my dad's side and from my moms parents, I now have this whole different blood line I'd love to know more about.
However, thinking about the project more I came up with another idea.  I've always been fascinated with history and never tired listening to my grandfather tell me detailed stories of his years on the front lines during World War Two.  Remembering his stories sparked another idea, one which I'm not sure I'd be able to create and that I'm still trying to work out the details for.  Before he died, he left me a map that shows his path across Europe during the years he fought for the British army.  Starting with where he was trained, it shows the path he sailed to Africa, where he marched through the northern countries and eventually sailed for Sicily, then finally back to the western front. I was thinking I could digitize this map and collect more information on his battalion to perhaps add battles he participated in or other significant events during his involvement in the war.
Just some initial thoughts on my project.  I'm looking forward to doing the research for either one of these topics, should they work, however I do feel a bit nervous translating the information in a "digital" way as this course is my first introduction to it! Nonetheless it will be interesting and a new skill to work on.    

GIS

I had never heard of GIS before last weeks class but I found the presentation extremely interesting and can see why GIS are becoming increasingly used in the history field.  GIS allows us to map and see the data we are studying and is a great way to visualize different historical topics. I think that GIS would be a great educational tool for history students as well who learn better visually.  As history majors know, our program is quite reading intensive and I think it would be great to study different historical topics through GIS maps instead of just reading about them.  I believe it would be a great way to study changing patterns over time, for example the geography or landscape of a region, like MacFadyen discussed in his article.
Knowles states that the "capabilities [of GIS] could well make map lovers of a new generation of computer-literate historians, and bring computing expertise to future generations of map lovers."  I agree with this statement and can definitely see how GIS has impacted digital humanities.  GIS has really created a new way to study history, incorporating new technology and a more "digital" approach to learning.
I was surprised to see the amount of information on GIS and the popularity of it.  As a history major, I'm amazed I haven't heard of GIS before because it seems to be a common form of expressing historical research! When I was researching GIS on the web I came across a site titled Urban Transition Historical GIS Project (http://www.s4.brown.edu/utp/) which caught my eye due to my interest in American history.  This project was headed by Professor Logan at Brown University and it used census reports from various cities in the United States near the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century when industrial growth and immigration led to a huge urban boom. This project illustrates the high percentage of people moving from rural to urban areas and growth of cities. GIS is a great avenue for projects like this one because it allows you to actually see the area growth with a quick glance!