Warning: Undefined variable $num in /home/shroutdo/public_html/courses/wp-content/plugins/single-categories/single_categories.php on line 126

Warning: Undefined variable $posts_num in /home/shroutdo/public_html/courses/wp-content/plugins/single-categories/single_categories.php on line 127

By Eleanor

I’m not sure what topic I want to research for my final project quite yet. I have some previous familiarity with the Text Encoding Initiative and the use of XML markup for digitizing manuscripts and I’m definitely interested in learning more about that process. It would be cool if the digital component of my final project could incorporate those techniques. I also like the idea of setting up a virtual museum of images and/or documents.

I find the printing press both as a physical object, as as a means of communication, to be particularly intriguing. I’d like to learn more about how people used and thought about the printing press in early America.

I think it’s really cool when you can engage with history by forming personal connections to it. I live in New Hampshire, I was born in central Virginia, I’m studying here at Davidson — researching the local history (and impact of communication technology thereupon) of any of those places in early America would be interesting. My dad’s side of the family lives in Wales, so studying something about how/where/why Welsh immigrants moving to America settled, formed communities, and communicated during the colonial era could also be neat.

We’ve talked quite a bit in class about how developments in communication technology allowed more people to join the “public sphere”. The woman’s commonplace book that we discussed in the first week was really interesting to me. I’d like to do more research about women’s voices in early America and how they made use of the new communication technology. What were women writing at the time? How were they doing it? Who was their audience? etc.