Author: Dr. Shrout (Page 13 of 18)

PA #2: Pressing Questions on Colonial Printing

February 22, 2015 / Dr. Shrout / 0 Comments

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By Eleanor

For my final project, I plan on researching the arrival, use, and growth of the printing press in colonial America. I am particularly interested in the physical history of the press, and will search for the answers to questions like: Where did the parts to build a printing press come from? How much did presses cost to own and operate? How common was it to own a printing press? Were they more concentrated in certain areas of the colonies? How many people did it take to create a printed final product (pamphlet, newspaper, book, etc.) and what were their jobs? Did the printing press have a significant effect on the colonial economy? What materials were used to create the printed products (ink, paper, etc.), how much did they cost, and where did they come from? If someone wanted to print and distribute a piece, how would they go about making that happen? How were printed products distributed? Was there any sort of regulatory body controlling or censoring printed materials? Did any personal qualities like socioeconomic status, race, gender, class, profession, education, religion, etc. have a surprising effect on access to either printed materials or the ability to get their creations published? Were printing presses used privately as well as for the distribution of public materials? Did people use printing presses to create anything unconventional or artistic?

As far as primary sources, I plan to look at artifacts that were printed in colonial America to see what types of things were being printed. I would also like to see if I can find any instruction manuals to see how people were talking about how to use printing presses. Product advertisements or bills of sale could give insight into the monetary and material costs that went into creating printed documents. Government documents from the period could tell me if there were any regulations or restrictions on what was distributed via the printing press.

For the final product, I plan on using a subdomain of my Davidson Domain site to create an informational website about the printing press. I can use the multimedia abilities of a digital platform to enhance the presentation of my research. I can embed images and videos, and link to other web sources directly from the page. I can split up the text by subtopic over several pages, and can link from page to page on the site to create a nonlinear narrative for the reader to explore.

Information in Dixie

February 22, 2015 / Dr. Shrout / 0 Comments

By Kurt Vidmer

For my research project, I will be exploring the roll of trading posts in communication in the Antebellum Southern United States. Doing this, I will pay particular attention to the location of trading posts along trading routes and waterways throughout the South. It is my assumption that these trading posts served as a strong communication network during this time periods, and this is a topic that I wish to further research and analyze. Throughout my research process, I will be looking to answer the following questions. What can the various products moving through these trading posts tell us about Antebellum communication? What role did the merchants and trading post workers play in the this communication exchange? Aside from economic and trading related information, what other areas of communication were spread throughout these trading posts and routes? Did Native Americans play a role in this communication network? What technological advances had to greatest impact on this communication network? What influence did trading post communication have on future communication developments in the United States?

A main source of primary sources that I will utilize will be maps of various trading routes throughout the Southern United States. I will analyze the location of these maps, and look to identify trends that exist in these maps, and particularly to the trends that impact the locations of trading posts along these routes. Maps will be very important and vital to locating the trading posts and supply centers that I will be analyzing throughout my research. Another form of primary sources that I will explore are records of products, materials, and supplies that passed through the various trading routes. I will will look to identify similarities and differences in the types of products that move through the different trading posts. Through these observations, I will look to identify impacts that the products had on the trading post based communication network. I will also use letters as a source for analysis of the possibilities of trading routed serving as a “Postal System” of sorts. These letters would give first hand insight into the process of which these trading posts facilitated communication.

My project will take the form as a collection of maps, inventory records, and letters that I will acquire through various sources, including the Davidson Archive and the library research resources. I will analyze these sources, and look to make connections between the various sources as they relate to communication exchange.

Freedom on the Move – Thoughts, Suggestions, Concerns

February 22, 2015 / Dr. Shrout / 1 Comment

By Alec

There are a number of things I really liked about the Freedom on the Move database. I appreciate that it encourages a type of interactivity that is beneficial to both the curators of the database and to the users, who in the act of transcribing these ads, have the opportunity to become assistant curators themselves. At least in my own experience, sifting through databases can become tedious to the point that my eyes start to glance over the information I need. By asking users to play an active role in the archival process, users remain alert and aware of the content of each runaway ad they process. I also think this database is a great tool for having students “dip their toes” into the realm of text markup, which can be pretty intimidating and technical without a pretty UI to guide you through each step, as was the case here.

