Category: Uncategorized (Page 1 of 5)

Historical Thinking is not about History

May 10, 2017 / gparker77 / 0 Comments

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

In Sam Wineburg’s article, “Why Historical Thinking is not about History” he dives into the meaning and practices of the field of History. He says that history and Historical thinking provide a basis where people can question the credibility of pieces about history and their opinions. It allows students to question articles in a way that can allow them to decide for their own if the article is credible or not and gives them better evidence for their claims or studies. In a world where students primarily get their research from online it helps students sift through the plethora of articles and ideas to find credible and factually correct pieces to learn from and use in their own papers. Wineburg’s main point is that the field of History applies to more than the narrative history and finding out what had happened in the past, and more on the examining of credible sources and Authors. For example, Wineburg talks about the time where young students were given different sources on the Holocaust with different views on the event. The students, not being trained in the field and not knowing how to look past the written material and look at the person writing it or what is actual fact, took the side of the Holocaust Deniers. He explains it wasn’t the students fault for believing this opinion of the story but blamed the teachers for not teaching the students how to dissect this piece of work.

Wineburg’s idea is practiced a lot in the articles we read throughout the semester. A good example would be Cronin’s “A Place for Stories: Nature, History and Narrative” because in this article he dissects two different authors articles are on the same subject but come to different conclusions. As mentioned by juanrosasmp “…he mentioned how two authors, Bonnefield and Worster, that were researching the same subject using the same sources had completely different conclusions.” The facts that he presents both authors sides of the argument shows Cronin’s process of determening the credibility of the two authors.

Why Historical Thinking is not about History

May 10, 2017 / mckenndy21 / 0 Comments

In Sam Wineburg’s article “Why Historical Thinking is not about History” Wineburg tackled the idea that historical thinking is not about history. He claims that different generations got their information in different ways and have gone about trusting them in different ways. With the older generations he said that when they had to get research done they went the library and grabbed a book knowing that the information that was in it was reliable because it went through so many rounds of criticism from publishers before it was able to be available to the public. Young people these days find all their sources online; with this he questions how the youth determines if a source is reliable or not. In the study that Eszter Hargittai performed that the conclusion was many students believe that the first few links that come up when searching a question on Google were the most reliable sources to use. With these sorts of ideas, it is scary to think that these “young people” are coming up with ideas about historical events without questioning the sources they read. That is why Wineburg wrote Reading Like a Historian, so students and teachers can learn how to question the things they are reading on the web to make sure it can be trusted and reliable. REBEKAHBENNINGER1 describes how American Disasters was created and the different categories that articles fall under. After reading Wienburg’s article it is scary to think that research based books like this will come from sources that young people consider reliable because the internet said it was.

Can you find the Origin of the Source?

May 10, 2017 / gravity21 / 0 Comments

What I found interesting the Wineburg’s reading was how he was quick to address the issue at hand with today’s society. Wineburg argues that historical thinking is not being done properly in the more recent time. One of the examples that he decided to use was a fourth grade textbook, Our Virginia, Past and Present, which incorporated a concept that has been rejected by all historians in the field. The reason for such a claim was made in the textbook Wineburg argues could be done with any person. In today’s society, Wineburg makes the point where one thinks going to the library means turning on our laptops and making sure that we have a wireless connection (Wineburg, 14). Wineburg addresses that when it comes to research on the Internet, anyone can make a website without authorization so the information there may not be proven but people are sometimes fallen to believe that it is; whereas a physical library has more archives that comes from someone of authority, historian for example. That is not to say all information on the Internet is inaccurate, especially with the more frequent use of the quantitative history. JUANROSASMP has mentioned this before in his argument, there are non-academic people who do not share in the same love for history, which could lead people to gathering the wrong information. Wineburg at the end of the writing gives some tips on how to identify whether the online source could be relied or not, which is similar to how it is done on the physical works of those of authority.

Introduction Into Disaster

May 3, 2017 / zhedrick / 0 Comments

In Steven Biel’s Introduction, Biel begins his work with a critique of media and how disasters are portrayed and marketed. Analyzing the news anchors during the Titanic Research and Recovery Expedition in 1998 to Steven Spielberg’s Oscar acceptance speech, Biel reasons that the importance of disasters are found in the affects they have on culture and society. Using the collective works of various scholars, Biel seeks to understand “how we define disasters” and what were the contributing factors that led to these particular events. Asserting that disasters disrupt the rhythm of everyday life, it is the reactions and responses to the aftermath of the disasters that drive a desire to return to the previous cultural and social aspects of the disrupted “daily life.” Though these events effect change socially and culturally within the United States, as stated by Rebekah Benninger, Biel approaches these disasters in a different manner. Rather than the effect these events had on the United States culturally and socially, Biel’s introductory piece asserts that it is the manner in which each disaster reflected American social and cultural values. These events allowed for the growth and development in the understanding and management of disaster recovery and the manners in which the American populace encountered each event.

