A Simple History of History Websites

This week I looked at a list of digital history, websites dedicated to historical topics, some of which were created in the early days of the interwebs.

The list in a some-what chronological order of creation; the links; and a brief commentary of each follow.

The Valley of the Shadow, 1993-207 -- 

A website investigates one Northern and one Southern community Civil War Era. It's a little difficult to find things on the site, and I'd also like to see digital images of the files like newspapers themselves. What I think is a neat idea is the little interactive "museum maps" taking the "visitor" to the archival sources.

Dickinson Electronic Archives, 1994 -- 

A cool collection of Emily Dickinson related primary sources. So it looks like they are revamping the site using a standard blog. This blog is a little awkward as the front page. I actually preferred the front page of the archived site.

Hawthorne in Salem, 2002 -- 

Made available in 2002. But this site looks even older than the Valley of the Shadow and the Dickinson Electronic Archive. That maybe be related to it's simplicity in nature. I didn't explore enough to see if there were primary sources here, or how well the information was cited.

Amiens Cathedral Project, ??? -- 

Interesting project trying to "walk" the visitor through the restoration (maybe a restoration?) of the Amiens Cathedral. This could be a cool way to present info/images, if you're not funded and if you have a lot of pictures of a particular place. This technology-wise is somewhere in the middle. Check out the Lascaux project for the modern, way awesome version of this being done.

Romantic Circles, 2007 (???) -- 

Primary sources relating to the Romantic Era. It seems  to me like they continue to add to the documents up there. But it is still a little work to find articles and what you are looking for. I love the idea of putting out online journals with articles available for free.

Persepolis: A Virtual reconstruction, (???) -- 

A step forward from the Amiens Cathedral Project. It was hard to find who is working on it or the dates created, making me skeptical. I like that this is for a city structure that no longer exists. I feel a little spoiled in this digital age--I want these virtual reconstructions to look like movies. That's probably not fair to ask poor, literally poor little historians. Consumers are not dumping hundreds of millions into these projects.

The Avalon Project, 2008 -- 

Site dedicated to primary sources in diplomacy and law throughout time. This site is really a vast collection of primary sources that looks, constantly updated and its simplicity is really its greatest strength. While it is a relatively new site, its appearance gives it the look of an older site, the difference is really in maneuverability and clean, easy interface.

Digital Karnak, 2008 --
This also looks VERY good. I love the time map. What a great idea. This is another one of those sites that allows the visitor to "walkthrough" a historical site that no longer exists. But it doesn't just do that, it aggregates other information on Karnak.

Jeff Gates creations:

In Our Path, 1983-2009 -- History of LA driving?

Life Outta Context, 2001-2010 -- The personal blog of same guy.

Eye Level, 2005-2012 -- Website of Smithsonian American Art Museum

Library of Congress-American Memory --
This is a hard one to find a date on it. But it is constantly updated, as one would hope and expect from the US Library of Congress. My suspicion is that it took quite sometime for the LOC to catch onto this digital age. Actually I think I prefer to use from the home page of the Library of Congress.

Hurricane Digital Memory Bank, 2005-2012 --
This may be an unpopular opinion, and don't mistake, I'm not making any sort of negative statement about Hurricane Katrina (or others) or the shootings at Virginia Tech. I don't know how if feel about these memory banks, like a lot of the "new media" it's soooo much stuff. I find these banks incredibly overwhelming. Maybe they are doing EXACTLY what they are setting out to do, but continuing to connect its users to the emotion of the historical events. How does a historian sort through it and use it? 

The April 16th Archive, 2011 --
An Omeka project, much like the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank.

Oyez Today, 2011 --
Audio recordings of the Supreme Court since the time that started recording in the Supreme Court. This is an interesting use of a different kind of primary source--a digital media dedicated to a digital medium.

Lascaux --
I don't know when this made, but it's got to be recent.  And it is BAD. ASS. It is a walkthrough of the Lascaux cave paintings in southern France. If you don't look at any other site you should DEFINITELY check this one out. It is beautiful and eerie. I tried to link to the english version, but you can get it in other languages. (Mom! You should especially look at this one! This almost makes Land of the Painted Caves palatable.)

BBC's History of the World Through 100 Objects --
Here's one of my own. I am really looking for cool sites related to European History, World Civilizations, History of Science. This is one that I've used before, and it's got a cool interactive timeline, that links you to interacting with the objects themselves. BBC also did a podcast series, each episode about 5 minutes talking about the objects.

How has the level of sophistication has changed on these digital websites? Rather obviously moving through a 3D space has improved dramatically as seen by the Lascaux project. Also the GUI (graphical user interface) has become more simple, user friendly. It's not just about simplicity, some of those early sites were simple, but the usability wasn't necessarily logical. Simple i think is key, but also easy to use, find, and search. 

Chapter One: Exploring the History Web

I just want to tell interesting vignettes about historical topics, but I do want my information to be taken serious. Cohen and Rosenzweig suggests at the end of their chapter on "Exploring the History Web" that

"Before you begin the more practical steps in the journey outlined in the next seven chapters you need to know why you are taking that journey, who you hope will join you, and where you hope to go."

Why am I traveling?

I like to write (and maybe a little of I like to hear myself talk), but this originally was an exercise in writing. History is a topic I love and that I love to talk about. This is a chance for me to practice a craft that I love (writing) on topics I love (history, science, history of science, craft). It also give me a chance to contribute to the "History Web," a space that as a historian I think I will inhabit and lurk around for some time to come.

The other problem is my own lack of self confidence in continue to be a "good" historian. I've been out of school for some time, and hope to never go back (maybe). I don't even know if "traditional history" is what I would do if I did go back. I often times feel like an amateur--and I am truly. I am a more of a nerdy history enthusiast than a history. Keeping up with the new scholarship is particularly hard when it's your fifth job.

"The amateurs may have leapt ahead of the professionals in using the web as a vehicle for original publication, but their interpretations often look backward rather than forward. The amateurs could learn some historiographic lessons from the professionals while in turn teaching those who practice history as a vocation to think beyond traditional forms of publication."

Where do I fit? And maybe that's why I am traveling. To find out.

Who's coming with me?

Well, my mother is obviously coming along. She's my biggest fan. I also hope that the rest of my family and my friends join me. I'd love to work up a little following, and I think that it will start with them. I have lots of history colleagues, who I used to meet for beers and wax philosophic on any number of topics. I miss that, and wonder if this is truly the way that we will do that in the future.  Electronic beers and digital history.

Where to?

I'd like to improve my crafts--both writing and history, but really where I think I'm going is a way to set up learning modules for the Western Civilization courses that I teach. I'd like to create pages on topics, that include my lecture notes, (video or audio of my lectures? that sounds "ew"), images, podcast, interesting articles, websites devoted entirely to the subject, primary sources, and on an on. I would like to use this as a place to begin my classes, as well as a place to find fun and hopefully funny historical commentary.

So it look like I am really looking at making teaching resources website, but it definitely already has the problem that much of the History Web has. 

"If categorizing sites is so difficult, why bother? One good reason is that it forces the incipient History Web creator to think about genres themselves, what Phil Agre calls the “expectable form that materials in a given medium might take.” Genres imply, in Agre’s words, “a particular sort of audience and a particular sort of activity” and are “the meeting-point between the process of producing media materials and the process of using them.” To pay attention to genres is to think about how what you are doing relates to the audience you are hoping to reach—something less necessary “in the old days, when media were few and their uses evolved slowly,” or when they evolved in an ad hoc, organic way."