There are a few suggestions I’d make for future development, though:

Building off of what Avery had to say about the utility of using drop-down menus to categorize content and make searching more efficient, I think that the whole transcription process could do well with a generous sprinkling of drop-down menus. Many variations in data entry (e.g. “one” vs. “1”) that complicate the archival process could be eliminated by replacing text entry boxes with drop-downs. Obviously some categories, like physical descriptions, do mandate text entry, though.
It would be helpful to know how closely the creators/developers want users to stick to the original wording of the ads. For example, in the box asking for information about physical features, if the ad describes the runaway as “thin as a beanpole”, should I copy that over directly, or generalize it to “skinny”?
Support for multiple runaways per ad!!! This seems like a pretty substantial oversight. One of the ads I transcribed featured three wanted runaways, with plenty of details about each, but I could only input information about one.

Overall, I think that this database is a success with regard to both its goals and its execution. I am somewhat concerned, though, with the implications of reducing any historical document, let alone one which deals with the description of individuals who were already treated more as objects than humans in their own lifetimes, to a series of categories. Returning to Avery’s post, she makes a great point about what it means to continue the surveillance already conducted on these individuals by preserving their bounties. Though I think that the importance of preserving this aspect of American history probably outweighs this concern, the general question of how we change our perception of history by manipulating/transcribing/archiving sources is an extremely significant one.

United States of Amourica: Romantic Letter-Writing in the Revolution and Early Republic

February 22, 2015 / Dr. Shrout / 0 Comments

By Alec

United States of Amourica: Romantic Letter-Writing in the Revolution and Early Republic

For my final project, I want to research and analyze love letters written during the Revolutionary period and the Early Republic. I will place the initial criteria that either the sender or the recipient of each letter must have been an inhabitant of the colonies (or states, depending on the date), and that the two parties must be romantically involved in some way. Depending on the number of letters I am able to find that meet these two baseline requirements, I will add any additional restrictions for building a pool of documents. For example, I may need to be somewhat generous with my definition of a “love letter” – a note which makes it clear that the intended recipient is a romantic interest but mostly deals with other topics, like daily life or politics, will probably be just fine. Additionally, though I anticipate that letters between slaves will be harder to find than those between freed individuals, theirs would surely be an interesting and useful perspective to include, granted that I am able to locate any.

When reading these letters, I want to pay particular attention to two elements that I expect will guide my research questions for this project. First, I am curious how romantically involved individuals in North America wrote to one another. What does the tone, formality, and word choice of the letter lead us to concluded about accepted social behaviors between lovers, and whether or not letter-writing presented an escape from public norms? How does a letter from a husband to his wife (or vice versa) differ from one between two unmarried lovers? How do additional factors such as the gender, class, religion, ethnicity, and geographic location and distance also affect these considerations?

Secondly, I am interested in precisely what these eighteenth century lovebirds wrote about. Were couples concerned more with updating each other on more personal details, like health or local happenings, or did they also include information about politics and national news? How did the content of these letters vary depending on the geographical distance between the lovers? Finally, what can these documents tell us about the public perception of the Revolution and of the Early Republic, and what sort of unique perspective do love letters provide for answering these questions that may not be present in correspondence between, say, friends or family members? I expect that in additional to a more formal writeup, my project will incorporate some quantitative method of answering these questions (counting occurrence of certain words, calculating geographical distance, etc.), as well as some sort of visualization of my findings.

All Aboard: Tracing the Tracks of 19th Century Railroads in East Tennessee and North Georgia

February 22, 2015 / Dr. Shrout / 0 Comments

By Sherwood

19th Century Railroads of East TN, VA and GA

My distant relative, Thomas Howard Callaway, was involved in the consolidation of the East Tennessee & Georgia and East Tennessee & Virginia railroads. His story has made me aware of the significance of railroads during the 19th century, especially those that connected inland America to the Atlantic. The construction of one key link in the chain, the railroads of east Tennessee and north Georgia, was a confusing process that involved numerous parties and encountered frequent setbacks. For my final project, I will endeavor to illustrate the complex narrative of these railroads through an easily accessible, visual learning tool. I hope to discover why the process of coordinating and constructing railroads was so difficult, learn about the coexistence of privately and publicly owned lines and determine what made the railroads of east Tennessee and north Georgia so vital to the region.

It took a considerable amount of detective work, but by carefully reading the summaries provided by RailGa.com and investigating primary sources, including maps and timetables, I was able to construct a timeline that illustrates the construction of various railroads in east Tennessee and north Georgia region the region during the mid 19th century. Specifically, I targeted those lines that helped form a direct route to the Atlantic, thereby making the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia railroad (est. 1869) a valuable and practical means of transport. These lines included the East Tennessee & Virginia (Bristol, VA to Knoxville, TN), the perpetually unfinished Hiwassee connection (Knoxville, TN to Dayton, GA), the government-owned Western & Atlantic (Dayton, GA to Atlanta, GA) and the Georgia Railroad (Atlanta, GA to Augusta, GA). Together, they form a route from north Georgia, through east Tennessee and into Virginia.