Biel’s Introduction to Disaster Themes

May 3, 2017 / rebekahbenninger1 / 1 Comment

In Steven Biel’s introduction to American Disasters writes how each disaster can be written about in a multitude of ways. He writes about how each disaster affects the American nation culturally, socially, and politically. He goes on to discuss how he separated the book into four separate themes: Capital, Faith, Community, and Possibility. Each theme describes a different viewpoint on many of the different disasters. The Capital section is described through articles that describe how disasters either helped along capital profiteering or how the disasters delayed the advancement of capital profiteering. In counterpoint to the Capital section, the Faith section is described through articles that investigated into the connections between the disasters and the religious beliefs of the time. On the other hand, the Community section is described through articles that analyzed how the different communities of professional, ethnic, urban, and suburban each reacted to the man-made or natural disasters that befell the community at that time. While the Possibility section is described through disasters articles that urged the people reading about the disaster into thinking about other possible viewpoints that could be taken about the disaster. By using peterrossi1’s blog about Bergman’s article, stated that disaster should be “looked from a natural and human viewpoint to totally understand them” shows that each disaster can be seen from multiple viewpoints.

Using the beginning of Biel’s introduction article about the research and expedition in finding the Titanic, in which you can combine three of the four section: Capital, Community, and Possibility. The Capital viewpoint came into Biel introduction through how the research crew didn’t know if they would be able to do the Live television show because of extremely rough weather. Community was shown in how Biel and the television show anchors were ready to take over if something happened with the Live documentary. The last section which is Possibility is shown in how the use of television has changed the modern viewpoint on what is supposed to be now known as disasters. He also mentions that the different articles in the book are on big disasters everyone knows about but the articles are also on little known disasters that hardly anyone knows about.

Disasters: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis

May 3, 2017 / aaronfelix10 / 0 Comments

I feel like this reading basically justifies the reason why we have been studying disasters this semester. Bergman explains to us how disasters have become relevant in the field of history, once being thought as uncontrollable acts of nature but now linked to human behaviors and being relevant to certain themes come up in history such as progressivism, sensationalism, and spirituality. Justinrod717 describes the Biel’s book American Disasters as a compilation of works that describe and give theories based on and around numerous disasters throughout U.S. history. Disasters are essential because they offer unique opportunities to apply old theories to something new in order bring something different fresh out of traditional topics, especially in the topic of historiography.

Introduction

May 3, 2017 / chriscobar / 0 Comments

The chapter called “Introduction” in American Disasters by Steven Biel explains in detail what the book will be about and how each section is going to cover a certain theme. The themes are split into four parts from capital, faith, community, and possibility. I did enjoy how the introduction opened up with talking about the group who went down to find the Titanic shipwreck. The crew explaining how the technology was not up to date and could have imploded if a hairline crack happens to appear. It gives us a vivid picture of what they went through. I also do like how they talk about making history like the Apollo crew did when they landed on the moon but they were able to send shots of the Titanic shipwreck for the first time since it sank. This is a way of digital history that lives on. They said it was airing on the Discovery Chanel. As in gparker77 post, he explains the way digital history is open to the public for anyone to be able to search history. A new way to have the public engage in history. gparker77 did a great job covering what digital history is. I do like how his post relates to the introduction of Biel’s book. The Titanic explore team is a part of digital and written history at the same time. Anyone can look up the footage of their exploration and see what many people were able to see when they were watching it on tv on the Discovery Chanel.

american disasters intro-interpretations of disaster in history

May 3, 2017 / juanrosasmp / 0 Comments

In the introduction of the book American Disasters, Steven Biel heavily discusses the interpretations of disaster in history. He considers history to be a different kind of history because disasters occur in different forms. And depending on the era in which the disaster occurred, the responses that is given by people is different as a result of different values and the kind of disaster that struck. As mentioned by Peter in his analysis of Bergman, disaster history overlaps with both culture and social. Although the details of Biel and Bergman are not completely the same, they both follow the same idea that disaster history is a part of history that reflects the era in which it has occurred. To prove his point, Biel splits his analysis into four parts; capital, faith, community, and possibility. Each part focuses on the responses that different parts of society of the era gave to the natural response.

