My interest in digital history began when I encountered several web-based interdisciplinary projects that brought to life past communities erased by urban renewal during the 19th and 20th centuries; (Visualizing 81 and Mapping Communities). These projects were more consistent with digital humanities than history, but they aligned with my historical interest in preserving, exploring and challenging past interpretations of urban and African American spaces. Given my limited exposure, I initially defined digital history as the practice of presenting historical narratives and visualizing historical data online through digital storytelling and interactive media.
Through coursework at GMU, I was exposed to a wider array of digital history projects, including some projects shared in module 1: Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America and Photogrammar 1935-1943, both part of the American Panorama: An Atlas of United States History created by the Digital Scholarship Lab at the University of Richmond. With each project, I gained insight into the broad range of skills and technologies involved in digital history, including network maps, quantitative analysis, interface databases, and virtual reconstruction. My vocabulary of digital history was transforming with each project and leading me to two gnawing questions, 1) What exactly is Digital History and 2) How do I learn it? Will I be able to tackle, learn, and apply the diverse technical skills, methodologies, and approaches required for digital history? What should I learn first? What can I skip over (please say statistics)? The journey became overwhelming and almost self-defeating before it even started. How can I learn programming, coding, quantitative analysis, and effective storytelling while still dedicating energy to historical research and developing strong historical arguments? In addition, each technical method, skill, or use introduces different avenues of power and bias. Even as we completed the survey for this course, I admit some topics were unfamiliar to me, and Googling did not always provide a clear-cut explanation.
These questions and uncertainties surfaced while working on this week assignment, creating a WordPress blog. Despite having prior experience with WordPress, even a functional active blog on another web -hosting site, subtle changes in the settings and editor led to increased more confusion than comfort. Realizing something as simple as changing themes can send me down an Alice-in-wonderland maze of disorientation. In addition to relearning this digital interface, there was the “block editor” vs “classic editor” internal debate. Part of me was grateful for my familiarity with WordPress’ block editor, but the other half of me felt inadequate for not knowing enough CSS and HTML to design the space.
In Technology and the Historian, Crymble acknowledges some of these challenges or questions faced by the digital history student. In chapter 4, “Building the Invisible School” he highlights the dilemma of “trying to navigate this interdisciplinary world while concurrently honing more traditional historical skills”. Crymble explores the evolution of students learning digital history through self-teaching. He proceeds to expand on the history of introductory texts, software, workshops, and eventually the development of Programming Historian, a website dedicated to peer-reviewed, user-friendly tutorials on a variety of digital tools. But as Crymble points out “as the self-learning resources proliferated, the number of paths people could take through them multiplied.” (134) Crymble infers that with the right vocabulary and grasp of the historian’s use of technology, students can easily identify where to start. Here I disagreed, I think some level of direct instruction and direction from experienced digital historians is necessary to help navigate the vastness that is digital history.
Technology should not be our starting point as historian. Instead it is important to recognize “the importance of the approach rather than the machine.” However, for students who choose to use a digital approach to sort through documents, and archives or help articulate a historical argument, we must have some fundamental knowledge of digital tools and approaches. This is what I hope to gain from this course, a fundamental understanding of what digital history is. I hope to gain increasing confidence in not just knowing different methodologies, technical skills or tools but also the confidence to accept that it is okay not to know, to understand that digital history is an ongoing adventure in new innovative learning.
Sources:
- Visualizing 81 https://visualizing81.thenewshouse.com/ Created and maintained by Syracuse University, Reviewed August 27th 2024
- Mapping Communities: Black Enclaves in New York City from 1825 to 1950 https://enclaves.museumhue.com/ Created and maintained by Museum-Hue, New York, Reviewed August 27th, 2024
- Robert K. Nelson, Justin Madron, Nathaniel Ayers, and Edward Ayers, American Panorama: An Atlas of United States History, https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/ Created and maintained by the Digital Scholarship Lab, University of Virginia, Reviewed August 23rd -28th ,2024
- Adam Crymble, Technology and the Historian: Transformations in the Digital Age (University of Illinois Press, 2021), https://doi.org/10.5406/j.ctv1k03s73.
Hi Asha,
I wrote in my blog that, as an art practitioner, I did not even know how to get started in DH. What kind of skills do employers seek? Last Spring, I served on a search committee at Mason. We were looking for a Digital Publishing Coordinator position with the Virtual Library of Virginia (VIVA), which is the academic library consortium of Virginia. I was recruited to that committee because of my background in traditional publishing. Some of the skill requirements in JD we eventually came up with were traditional publishing knowledge, project management, and communication skills, plus the knowledge of online publishing tools, such as WordPress, Pressbooks, ePub2&3, etc. I, too, feel that I lack the confidence to understand DH\’s vastness, openness, and the virtue of its ever-changing environment. But, what excites me about this area is that I can potentially translate my expertise into this field and work with folks from other disciplines in the most collaborative and innovative way.
Hi Asha,
First of all, I really like the structure of your website. It is very clear and interesting. I also like the pictures you’ve inserted in the articles. I believe you are already a master of WordPress. I love your series of questions about how to learn and understand digital history, as these questions confuse me as well. Initially, I had the same understanding as you did of digital history, which is presenting historical narratives and visualizing historical data online. After the readings and our class discussions, I seem to have come to a similar conclusion: digital history is not a fixed entity but rather a developing and creative approach. I think our initial trepidation is normal. As you mentioned, the technology used in digital history often doesn’t come naturally to those without a technical background. For beginners like us, learning digital history, particularly the technical methods, through professional guidance is essential. With a foundation in basic tech knowledge, an ongoing adventure will then be the right way.