Over the course of the semester I think that my methods in historical thinking have changed not necessarily in methods but in application. Since I have taken numerous history and research based classes the concept of finding information on digital applications was not a new phenomenon to me. However, the applications we used, such as Flourish, StorymapJS, etc. were new concepts to me in the instance of historical thinking. I have previously used all of the applications that we covered in class; however, it was from the perspective of  an anthropologist and digital humanities person. Using it in the context of historical research allowed me to think more openly about the information being presented along with the many different ways these applications can be used to convey information to a variety of audiences. 

My own personal experience with the time spent in class on these applications has benefited me with applying them to other classes, research, and projects. Over the course of the semester I feel that I have become more comfortable and independent in creating projects using these digital applications. From the practice that I have gotten using the applications in class I have been able to better conceptualize how to move forward in other projects and applications. For instance, a project I am creating currently requires an interactive map, rather than having multiple elements jumbled together I decided to implement some of the concepts from the time spent on our mapping section to combine them together on StorymapJS software to make it more visually appealing. My other digital classes that I am taking have benefitted from the time I have spent in this class and the things that I have learned. By having multiple classes at once with very similar content I have been able to better develop content for all of them using these applications.

My revised activity conveys these same messages because it shows a development in my understanding of the perspectives and expectations of this class. I updated my ideas and concepts to better fit what we have been learning in class. Additionally, since I chose to revise our second assignment, it demonstrates my understanding more thoroughly of historical thinking and the types of research questions one might have in the concepts of this class. My first rendition of this post was rather vague and unclear while as we progressed through the semester the concepts of the class became much more clear and allowed me to write a significantly better and more developed research question that included ideas and sources to further research if I so desired. 

For the future I would like to look more closely at using maps as an interactive tool for learning and research. I have wanted to learn ArcGIS for some time, and while we used similar applications, I think this program would be especially useful for my own research interests. From some of my personal interests I think that using these tools to develop educational tools for non-academic individuals would be incredibly interesting. I would also like to implement these tools and applications into some of the research that I am interested in in the field of natural sciences. This includes subjects such as geology, soil sciences, agriculture, botany, and sustainability. These applications are incredibly important in these fields in terms of using them as teaching tools. I have often seen ineffective graphics and presentations that are intended to inform. Using these applications and methods would provide a more engaging display and better analysis of the information while giving opportunities to produce more research questions.

In terms of work I would like to do in the future, I think that applying these methods to my own major would be incredibly helpful when looking towards the digital era. Already, I have applied some of the things I have learned to other classes and the research and projects I have done. I think that in future projects I will be able to implement these techniques even better due to my full understanding of the concepts. Adding the concepts of history on top of an anthropological perspective is incredibly helpful when it comes to finding information about past research and documentation of areas. Additionally, the ability to better analyze work of the past is very beneficial to conducting current research. Using these applications for preliminary research may allow for more analysis of the area of interest and may lead to research questions or evidence that may have never been noticed or thought of before.

New approaches I would like to learn going forward include research into older historical events. I feel with such a heavy emphasis on slavery this semester we did not get to fully grasp the process for methods in historical thinking since this era is heavily documented and researched. I would like to learn more methods in researching time periods that are not as well documented, or even those that may not have written languages. I think this would give a much more holistic approach to my own research and give me more tools to conceptualize and research properly. 

Since my own personal interest lies more in the realm of ancient time, I think that methods of historical thinking from a perspective that is not focused on written accounts would be incredibly helpful to my own understanding. Moving forward I would like to learn more about conceptualizing these topics into the programs that we used and developed in order to further my own interests and personal research. Obviously, this would fall somewhat into the realm of archaeology; however, I think that it truly conveys what may go into historical thinking and research while also engaging with a larger audience that may hold more importance. 

Overall, I would say that my experience in this class was average. I learned basic concepts to apply digital perspectives to the realm of history and methods in historical thinking. Additionally, I further developed my own interests in regards to using media as a tool for teaching and learning, which is one of my largest interests. I think that these skills will become incredibly useful to have going forward in my academic and professional careers.    

Portfolio Activity #2: Research Process Journaling

How has colonialism affected and changed traditional ecological knowledge? From our readings so far and my own personal interests, I would be very interested in looking at historical documents and their depictions and information of traditional medicinal knowledge in relation to traditional ecological knowledge. Specifically, I would like to look at Michigan traditional ecological knowledge, natural medicinal knowledge, and folklore. For primary sources, I would look at original medical texts, written accounts, and recorded interviews if possible. I think my findings could potentially reframe my research question due to the cultural implications of this knowledge to the people that it pertains to. Materials that I would like to access that are not digitized would be personal collections, diaries, verbal history, and other things that must be sought out rather than found in museums or archives.