I would also like to discuss on the first few paragraphs that Biel made in his introduction. In them, he describes his participation in a documentary. In the documentary, the narrator’s choice of words were done with the intention of creating a sense of mystery and awe. This reminds me of my previous post, in which people use sources differently.

Production of Disasters

May 3, 2017 / justinrod717 / 1 Comment

This piece by Steven Biel is the opening statement for the book American Disasters which itself is a compilation of works that describe and give theories based on and around numerous disasters throughout U.S. history. To start his piece Biel begins with a story of where he was in August of 1998, primarily working at sea “with titanic research and recovery expedition”. This is how he goes into the medias use and abuse of the idea of disaster and how it has affected the common thought today with the idea that if the media isn’t filming it, it isn’t a disaster. From here Biel goes into the progression of what a disaster is and how the pieces within the book American Disasters. Including the prospects and ideologies of faith, community, and possibility. Along with these he gives chapter and pieces within the book that do a magnificent job covering what he believes including a text that goes into the feminist and black viewpoints of the titanic in the chapter “Possibility” which John does a good job of summarizing and explaining within his post.

Reel Injun

May 3, 2017 / jessicabode / 0 Comments

The documentary called “Reel Injun” directed by Neil Diamond, Catherine Bainbridge and Jeremiah Hayes explores the portrayal of Native Americans in film. Director Neil Diamond, who is a Cree Indian, tries to uncover why Hollywood portrays Native Americans in the way they do and how their is a fantasy about how Native Americans act. In the documentary, when director Neil Diamond travels to the site where Crazy Horse killed Custer at Little Bighorn, he talks about how Hollywood has romanticized that they have created out of that victory for the Native Americans, and explains that the reality was was that in over a decade after that Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse were dead, and the Natives were rounded up and taken out of their homes and put into reservations. Then the film goes onto explain how the idea for the portrayal of the Native American came about, with them even being portrayed in some of Thomas Edison’s silent films. In the early western films, Native Americans would be hired, but only paid in tobacco and alcohol, while armed guards were always around them, making sure they did not get out of hand. An aspect i found quite interesting is that Natives are portayed as these great horsemen in films, with the contrast to nowadays where a majority of Natives don’t even know how to ride a horse. The Director, Neil Diamond, believes that this myth of Natives being great horsemen is due to the Crow, who are known for being very skilled on horseback. The documentary also explains that transition to having the portrayal of Natives be almost one of positivity, to being the savage, during the Great Depression. This was because people wanted a new hero, the cowboy, and the birth of the western cinema.

What is Disaster?

May 3, 2017 / peterrossi1 / 1 Comment

In Jonathan Bergman’s article Disaster: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis he explains the field of disaster history as being very divise and not totally formed into a cohesive study yet. He writes about the history of the subject how it went from disasters being events ordained from a deity to more rectly them being recognized as social events. He discusses about how historians, although they don’t believe they were sent by deities, they still argue about if they should be categorized as natural events or events that are apart of culture and social history. Bergman comes to the conclusion that it is most likely a combination of both and should be looked from a natural and human viewpoint to totally understand them. I agree with Bergman, and to me this argument reminds me of the old saying, “if a tree falls in the woods and there’s no one around, does it make a sound?” If a hurricane hits an unpopulated area of the world, is it still such a disaster? If a totally man created event like a mass shooting or war happens, is it a disaster? I think there isn’t a concrete answer for either statement, but it is discussing the argument that was brought up in Koppes’ article on the Dust Bowl summed up by GRAVITY21 saying that Worster (a person Koppes brought into the argument) believed the Dust Bowl to be a creation of humans brought about by their greed. Later Cunfer would write a piece saying that the dust bowl would have naturally happened regardless of man, that it was an event solely of nature. I think one thing that is important in both of these pieces is for each historian to define exactly what a disaster is and offer arguments for why their interpretation is the most correct, because it’s obvious that humans have some influence on nature as nature has an influence on humans. There should be arguments made for how much of the natural world has an influence and how much of the human world has an influence.

cronon’s historical narrative

May 1, 2017 / juanrosasmp / 1 Comment

As I was reading Cronon’s introduction, I found it very interesting when he mentioned how two authors, Bonnefield and Worster, that were researching the same subject using the same sources had completely different conclusions. Aaron summarizes the two conclusions of the authors very well, in which Bonnefield portrays farmers as being extremely resourceful against the natural disaster of the Great Plains whereas Worster lays blame on the destruction of the Great Plains on the farmers. In my opinion, I think it was a good idea for Cronon to mention the differences between the two authors because in the field of history, this constantly happens all the time.