My final project will be a web application that illustrates the construction of these railroads, the setbacks they encountered (such as the Panic of 1837 and the Civil War) and their frequent changes in ownership (for example, the consolidation of the ET&V and ET&G). If the confusion I encountered while researching this topic is any indication, a visual learning tool will better tell the story of these railroads than plain text.

Founding Elders: the Concord Presbytery’s involvement in founding Davidson College

February 22, 2015 / Dr. Shrout / 0 Comments

By Avery

For my final paper, I will be looking at the founding of Davidson College through an examination of the Concord Presbytery’s meeting minutes from 1835 to 1843. I propose applying a similar approach to Kieran Healy’s analysis of Revolutionary America. Healy uses committee affiliations to map a network of the Revolution’s central figures. Similarly, I will use social network analysis tools to map a network of people related to the college founding via their committee affiliations, as cited in the Presbytery minutes. Here are some of the questions I’ll be trying to answer:

Who were the central figures in Davidson’s founding?
How was the founding of the College structured? As in, what type of committees were organized and what does that say about how the Presbytery envisioned post-secondary education and Davidson College?
How did the fact that Davidson grew out of a Presbyterian group affect the College’s founding and mission?

For the second question, I will delving into some of the central figures lives and relating their ideals and experiences to the College’s original mission. I would also like to relate Davidson’s founding story to the historical trends of the Presbyterian Church’s involvement in post-secondary education in antebellum America.

I think this project will also provide insights into the structure of decision-making and communication within the Presbytery. Who are the decision-makers? How do they make decisions? This piece will also require some background research into typical Presbytery structures in the South at the time.

Freedom on the Move database – surveillance or empowerment?

February 20, 2015 / Dr. Shrout / 1 Comment

By Avery

Overall, I like the user interface of the Freedom on the Move database. A few suggestions:

Clarify the “county” field
1. When the database asks for “county” do they mean the county at the time or the county as it exists now? Maybe lines haven’t changed much since the 19^th century, but I bet there are a few areas with significant changes.
Add a “work” field
1. At least some of the ads mention the specific type of labor the enslaved person typically performed. I can imagine that as a researcher on the other side of the program, type of work would be a very helpful filtering category.
Change the “color” field to a drop down menu
1. There will always be exceptions if you limit the field to a certain set of options, but I think for search purposes, researchers would have an easier time if the data were more streamlined.
Make an “age range” option in addition to “age”
1. Most of the ads I looked at had a range of ages, so it makes sense to either have an “age range” option. Alternatively, the parser could instruct the data enterer to choose the lowest age given, or otherwise standardize the process.
There’s no way to get back to the home screen after you’ve entered data.
1. I tried to go back and see what the Freedom on the Move site is all about, but I could only choose to fill in another ad or go to the Cornell University home page. I had to log back in from the original link that Dr. Shrout sent us.

After I stepped back from entering data, I thought about our class discussion on surveillance and power. We explored the tension between the power of the slaver and the enslaved. One of our readings suggested that runaway ads are a power-play by slavers because they expose enslaved bodies (Morgan and Rushton). Contrastingly, the other reading held that runaway ads expose white ignorance via their crude, incorrect descriptions of the runaway (Waldstreicher). Our class mostly walked the mid line, acknowledging the influence that media has in shaping ideas of a group of people, but also focusing on the enslaved’s agency by reinterpreting the law as representing slave owners’ fear rather than slave owners’ power.

By resurrecting runaway slave ads, are were empowering the stories of enslaved persons or are we just following in a long tradition of surveillance? Certainly the historian exerts power in historical writing by inducing particular responses in her audience. I don’t see databasing runaway ads itself as a sinister act of surveillance. Historians’ interpretations of the data will be the step towards empowerment or disempowerment.

In general, I think the discipline of history is in a moment of lifting up the stories of the “common people,” those on the periphery of state politics. That’s why I like Cordelia’s post critiquing the particular and contradictory appearance that Ben Franklin cultivated. Runaway ads were born of a situation of ugly power dynamics, but digitizing them gives more people access to the history of enslaved resistance.

Piling on Franklin

February 19, 2015 / Dr. Shrout / 0 Comments

By Dr. Shrout

Cordelia’s title made me laugh aloud – but I also like that she points out how reified historical characters are often more complicated that simple historical narratives cast them. This also links back to group B’s presentation, which reminded us that historical narratives and national myths are often consciously created, rather than naturally occurring.

