Assignment #5 Part II

My experience finding pictures for this assignment was relatively easy. I knew I wanted to focus on World War II because of the ample number of pictures surrounding it. However, I was unsure of what in particular to focus on. The scope of the war was so large that efficiently summarizing it in just 5 pictures would be difficult. I tried this at first, finding a picture of Hitler at Nuremburg, the "Big Three" at Yalta, the Russians hanging a Red Banner over the Reichstag, and the atomic explosion that destroyed Hiroshima. But the picture essay felt very broad and disconnected. Then I decided to try and focus in on a single event and get a more complete feel for the events of the day.

I started with the well-known first photography from D-Day, and branched off from there, picking images from the US Naval archive which I thought were the most visually appealing. I hope that I succeeded in creating a compelling visual narrative (art was never my specialty). Ironically my greatest frustrations were not with actually locating the pictures themselves, but uploading them to Blogger, which uses an image cropping system which is seemingly designed for the computer illiterate. I first uploaded my 5 files to imageshack and attempted to link to them via HTML but Blogger cut them in half, apparently because the formatting of the template allows for only small columns. If you want higher res of the pictures provided, you have to click on them. This is a thoroughly annoying system and I think it is a good reason to pick some other free blog service, like LiveJournal, over this one.

Assignment #5 Part I

Troops in a landing craft approaching "Omaha" Beach on "D-Day", 6 June 1944.

Photograph from the Army Signal Corps Collection in the U.S. National Archives.
Source: http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/s300000/s320901c.htm







Army troops wade ashore on "Omaha" Beach during the "D-Day" landings, 6 June 1944.
They were brought to the beach by a Coast Guard manned LCVP.

Photograph from the U.S. Coast Guard Collection in the U.S. National Archives.
Source: http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/wwii-eur/normandy/normandy.htm





Landing ships putting cargo ashore on one of the invasion beaches, at low tide during the first days of the operation, June 1944.

Photograph from the U.S. Coast Guard Collection in the U.S. National Archives.
Source: http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/wwii-eur/normandy/normandy.htm





Coast Guard manned USS LST-21 unloads British Army tanks and trucks onto a "Rhino" barge during the early hours of the invasion, 6 June 1944.

Photograph from the U.S. Coast Guard Collection in the U.S. National Archives.
Source: http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/wwii-eur/normandy/normandy.htm

USS LST-325 (left) and USS LST-388 unloading while stranded at low tide during resupply operations, 12 June 1944.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.
Source: http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/wwii-eur/normandy/normandy.htm

Assignment #4: Part II

I found that this assignment was fairly easy to complete because Wikipedia was such a ready source of information. However, I don’t think that from the material available I was able to get a clear picture of the history of Valentine’s Day as a holiday. Some material was out of sequence, and I also relied entirely on one source because I knew that it would have a great deal of information on the subject. There was also no way for me to know whether the information on Wikipedia’s page is good without going through it’s source page and double checking its sources, which would be a time consuming process.

Overall I would say that the temptation is strong to rely on sources like Wikipedia for quick retrieval of information because it is so convenient. Correct information typically emerges over time and typographical and factual errors are weeded out. The real trouble with Wikipedia in my opinion is that you don’t know what state the information is in when you check it. While readers wait for digital democracy to pan out in the editing process, the information on the page in the meantime may not be entirely accurate. For this reason I can’t fully sympathize with Wikipedia’s stated objectives of making the store of human knowledge “available to all.” On the other hand, it is an extremely convenient source and perhaps an important educational tool, if only to get readers interested in more in-depth reading on their subject of interest.

The debate over Wikipedia itself can get fairly heated among particularly devout nerds, and a study a few years ago determined that on average it was as accurate as Encyclopedia Britannica; a finding that the other publication of course rejected. I tire of the constant attacks against Wikipedia, acknowledging its flaws as a scholarly source. As long as articles are properly sourced and peer reviewed, I think that it is a fine source for casual interest reading, and as a nexus site to research relevant topical sources; it just shouldn’t be relied on as a single source, as I did in my post below.