For example,the American Civil War has this kind of different views occur often. There are historians that view the same records, diaries, battles, etc, and also arrive to completely different conclusions. Some of the conclusions range from sympathy to the South to condemnation of the South. Even though the Dust Bowl and the American Civil War are two completely different historical events, each one had multiple historians tell different conclusions from the same sources. As such, this serves as a good reminder that when conducting historical research, to look at multiple sources since each one has a different conclusion. In addition, to also take into consideration essays such as the one Cronon wrote, since they could remind the researcher the differences that are withing multiple works.

A Place for Stories: Nature, History, and Narrative

May 1, 2017 / aaronfelix10 / 1 Comment

In this reading Cronon attempts to argue how and why there are different arguments regarding the dust bowl in the United States. First type of narrative that Cronon writes about is the one of settlers making the land into their own during the initial settlement and how the dust bowl was the test of their faith, resolve, and character. In this type of narrative it tends to frame it as humans being resourceful and showing ingenuity in being able to make best of the situation they were in; they were dealing with a natural disaster. The other narrative is one that focuses on who was at fault for making the dust bowl as severe as it was with the blame shifting to the farmers for overworking the land. According to sanchezron13 it was more of man made disaster and like Cronon he also points to the capitalist system of boom and bust as another factor. However is Cronon is referencing another scholar’s argument thats turn capitalism into a force of nature rather than an economic system. But what Cronon wishes to find out is why exactly these arguments are being made in the first and why they chose the framing that they did, which I believe is the one of the most important elements of historiography.

George Orwell’s Politics and the English Language

May 1, 2017 / justinrod717 / 0 Comments

George Orwell’s Politics and the English Language emphasizes how the English language has been continuously lowering in progression and standards for quite some time. Orwell does this by emphasizing on four ideas as well as using sentences from multiple text throughout modern history that gives credit to his theory on the lower standards and advancement of the English language. These four focus points include “Dying Metaphors”, “Operators or Verbal False Limbs”, “Pretentious Diction”, and “Meaningless Words”. These phrases included sentences that structure and execution leave the reader wanting and emphasize the points placed by Orwell on the use of the English language. Going on into his piece Orwell describes the worse perpetrator in the use of inadequacies of the English language as coming from the political literature. Finally Orwell goes into the curing of the English language giving six rules in order to better the use of the language.

This idea on the devolving of language greatly affects those in the academic field of those who use English. As Juan states in his statement of digital history the lack of information and gathering of info can also be attributed to the deterioration of the English language

12.2 Digital Dust Bowl

April 20, 2017 / sevallos / 0 Comments

The Dust Bowl provides a wide range of interpretation, especially when answering the questions concerning the causes of the Dust Bowl. As Gravity21 explains, historians such as “Worster believe[d] the Dust Bowl was the creation of man and their belief in capitalism.” Worster supports this by arguing the farmers’ land was not naturally intended to grow wheat, but the desire for this high-value crop made the farmers force the crop into the soil. Worster’s belief that the Dust Bowl was man-made conflicts with another historian, Bonnifield, whom argued that the region’s soil was already subject to dust storms. Cunfer takes a quantitative approach to the disaster, using digital history to research the regions affected by the Dust Bowl. He comes to a similar conclusion as Bonnifield, in the sense that he disagrees with Worster’s thesis. Cunfer concludes that the Dust Bowl was of nature, not man-made, likely caused by a series of droughts within the area. As the previous Blevins piece stated, quantitative history is often not academic enough to make scholarly claims. While Cunfer’s research supports the claim that the Dust Bowl was not man-made, it does not fully prove it with evidence in the same way that Worster’s research does.

Scaling the Dust Bowl

April 19, 2017 / aaronfelix10 / 0 Comments

In “Scaling the Dust Bowl” we really get to see what digital history is exactly. Through the use of GIS the author is able to illustrate his argument in a much more effective away. According to gparker77 digital history gives historians new ways to interpret and explore historical happenings through the data analysis. I assume that the author was able to access all the data of dust storms, crop land, and drought prone areas but he was able to use GIS, which is a new technology used by geographers, to add a new dimension and reinforce his argument. Now the article basic argument is that the dust bowl was not this unique event that has been immortalized in history and what we thought we knew about it has been dramatized. Through the maps the author provides us we are able to see that plowing for crops and the strength of dust storms didn’t actually have as much of a correlation as expected. The author does still however use more traditional methods with the use of primary and secondary sources to reinforce is his argument.