Updated:

How was midwifery practiced and valued in times of slavery both for free persons and enslaved persons? Through my research I found several primary sources that I have cited in other blog posts, these included ledgers and manuscripts detailing the estimated value of an enslaved midwife, illustrations of midwives and enslaved persons, and accounts of midwives throughout the time of slavery. Reasonably, I can answer questions about the importance that midwives held in the community through the accounts discussing them and from the values given to them by their owners. When comparing their roles in enslaved communities to others it is apparent that there is more importance held on them. Materials I would like to access that are not digitized/difficult to access in a digital format would be handwritten accounts and diaries. I found from my research that there is no true written account that only details midwifery so it is difficult to find what you are looking for in primary sources since there are so many other topics being discussed. If I were to go forward with this research I would need to look further into previous research to find adequate primary sources and documentation for my research question. 

For this map I was trying to depict the general information that was being presented within the data set. I think that this data was best presented in its current state because it gives a better grasp of where densities lie when viewing the project. Overall this allows us to look at slavery from a different perspective that is not always thought of and allows us to analyze its functions from a geographical perspective rather than a contextual perspective.

The map works well overall in depicting where certain geographic regions are and their densities; however, it was not intended to have the map lack the actual map. I’m assuming that this is a technical issue in regards to flourish that I have not yet worked out, I have spent some time finicking with it to no avail. I do not think that it wholly detracts from the map however, and rather adds a bit of perspective that may remove some of the bias geography can have in terms of slavery.

For this assignment I looked at art and illustrations that we worked together to compile on our Omeka site. I took five images that I thought were interesting and depicted various aspects of enslaved life as well as depicting enslaved people in various ways. I wanted to use different artistic images rather than the life of one enslaved person with this intent that I thought it would be more interesting to analyze representations of enslaved people in art during this time period and the stories that they tell at the individual and collective level. 

For the assignment I looked at the metadata for locations and searched the internet for some. I then chose locations based on where it was produced, where there were events of significant importance, such as in the instance of the union soldier painting and general location such as depictions of enslaved people in Great Britain and the depiction of enslaved people on a cargo ship. 

Overall, I found that this project went rather well, and that the presentation was rather visually appealing. For the map I chose a tile set that was satellite images, which I find easier to conceptualize. I then chose locations based on what I described above. I chose to not put in descriptions since there appears to be a word count limit and what I would intend to do with this set would just become jumbled if I were to attempt to put descriptions into the small area allowed. I think for future projects where this type of tool would be used might do better as a smaller topic that can then be inserted into a larger project (as I assume is what is commonly used already). 

Geospatial visualization can affect historical thinking by being able to ask more questions about geographic distribution through analyzing the placement of various occurrences. Additionally, it can allow for more interactive platforms and visualizations for education on historical topics. This allows us to create projects that are more visually appealing and that promote historical thinking and questions. I think that historical inquiry relates to both concepts of space in different but equally important ways. Since absolute space is more of a theoretical perspective, it relates to historical inquiry through its conceptual ideas. The Representation space of historical inquiry relates more to the physical aspects of history rather than the information. The largest pitfall of the idea of geospatial visualization is the possibility of skewing these visualizations to look like something other than what they are. I have seen this done many times with graphs and data and other visualizations where the data is accurately represented; however, the visualization is changed to convey a different bias to the onlooker who is not necessarily wary of possible influences. When trying to convey information on geographic distribution for different historical purposes, it is possible that projects might wish to adjust visualizations to infer other things for one reason or another. Along the same lines, maps convey information in their own way in a distorted way since they do not show the intricacies of a society where the historical inquiry is taking place. There are also differences in representation based on map style such as google maps versus google earth, these differences will cause analysis to be skewed based on the representations, If viewing a map that is showing major roadways there may be a tendency to base inferences off of these. However, if viewing a map that is showing topography, landforms, and other natural and manmade formations there might be more other inferences made. If there are different inferences made based on view alone this is cause for many concerns since it is changing the thinking of those analyzing the material.  Maps may not always be an accessible tool for people on the user side and the creator side. When making the map, it is possible that there may be fees involved from the use of map tiles depending on what servicer is used. Additionally, since a map is such a large file, there is a strong likelihood that they will be inaccessible to those who have poor internet service. From many historical projects I have looked at and analyzed this has always been an issue, even with rather decent internet service. Since most of the projects using these tools do not anticipate internet traffic of any kind, there is also often an issue of lag or crashing by even a small group looking individually at these visualizations.  

https://voyant-tools.org/?corpus=268ebc049399622516f3b5969d5e36bc

Overall, my findings were to be expected when using the data set for Voyant. The most interesting thing that I found was that out of the top four words, three were “man”, “men”, and “mr.”. Mr. was nearly the most prevalent word for the entire data set. I think that this shows how much importance is left to the individual man for the historical context of the time. 

If we are to look at gender roles in these texts, it is very obvious that they are very male centered (whether intentional or not). Of the predetermined most prevalent words there is only mention of enslaved people and men that characterize people and individuals.

 One of the most interesting tools that I used in Voyant was the dreamscapes option. This shows an interactive map, tracking the movement of key words and places. A majority of these bounce back and forth between North America and Africa. While this function is not necessarily the most accurate due to the possibility of different intended meanings of locations, it could still be an important tool when looking at interactions between countries and possible world dynamics.