I want to highlight a passage from Cordelia’s post, though, which I thought beautifully summed up the tension between what Franklin thought he was doing, and how we see him as historians:

Waldstreicher further mentions how Franklin’s print culture “had far more to do with slavery than previously believed” as runaways used their knowledge and skills to change their condition – an ideal that resided deeply with Franklin. Franklin, therefore, appears to only apply intellectual precepts to the white men who can make a difference in the printing or political world.

I hope we’ll get to this issue in class – how the structures of information transmission that enabled (according to some authors) the spread of revolutionary politics, also served to marginalize some people in the early United States.

Sherwood problematizes both articles for this class, and asks a question that is central to how we understand non-elite resistance in the early republic: How can we be sure that enslaved people (or the poor, or servants, or anyone else) were not simply reacting to their circumstances (running away) but were instead consciously fashioning themselves. I hope we’ll talk more about this issue in class, and particularly about how to assess how historical actors felt about their quotidian actions, whether we can access those feelings, and what – as historians – we should do about them.

This class has kinda made me hate Ben Franklin

February 19, 2015 / Dr. Shrout / 3 Comments

By Cordelia

Last night, I had the privilege to listen to Davidson grad, Clint Smith, talk about his experiences with teaching in low-income high schools. After reading the David Waldstreicher article, “Reading the Runaways: Self-Fashioning, Print Culture, and Confidence in Slavery in the Eighteenth-Century Mid-Atlantic” I was reminded of something Smith mentioned in his talk. He discussed how African-Americans are taught of the same heroism of the founding fathers and patriotism towards the United States as the white students, while the white students are the ones whose ancestors benefitted and who truly continue to benefit today from the actions of the founding fathers. I was reminded of this when Waldstreicher mentioned Benjamin Franklin and the way that he was “appearance-conscious,” thereby slightly excusing his actions in continuously publishing ads in his newspapers requesting the return of runaway slaves. It seems odd to me to deem Ben Franklin “appearance-conscious” and not clarify that that refers to social issues. He was, after all, quite content with opposing the conventional way of things when it came to political issues. Waldstreicher further mentions how Franklin’s print culture “had far more to do with slavery than previously believed” as runaways used their knowledge and skills to change their condition – an ideal that resided deeply with Franklin. Franklin, therefore, appears to only apply intellectual precepts to the white men who can make a difference in the printing or political world.

Although I try to remember that the people of the past should not be judged with the morals of the present, it is difficult to have blatant hypocrisy pointed out by Waldstreicher and to not like Benjamin Franklin a little bit less for it.

An Age of Disguise

February 18, 2015 / Dr. Shrout / 0 Comments

By Sherwood

In “Visible Bodies,” authors Gwenda Morgan and Peter Rushton explain how the emergence of an advertising culture made “the bodies of the poor, the troublesome and the criminal” apparent to the upper echelons of society (39). Whereas previously the elite would rarely encounter or interact with these less fortunate individuals, now the desires and needs of the masses were represented by ads in print newspapers. Advertisments also served as a way for owners to identify and retrieve runaways, either indebted servants or slaves who had fled. Morgan and Rushton conclude that the “careful descriptions” were necessary because quite simply, “people were not what they seemed” (40). They often obscured their race, class, gender and past.

In his article “Reading the Runaways,” David Waldstreicher argues that fugitive advertisements from colonial era newspapers demonstrate an instance in which Morgan and Rushton’s conclusion rings true by showing how blacks cleverly manipulated their circumstances to resist servitude. For example, escaped slaves like Tom were able to operate in a market in which they were “producers, consumers, and commodities” by leveraging trade skills, multiple languages, travel experience and mixed racial ancestry to their advantage (245). Living on the margins of society, you see, gave slaves a unique understanding of the peoples and cultures of colonial America. Waldstreicher’s interpretation of colonial slavery is pretty unique. Certainly, blacks resisted their bonds, as any slave would. But I’m suspicious of the claim that slaves operated with such autonomy.

But giving Waldstreicher the benefit of the doubt, what made these authors essentially describe the 18th century as an “age of disguise?” I’d reckon that the close interaction of varying races, languages, occupations, genders and social classes facilitated by urban environments led to the emergence of a cosmopolitan population with a wide-ranging knowledge of these subjects. Certainly, cosmopolitanism seems consistent with the increased globalization and urbanization of the 18th century. This phenomenon is particularly interesting to us, since we’re interested in network analysis. The kind of social networks that Alec describes in his historiography were not possible before the 18th century, or at least they would have been much less dense. If we could graph them, cosmopolitans like Tom would likely be the “missing link” between most networks.

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