Dust Bowl

April 19, 2017 / sanchezron13 / 1 Comment

Clayton R. Koppes article was about how farmers were to blame for the Dust Bowl. This was due to capitalism and the demand for crops. Koppes goes on to say that we must use nature to help improve ourselves even if it is at the cost of the environment. Farmers overworked the land and in time the land was no longer accessible for farming. Koppes goes on to say that the area where the Dust Bowl occurred wasn’t meant for this type of intense agriculture. Nature and social conditions came to converge here because it didn’t rain much in this area and three major weather systems converged in the area of the Dust Bowl making it hard for grass, which is the “ecological balance” (Koppes p.536) to survive. Farmers brought in “heavy technology to convert the grassland into wheat fields.” (Koppes p.537) The land was over worked so bad that “on the eve of the dust storms, one-third of the region had been stripped of its grass cover.” (Koppes p.537) We can see that this wasn’t the first time man has had a hand in a so called “natural disaster”. As MCKENNDY21 points out about the Johnstown Flood that “it could have been prevented if people would have built the dam correctly” we can also make that same argument about the Dust Bowl. If farmers would have not overworked the land then maybe the Dust Bowl could have been more preventable.

In “Scaling the Dust Bowl” the article touched upon the same points, but went into more depth, giving data. For example in terms of the weather that Koppes also mentioned in his article, “Scaling the Dust Bowl” says that “500 mm of annual precipitation, which is the rough minimum necessary to grow wheat.” ( Scaling the Dust Bowl pg 105) This gives us a more clear view on just how much rain was needed to grow certain crops like wheat, which was the most common crop grown. The article then goes on to explain how dust storms weren’t nothing new to the area, but the fact that a lot of grassland had been plowed this time around was key to what led to the Dust Bowl. Giving us this data shows us just how significantly man had an impact on the land where the Dust Bowl occurred.

Scaling the Dust Bowl, and Environmental Disaster.

April 19, 2017 / jperez29 / 0 Comments

For this blog, I will be adressing both Scaling the Dust Bowl by Cunfer, as well as Environmental disaster by Koppes. In Koppes work Environmental Disasters, he mentions two books very heavily, one was written by Worster, the other by Bonnifield. He argues that both have a great insight of how the Dust Bowl was created, at first he states what a great, and new insight Worster offers by stating, as Gravity21 explains, “Worster believes the Dust Bowl was the creation of man and their belief in capitalism”. He supports this statement by qouting Worster, and mentioning how the land the farmers moved to was not meant for wheat, however, since wheat was such a big commodity, the land would be made into farm land at all cost. Where as Bonnifield, argues that capitalism wasn’t the thing to blame. It was the soil, and Nature in general that was to blame. In the end Koppes states how Bonnifields book was, poorly written and didn’t have enough evidence to support his theory but, instead chose to side with Worsters book, whom he said was written very well, and provided a clear and concrete theory that he supported very well.

As for Scaling the Dust Bowl, by Cunfer. He argues the opposite, stating how Worster didn’t have very good evidence to support his idea, the reason being was because, he only took primary sources from two locations, and although these places were the heart land of where the Dust Bowl occurred, it would have been even more beneficial to have used GSI to calculate more data on even more locations, which would have allowed his to support his thesis even more. As Gparker77 states from our last reading, “He talks about how historians are given a new way of examining things through and explore. The field offers a large opening to new studies and making new ways of collecting data”. This statement gives a great example of what the article Scaling a Dust Bowl was trying to prove, which is we need to start collecting and using data to help support History.

The Dust Bowl: Man, Nature, or Capitalism?

April 19, 2017 / gravity21 / 1 Comment

In Clayton R. Koppes’ Dusty Volumes: Environmental Disaster and Economic Collapse in the 1930s article he begins with how the Farm Security Association took all those memorable photographs and other sources that gave background information on the Dust Bowl. He then starts off by going how the Dust Bowl received little attention because of how it was a natural disaster with “social consequences” (pg. 535). What makes the reading more intriguing is how Koppes seems to bring in ideology into the reading by using Donald Worster’s work. Worster believes the Dust Bowl was the creation of man and their belief in capitalism. Worster then proceeds to give his reasons how capitalist farming has made the land into such a state where man can be blamed for causing the disaster.

