Author: Dr. Shrout (Page 15 of 18)

By admin

For my final project, I’m currently toying with the following 3 ideas, but to anyone reading this, I warmly welcome any other correlated ones.

Firstly, I think it would be interesting to examine the recruitment/membership rates of certain political groups throughout this period of history and see when certain ideologies peaked in general interest, and to try and narrow down the cause of them.

Secondly, I think literacy and education standards across America at this time could be a great topic to investigate. I can’t help but imagine that the proportion of literate people to illiterate people in certain states would say something about their societies, and I think it would be interesting to look for trends in ideologies or ways of life in less literate/educated areas vs more literate/educated ones. I’m not too sure what trends I would like to look for, but I think looking into literacy could provide some interesting insight into why people felt a certain way, or more importantly whether or not information could reach largely illiterate areas.

And finally (and this, I admit, is a very broad one), but I am interested in looking into the impact of the railroad in terms of how it changed where the new hotbeds of communication arose. I am sure that areas with the most transport to one another became larger and more replete with educated and influential individuals, but I still think there is something fascinating to be learned in the evaluation of the places that were the hubs of American social and political discourse before and after the introduction of the Railroad and whether or not they remained the same, or whether or not some fell out of fashion and any new ones came into the fray.

By Sherwood

In my final project for HIS 245, I want to study a distant relative of mine, Thomas Howard Callaway. Callaway was president of the East Tennessee & Georgia railroad immediately following the Civil War, which the Union Army had captured and used to transport soldiers and supplies. In the aftermath of the war, Callaway wrangled with the U.S. Government over the return of his property and sought reparations for war damages. He also directed a merger with a northern neighbor, the East Tennessee & Virginia. The story of Callaway and the ET&G has the potential to reveal a lot about the significance of trains to early American communications.

I am interested in leveraging my web development skills to create a historical tool or experience. Specifically, I want to build an interactive web application that allows the user to explore these topics. Hopefully, my project can be a unique manifestation of the digital humanities, which themselves are growing and changing daily.

My first idea was a digital diorama— a static window displaying a hand-drawn scene featuring various objects, some static and others animated, with which users might interact and reveal relevant information. Maybe users could shuffle through the items on Callaway’s desk, or investigate the fixtures on a 19^th century map? The digital diorama would allow me to employ both my historical and technological skills, and explore my interest in drawing and creative software like Photoshop.

Another idea I had was a digital timeline— a series of points associated with primary source documents illustrating the narrative of the ET&G litigation in chronological order.

One of the limitations of the web application as a medium is that the historical value would be largely experiential. Because limited written content is necessary, users are dependent upon the act of exploring to learn. This could make the site either really compelling, or not substantive at all. I am going to try to achieve the former.

By admin

I am very interested in food and the restaurant industry, and have a dream to someday own and operate my own restaurant or catering business. I would therefore like to research the history of the restaurant industry in Davidson, North Carolina. I would be investigating the history of establishments that thrived in Davidson, and investigating why those that left Davidson or failed met different fates. Included in this project might be a side-investigation of the history of Vail Commons, where I eat and am a paid employee.

If this doesn’t work because it is not closely enough tied to communication technology, I could also research the history of food laws in North Carolina.

Another possible topic of study is rather quirky (but that is what keeps me interested!) I was surprised the other day when my friend, who is an international student from China, remarked that, “nobody in China goes to the gym like people in America!” I was inspired by this comment to think about the history of the “work-out” and “bodybuilding” culture in America, and the spread of gyms. I would have to narrow this topic down and relate it somehow to communication. I could possibly study the advertisement campaigns that contribute to this focus on body image in our culture.

My third possible topic is the history of the post office at Davidson College. I could talk about its beginnings, i.e. where it was first located, and about its expansion as the college grew. I could also investigate whether or not the post office played a significant role in the college’s expansion.

By Cordelia

Three topics I may decide to pursue further are as follows:

1. The history of the architecture surrounding us today at Davidson College, notably the history of Chambers and the namesakes of the dorms and other academic buildings. The Davidson College Archive will most likely be my primary source of information in this endeavor, but I’d like to explore not only the original architecture and floor plans, but how the buildings have changed over time in purpose and appearance.

2. The history of political representation of women in the United States as cross-referenced with the liberties provided to the gender by law. As in, how “equal” a woman is defined to be in comparison to a man will be taken into account when looking at the number of women in leadership positions in government. For example, in the 18^th century, women were not given the right to vote, nor, in many instances, allowed to own property, and were thereby given no representation in political decisions.

3. The history of mass media bias in the United States, beginning with those in the antebellum period and tying in with the data found today, in an effort to determine whether the framing has changed to a large degree. This can also be an exploration in the public’s trust of mass media and how that has changed over time.

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.