Assignment #4: Part I

The following brief history of Valentine’s Day is taken from the history section on its Wikipedia page. I was surprised to find that February 14^th, St. Valentine’s Day, commemorates a saint or a number of saints about whom very little is known: “Saint Valentine (in Latin, Valentinus) is the name of several martyred saints of ancient Rome. Of the Saint Valentine whose feast is on February 14, nothing is known except his name and that he was buried at the Via Flaminia north of Rome on February 14.” An ancient Roman fertility festival also apparently fell on Februrary 15, although it is uncertain if there is a correlation.

The first recorded association of Valentine’s day and romance was Chaucer’s 1382 poem Parlement of Foules. The poem outlines a fictional tradition as the context for the marriage of King Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia, although apparently Chaucer referred not to the February 14^th holiday but the May 2^nd holiday for Valentine of Genoa. A “High Court of Love” was set up in Paris on Valentine’s Day in 1400 to arbitrate marriage contracts and deal with domestic disputes. Valentine’s Day is mentioned by Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1600-1601).

In the 1840s the holiday was reinvented, especially in America. The first mass-produced Valentine’s were crated by Esther Howland of Worcester, Massachusetts: “Her father operated a large book and stationery store, but Howard took her inspiration from an English valentine she had received, so clearly the practice of sending Valentine's cards had existed in England before it became popular in North America. The English practice of sending Valentine's cards appears in Elizabeth Gaskell's Mr. Harrison's Confessions (published 1851).” Eventually this grew into the modern tradition of giving not only cards but also chocolates and other presents to romantic partners but also among friends, family and loved ones more generally.

Assignment #3

The site I selected to review is the home site for PBS’ Frontline and American Experience production, The Mormons. The site hosts the entire 4-hour documentary which is viewable online in two 2-hour parts using Quicktime or Windows Media Player. Also available on the page are links to purchase the documentary on DVD, the transcript of the program and individual interviews, critical press reactions, the journalistic guidelines which the documentary follows, as well as an extensive fact sheet on the history of who the Mormons are and an interactive historical map of their westward trek.

This website is extremely useful for students or simply for anyone interested in reading further about the origins, history and evolution of the LDS Church. It’s easy to reach most sections on the site from the home page, and links to the other sections are visible along a bar menu at the top of each page that is standard across the site. In that respect, the site is highly accessible. In general the site design is very informative, although some sections contain so much information that it might be overwhelming to more casual readers – fortunately there are simpler tools such as the interactive historical map and the summary for educators that simplifies and breaks down the documentary’s themes. The site also tries hard to be functional: for instance, inset tables of contents for the FAQ allow readers to click on a link and jump to the relevant answer.

The content and presentation on the site is highly professional. The documentary, in total about 4 hours long, is detailed and contains excerpts of historians, authors and theologians on the subject. It is scholarly in its approach but also narrative enough to appeal to a wider popular audience. The viewable segments are high quality and are split into chapters ranging typically about 10-15 minutes in length. Assuming the user has a relatively fast internet connection, the video streaming is easy to use and delivers a pretty good approximation of the complete documentary for free.

It is my opinion that hosted content like this – which not only provides the full version of the video itself but also supports the documentary with numerous other facts and resources for further reading, outlines the key themes and philosophy of the report, and provides transparent access to the methods and standards employed in its creation – is one of the best uses of the internet for such projects. The support for educators especially is extensive, including material for potential lesson plans as well as special ordering links. The streaming media allows free access to the program in its entirety. Overall I would give PBS high marks on the site’s design and usability. The quality of the documentary itself is very good and I personally learned some things about the Mormons from watching it, and I would recommend this site to anyone who wants to learn more about the LDS Church and the history of this religion.

Assignment #2

For this assignment I examined four history websites, the Valley Project, the History Channel site, DoHistory, and the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Each has a slightly different design philosophy which reflects a different approach to history on the web.