Along with Koppes’ reading, there was another reading that also dealt with the Dust Bowl but in a different manner. Geoff Cunfer’s Scaling the Dust Bowl took a more quantitative approach dealing with the Dust Bowl. One of the issues with the usage of quantitative approach in history can be traced to what REBEKAHBENNINGER1 mentions how historians may tend to use the numbers approach as an experiment that could be recreated instead of focusing on the actual argument they are approaching to make. Cunfer does place quantitative data into his work but also places an argument that connects back to what Koppes wrote. Both authors make references to Worster, who seems to blame man and his capitalism for the natural disaster that is the Dust Bowl. If it is to say that Cunfer uses more quantitative data to make his approach on the issue, then Koppes that the more academic approach and presents more for his argument.

Digital History Debates

April 17, 2017 / gparker77 / 2 Comments

In Cameron Blevins’ Digital History Perpetual Future Tense article he starts off with the introduction and recent advancements of what is Digital History. He talks about how historians are given a new way of examining things through and explore. The field offers a large opening to new studies and making new ways of collecting data. The problem with Digital History integrating into mainstream Academic History is the platform of their based on. Most Academic History is based around making arguments in written works where as Digital History has moved towards the ability to digitize and centralize parts of history to make interpretations about historical events and people. Blevins then goes into the reasons that digital history created a gap from the academic side of history and how they can fix it. He suggests having the digital historians focus more on arguments because it is a fundamental for the field. Instead of focusing on the Quantitative History, which in itself had a lot of problems that helped separate digital history from the rest of the field, it needs to come back to the roots of historical thinking and methods.

The analysis of the Digital History field by Blevins’ reminds me of the way Joan Scott analyzes Gender as a Historical Theory in her article “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis.” As jessicabode explains in her blog post on the article, Gender can be closely related to Marxism as a theory and often intertwine. Just like Digital History and Public History are related, with Digital history using Public history as a type of template for its studies and advancement.

History of Digital History

April 17, 2017 / rebekahbenninger1 / 1 Comment

Cameron Blevins wrote the blog post “Digital History’s Perpetual Future Tense.” In the blog post he compared when historians tried to use quantitative digital history as a way to explain history and the newer use of public history as a way to explain history through a digital format. Each format has a unique outlook but only one of the two digital histories have been accepted by the majority of historians.

Of the two digital histories the use of quantitative history in digital history was the least looked upon favorably. The reason for this was that the numbers that were used to make the arguments was reducing the actual history into an experiment that could tested and recreated. This lead to digital historians distancing themselves from explaining history through mere numbers. On the other hand the use of public history in digital history has had a much better review from historians. Even if digital public history does not use the argumentative structure as the main structure for how it is dispersed. As explained by the National Council on Public History, “public history prioritizes “an interest and commitment to making history relevant and useful in the public sphere.”” I agree when mckenndy21 stated that public history is “one of the most influential sources of history reaching out to a much broader and diverse audience than any other sort of humanity topic or reading.” Between quantitative history and public history, public history has helped advance digital history as a valuable tool for historians but as Blevins said towards the end of his blog post digital history needs to actively be used to make new arguments for history instead of just being talked about.

arguments in digital history

April 17, 2017 / juanrosasmp / 2 Comments

It is repeatedly stated in the beginning of the article that digital history is a new section of history that came as a result of the computer. Cameron then follows this up by stating that although digital history has great appeal to people that are non-academics and do not have a deep passion of history due to its ease of presentation, it has repealed traditional academics because it rarely has arguments. The reason most presentations and research of digital history rarely have arguments is because it is usually a compilation of information that focuses on a specific topic with the intention of having easy access to that topic. This is done by having the research topic be readily available through the internet. In traditional research essays, the information that is gathered is presented in order to prove an argument that the author presents in the essay. As mentioned in Aaron’s post, Kozol is an example of a traditional academic paper because she makes an argument of genders during the Great Depression which is backed up with her research. If it was done through digital history, the research would have been simply just be a compilation photograph’s depicting women or something similar.

In my opinion, it is a good thing that the unique traits of digital history exists. It makes it easier for other academics to properly do their research because they would easily be able to find the specific information they are looking for. And by having an easy appeal to non-academics and non-historians, it would make them much more appreciative for history, in the same way that public history is viewed favorably by them. But I do understand the need for digital history to gradually develop arguments for their research. By developing arguments for the compilation of information, it would be able to tell people the purpose for the research, rather than just a pile of data.

Jupiter’s Tempest: Weather’s Impact on Major Historical Events.