From my looking around, I also looked at the least  used words in the data set. I think that to an extent these can be useful in looking at specific words and how they might be compared to other words that may be used more frequently; however, there are also numerous words that are only used once and appear to be a pointless inclusion into the data set. Additionally, there is the inclusion of numbers and specific large numbers that do not appear to have any importance on the information trying to be analyzed. I have come across this in other Text analysis using this program because it not only reads the meat of the article but citations, graphics, and footnotes. I have also had trouble before with it including URLs, which is most frustrating.  

Overall, one of the most useful things I found when playing with this dataset is honestly the word cloud. As a person who is a visual learner, this is incredibly helpful in initially conceptualizing what is being presented and if there are adjustments needed to the filters of the program. Along with giving us a very aesthetic graphic to work with, it also provides a quick analysis of what is being presented as a whole for the text analysis of the documents. This is what I would equivalate to an abstract of the analysis of the files provided.  

One of the biggest values I see from computational text analysis is to be able to see how language was used in the past, and the present. For historical documents, mining is something that gives us the potential to look at how things were written, how certain topics were written and almost any other question that might relate to the past and how words were used. From an anthropology perspective, this is incredibly important for looking at colloquial language and understanding how geographic regions and cultures use language differently based on context. Additionally, for some anthropologists(including myself) the use of language and frequencies of certain words has become particularly interesting in terms of digital landscapes. One of my particular interests is looking at the buzz words used in online auction platforms to advertise for the sale of illicitly trafficked artifacts and antiquities. This is helpful more to the heritage/museum scope of people to be able to predict how things are trafficked and sold and attempt to prevent further damage to cultural heritage and historical contexts. 

In its most basic nature, data of text mining is useful to be able to look at frequency of words and from there provide visualizations and statistics of the data that is given. It helps us to look at documents in the context of how they were developed and from there give possible historical insights into the nature of the documents. 

One downfall of this method, from my understanding, is that if the texts are not initially digital the programs that analyze texts will not be able to read them. For scanned documents they are simply images that are readable to humans, but not computers. Often for historical documents this is the case; therefore, these texts must have metadata that transcribes all of the text into text readable to a computer. This creates an imperfect system that causes handwritten work to still be present, although not as detailed as it might have been before the time of computational text analysis.

Slavery at Mt. Vernon

https://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/slavery/

Overall, this website is rather well laid out. There is a very comprehensive presentation of information that gives insight into both the lives of the Washingtons and the enslaved people that worked and resided on the estate. There are aspects both past and present that are detailed in great detail that range from work, social, and home life of enslaved people to current archival projects and archaeological excavations. 

Accessibility wise this website is rather well thought out with informational videos, easy to read text, and an easily navigable site with clear labeling. Of course since this is a tourist attraction there are certain biases in the information being presented that will not give off the same context that a truly historical work might. 

Since my own topic of interest for our project has been swayed to midwifery of enslaved people I am happy to see that this topic is also discussed in various different ways, including in sections of information and informational videos. 

The overall look of the website is eye appealing and uses color palettes that are reminiscent of colonial vibes. The website is extremely navigable and the separation of topics of interest is useful to understand different dynamics of the estate. 

For historical purposes I think that the large push buttons for buying tickets, where to eat, donate, etc. are rather distracting to those who wish to learn more about the estate. However, for the general public I can understand how this would be helpful if they did wish to visit as it is combined within the historical documentation of the estate. To me, since this is a resource that is heavily focused on the enslavement of African Americans and not the home of George Washington it seems insensitive to have such a large focus on the monetary aspect of the estate.  

For my two primary sources I struggled to find primary sources related to TEK and similar topics and how they were changed due to colonialism. As a result, I switched to a similar, but more readily available topic. I decided on looking for primary sources related to midwifery and enslaved people. Consequently, I found some rather interesting information and a few primary sources that are worth noting. One was a ledger for enslaved people, their duties, and their estimated worth’s, including a midwife. I have learned from the research I did this past week that they were considered an invaluable source to many slave owners. Additionally, I found a primary source that was a watercolor painting depicting a black woman giving birth with the help of an old white woman while civil war soldiers stood around and watched. It was a rather interesting perspective, and it is one that I think could bring up much discussion.

http://collections.gla.ac.uk/#/details/ecatalogue/271505

https://www.loc.gov/resource/ppmsca.51275/

How has colonialism affected and changed traditional ecological knowledge? From our readings so far and my own personal interests, I would be very interested in looking at historical documents and their depictions and information of traditional medicinal knowledge in relation to traditional ecological knowledge. Specifically, I would like to look at Michigan traditional ecological knowledge, natural medicinal knowledge, and folklore. For primary sources, I would look at original medical texts, written accounts, and recorded interviews if possible. I think my findings could potentially reframe my research question due to the cultural implications of this knowledge to the people that it pertains to. Materials that I would like to access that are not digitized would be personal collections, diaries, verbal history, and other things that must be sought out rather than found in museums or archives.