The Valley Project provides by far the most in-depth examination of the historical record; it has a narrower focus than the others, archiving records from two communities during the Civil War to serve as a case study of small town America (both North and South) before, during and after the war. The Project’s impressive visual index offers visitors easy access to groups of documents (from newspaper clippings to photographs, political cartoons, searchable census and war records, and personal letters and diaries) from the various time periods in the two counties. This digital archive contains a wealth of historical information, worthy of closer examination. However, although the site is easy to peruse, the volume of information is such that it cannot be taken in quickly or on one visit. Unless a user was looking for specific statistics or records, the site’s search engine, and specifically the high numbers of hits returned on general key words such as “Antietam,” “Gettysburg” or “1862” could quickly prove to be overwhelming.

The History Channel represents again a broader and more general overview of historical topics. Unlike the Valley Project this site featured a significant number of advertisements from sponsors. Centrally displayed is an inset displaying upcoming new shows on the television channel. The most popular content on the site is showcased along the left hand side of the screen in a scrolling toolbar. Also prominently featured is merchandising for popular History Channel programs as DVD sets. The site attempts to make itself “interactive” with users through a QuickPoll and a ‘Today’ option along the top toolbar linking to This Day in History. Visitors are invited to subscribe to an RSS feed for this function, providing a day-to-day trivia byte clearly aimed at attracting repeat visits. While the ads and design are somewhat garish, I think that the consumer-oriented approach as well as the daily updated content might well hold the interest of viewers to return.

DoHistory returns to the narrow, case-study formula, but this time instead of showcasing an entire community or comparing two counties to one another, it focuses on a single individual: Martha Ballard. Martha was a midwife, whose diary recorded more important information about her than any official documents. Apparently her diary is unique for its completeness, and the site is dedicated to teaching about Martha by allowing users to page through her diary and view digitized images of pages in her handwriting. Other sections of the site teach about the importance of primary source documents in historical research, and link to other websites for further reading on research methods. Overall this is a fairly dry presentation, probably geared towards scholars and history students already interested in this kind of approach to “active” history. I personally cannot see the life of a midwife as being exciting enough to draw non-specialists back to the site for further reading, and the links section is sprawling and poorly organized.

Last but not least was the Smithsonian site. Fittingly for a museum, the website serves as an online resource for those planning to visit the museum, and includes links to exhibitions and collections and educator tools. It also links to online exhibitions, although these lead to descriptive pages which link again to specific exhibition pages. Most useful on the site for prospective visitors are the upcoming events and programs, and potentially also the museum news. Since the museum is currently closed, the website probably is not experiencing as high traffic as it otherwise would.

Hopefully you'll unfriend me now

What's with the cryptic title? is what I'm sure at least one of the people who've been forced to view my blog post (probably through facebook, ironically) is thinking. Well, I've been seeing some people's blog posts, in facebook. Now I understand people want to get more exposure for themselves - but I also don't care about other people's blogs. Especially the self-righteous academic kinds, of which I've seen too many. The absolute last thing I want to do is read about yours when I'm just checking facebook, which for the record is a dumb utility and I only use it because my friends have bought into it so much that I'm literally forced to.

Well, guess what people? You crossed the line into my private spaces, you raised my ire - now you have to deal with the same thing showing up on your screen. Now it's your news feed clogged with a stupid blog post. How about that, huh? You're not the only one who knows how to import dumb posts from your blog. I can do it too. And I can bet I'm going to get just as many people clicking on my Super-Amazing Terrific Blog as your haughty, clever, academic BS blog. Now that this blogger's figured out how to spam your facebook with assignments for his HIST-332 class, there will be no stopping me from effortlessly annoying you while you peruse your mindless feeds, checking to see who's broken up with whom and if your room mate still desperately misses her goldfish. If I were you, I'd take some corrective action. I think you know what I mean.