April 17, 2017 / peterrossi1 / 0 Comments

The article “Scaling the Dust Bowl” by Geoff Cunfer he explores the question of if the increase of improper farming in the midwest in the 1920-30s helped create the situations for the Dust Bowl. Going through past recorded storms, maps of the locations of farms and intensive farming, as well as personal accounts he comes to the conclusion that dust storms in the area are normal and because of the bad drought this one just happened to be really bad, not as a consequence of human activity. This environmental lense of history reminds me of an article article I read about how the roman agrarian economy failed due to a long period of drought that destabilized the region and led to the fall of the Roman Empire. It also reminds me of Cronon’s writing on the urban theory of Chicago, where jessicabode summed up his theory, “One argument that Cronon proposes is that Chicago’s development happened not just because of its location but because of the people that lived in Chicago.” This seems exactly opposite of Cunfer’s theory here, where it’s nature that deemed this disaster happen, not people.

Digital History’s Perpetual Future Tense

April 17, 2017 / mckenndy21 / 1 Comment

In Cameron Blevins blog post, Digital History’s Perpetual Future Tense, he talks about a division that is happening between quantitative history and public history. He first explains the pros and cons of quantitative history saying that it “serves primarily as a cautionary tale” and has forced digital historians to stay away from making advanced scholarly claims. He moves on to discuss the public history and their main goal of overriding ideology to democratized access to the past. He goes on to say that public history had become one of the most influential sources of history reaching out to a much broader and diverse audience than any other sort of humanity topic or reading. What I found interesting was the writer’s inclusion of Franco Moretti’s ideology of “distant reading” and how in digital historian readings it is the complete opposite. I agree with JESSICABODE when she said, “an interesting point that Cameron Blevins makes is that digital history began with archival collections, and digitization of certain sources,” because it was really brought to light how digital history has went from being so limited to being this vast world of different articles because of the World Web. At the end of Blevins’s blog, he reassures his argument that “it is time to spend less time talking about digital history’s potential to generate new arguments about the past and more time actually making them.

New Historical Technologies

April 17, 2017 / jessicabode / 0 Comments

In the article ” Digital History’s Perpetual Future Tense” by Cameron Blevins discusses the gap that has been developing between digital history and academic argument-driven scholarship. He discusses the limitations of quantitative history and compares the historian to a scientist with running “experiments, test hypotheses and [reaching] empirically verifiable conclusions”. He also discusses that digital historians are eager in distancing themselves from quantitative historians before them due to this viewpoint. An interesting point that Cameron Blevins makes is that digital history began with archival collections, and digitization of certain sources. He also points out that public history was the “most influential and enduring” genealogical strand that helped with digital history’s emergence in the 1990s. Blevins makes and argument that in digital history needs to reengage with argumentation because “making arguments is a fundamentally valuable and necessary way to further our collective understanding of the past”. This is because usually when people use digital history is only in researching for sources to use. Blevins also makes the argument that ‘academic argumentation is still a crucial means of advancing a conversation about the past” which should be done, or else some events will be lost.

Gender in the Feilds

April 12, 2017 / gparker77 / 0 Comments

In Kozol’s article, Madonnas of the field, she covers Gender and its different problems during the Dust bowl. She makes a great argument about the way Photographs can skew and change the perspective on the person or place in the photo for the purpose of propaganda. In this case Photographs of women and families who lived on farms were taken to show case the well being of these people who were greatly affected during the Dust bowl and Great Depression in order to show how social programs were helping these people out. The Resettlement Administration (RA) and the Farm Security Administration (FSA) turned these photos into a propaganda machine to sell the idea of reform to the American farmers. These people were photographed in a way to make their current situations seem better than they may actually have been. Photographing women to show their maternal side and being able to care for their baby showed to the rest of America that these programs were working. By skewing and showing only one side to the story with the photos, it pictured these women living on farms as being in a family financially stable enough to take care of the family instead of finding work which was most of the case. These photos limited the women’s model to being a strictly maternal figure and leaving out a lot of other feminist qualities.
This applies to the theme of Gender theory in History because of its ability to skew gender identity and its ability to construct certain expectations and norms about women and families of the time. This relates to what cluna3 had wrote about when discussing Joan Scott’s article about Gender and how the whole study of Gender in History is about finding the constructs placed upon people due to their sex and why there is a inequality when it comes to women being portrayed in the public’s eye. Here we see just that happening with the medium of photography to portray the women who were struggling in the dust bowl to be able to sell an idea of revival.

Applying Gender Theory to the Great Depression

April 12, 2017 / aaronfelix10 / 1 Comment

The Great Depression was one of the most traumatizing periods in American history but how does historical gender theory manage to join in on the conversation. Gravity21 makes mention of the three different theoretical positions and I believe the one that is applicable to Kozol’s article is would be the one pertaining to the establishment and explanation of patriarchal societal structure and also object-relation theory referring to the photographs to support her argument. Through her application of gender theory to the Great Depression she makes the point that many of the public policies passed during the this time were passed to maintain the patriarchal family structure and keeping the idea of the American nuclear family alive. She brings up radical literature from the time such as the Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath to make the point of women taking up different positions of leadership within families because of the demasculinization of men due to their inability to be the breadwinner of the family. Kozol also make mention of the intent of the government’s legislation by referencing labor laws that discriminated against married women(pg 10). Kozol brings new interpretation to the many of the pictures that were published by the RA/FSA as far as their role in perpetuating the image of women in the home and how that role that they have as the emotional, nurturing pillar of the family. The Great Depression did challenge the traditional gender roles of America but they would be further challenged in the next decade through the United States’ involvement in World War II.

The Mission

April 12, 2017 / chriscobar / 0 Comments

This is a film that is based on a few missionaries that went to the Paraguayan jungle to convert the Guaraní community. I watched this film after looking at the guidelines for this review. While watching the film I was paying close attention to the film to see any evidence of it being historical in a way. The Misson, the film directed by Roland Joffé, is almost historically correct with including what the Jesuits did as missionaries to the Guaraní community. The main character played by Robert de Niro, was against the missionaries and was actually out hunting and capturing the Guaraní community as “indentured servants” for the Portuguese. He would later become a Jesuit priest and help Guaraní community convert over to Christianity. The film ends like any Hollywood film would end. The Jesuits all fought back and died as martyrs. After the film was over my professor explained that the Jesuits did not, in fact, fight back like they did in the film. Even while watching the film I had my doubts about what really happened with the Jesuits. The action scenes were very Hollywood with Robert de Niro making these makeshift cannons and traps for the enemy. In all, the film did portray the Jesuits in a way many people can accept due to them interacting with real natives from another country (Guaraní community were not involved in the movie as actors due to the massacre that happened in the film). I would recommend this movie to any history buff or anyone that is interest in a film about Jesuits doing mission work.

Gender and the Great Depression

April 12, 2017 / zhoeffken / 0 Comments

Kozol’s article focuses on the Great Depression and how the photographs taken in the time period seem to have a similar focus, the mother. During the Great Depression obviously it was hard to get work for anyone; yet the reforms promised by the New Deal really only focused on the middle class. Photography during the time focused on the women as children almost as if they were the real victims who needed protecting. A mother is seen as someone who is a caretaker and who would help raise the future generation, seeing a mother in need is supposed to provoke a sense of wanting to help. These photos of mothers and sometimes their children have an underlaying purpose to help bring about welfare programs. Kozol does state that even though these photos seem to have a larger focus on women and it is not necessarily exploitive or sexist. They say that these question the social issues of class of gender but they also enforce them. These photos were often staged as the public generally accepted photography as a true state of documenting and did not question if they were staged. Photos generally followed similar patterns to help move people, they would focus on people in a desolate land that brought pity to the subject but also dignified them to make the images easier to digest for the general public. Koloz says that the programs were paternalistic and the photos helped push that ideal because children are a blameless victim and protecting women plays on the patriarchal ideals of men being at the head of a household. Jessicabode touched on this in their post on gender as a historical category they talk how in patriarchal values the men are dominating over the submissive women, by showing the women as submissive and helpless in these photos it plays into that ideology.

Helpless Victims

April 12, 2017 / sevallos / 0 Comments

Wendy Kozol offers an interesting perspective on the Great Depression regarding gender. Kozol references critiques of the Great Depression, including the noteworthy critique that the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl led to the destruction of traditional agrarian ideals. As a side effect of this destruction, photographers during the Great Depression sought to preserve traditional values by photographing victims of the Depression. The most popular victims photographed were of women and children, specifically mothers and their children.

Many examples, such as the RA/FSA photographs captured victims of the Great Depression in ways that would separate the audience from the subject in the photo. As REBEKAHBENNINGER1 states, the intent of the photographs vary on the values that the photographers have. In many of the RA/FSA photographs, women are depicted as helpless victims alongside children in order to create an emotional appeal to Depression relief. The children accentuate this helpless appeal by suggesting that the children are dependent on the well-being of the helpless mother. Oftentimes too, the mothers and children are shown in poor, tattered clothing and rags that show a level of poverty that the audience may not be experiencing. The victimization of mothers is one way that the Great Depression promoted traditional family roles.