Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Picture Finding Experience
Monday, March 3, 2008
The sinking of the Lusitania by German U-boats was the key event that led the United States into World War I. Although other incidents, such as the Zimmerman telegram, precipitated U.S. involvement, the Lusitania was the most visible symbol of anti-American aggression.
"Remember the Lusitania." 1915. World War I Propaganda Poster. Courtesy the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
The U.S. military employed a large recruitment effort to mobilize the nation for war. Troops would reach Europe by 1918, under the command of General John J. Pershing. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3g11355
"Men Wanted for the Army." World War I Propaganda Poster. Courtesy The Library of Congress, Washington, DC. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3g10143
Trench warfare characterized much of the war. Compounded by new inventions such as the machine gun, barbed wire, and fighter planes, Americans were not spared these horrors of the war.
"In the trench near San Marco during action of May 12, 1917." Ca. 1917. World War I Photograph. Courtesy The Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3a51388
America's contribution to the war proved decisive, and an armistice was signed on November 11th, 1918. Over 20 million had died in the war, including 117,000 Americans.
"The Dawn of Democracy." 1918. World War I Propaganda Print. Courtesy The Library of Congress, Washington DC. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3b43955
In 1919, Wilson traveled to Europe to meet with Allied heads of state Lloyd George (England), Georges Clemenceau (France), and Vittorio Orlando (Italy). The Conference would determine the political future of Europe for two decades.
"Council of Four of the Peace Conference. Mr. Lloyd George; Signor Orlando; M. Clemenceau; President Woodrow Wilson. Hotel Crillon, Paris, France." 05/27/1919. Courtesy of The National Archives, Washington, DC. http://arcweb.archives.gov/arc/arch_results_detail.jsp?&pg=1&si=0&st=b&rp=digital&nh=1
Monday, February 18, 2008
History of Valentine's Day
Wikipedia, which has established itself as a sort of, if not the ultimate standard-bearer of non-scholarly internet based knowledge, postulates that Valentine’s day may have grew out of an ancient fertility holiday celebrated every February 15th called Lupercalia. This holiday, as Plutarch, a Roman historian, tells us, featured young men walking naked in the streets, and young women would approach them and be smacked on the hands that they might become fertile. This holiday may have grown out of a tradition celebrating the birth of Romulus and Remus, according to legend the twin brothers raised by a wolf who founded Rome. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
Suite 101.com, a website that claims “7 million readers a month,” also supposes the Lupercalia theory, but adds that one part of the practice included sacrifices of goats and dogs to the gods. Suite 101 also maintains that in the fifth century, the Catholic church translated the formerly pagan holiday, which remained popular with ordinary Romans, into a Christian context, honoring the Virgin Mary and making it a popular day for marrying young couples. Suite 101 seems plausible, as it does claim that it gathered its information from the Oxford University Press Dictionary of Religion and the University of Chicago’s Penelope Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. http://roman-history.suite101
The History Channel offers a completely different explanation, saying that an early Christian priest named Valentine offered to marry young couples in secret, against a decree of the emperor, who dissolved all marriages in an attempt to get more soldiers for the army. Valentine was placed in prison for this, and subsequently fell in love with his jailor’s daughter, to whom he penned a note, “From your Valentine.” http://www.history.com/minisite
As a survey of numerous websites will illustrate, the history of Valentine’s day does in fact credibly trace its origins to the Lupercalian myth and the subsequent Christianization. Yet not every website does this. For instance, Wikipedia’s explanation does not omit that Valentine’s Day is named after two potential early Christian martyrs, but never definitively discusses how or why these names became attached to the holiday, as Suite101 and HC do.
Generally, this experience revealed the inconsistency of historical information on the Internet. Because each user can function in relative anonymity and slick graphics can misleadingly function as a substitute for substantive content. This process was in a sense discouraging. So many websites had varying explanations, and were often poorly written For instance, on a Google search of “History of Valentine’s Day,” the third link leads to a UK website which offers four very different theses on the origin of Valentine’s day. Not only is the website’s legitimacy completely undercut by a pink color scheme, usually reserved for all things germane to a pre-pubescent teenage girl, but each account is anonymously authored. Furthermore, if the user accessed the address of only the text before the host country domain name in the web address http://www.pictureframes.co.ukTuesday, February 12, 2008
History Website Review
The Internet Ancient History Sourcebook is a reference website, hosted by Fordham University, which provides information about ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Israel, Persia, Greece, Rome, Late Antiquity (ca. 300-600 A.D.). and early Christian writers via both primary and secondary source material. The site was conceived of in 1999, and its stated goal is to, "provide and organize texts for use in classroom situations." http://www.fordham.edu/HALSALL
The website is broken into the categories mentioned above, with each category broken down into more precise themes, for instance, under "Rome," there is "Roman Law," "The Army," "Empires and Provinces," and many other categories, with primary sources for each theme listed. http://www.fordham.edu/HALSALL
One fringe feature of the site is a section devoted to "Ancient History in the Movies," which lists and critiques for historical accuracy a number of movies set in the ancient world. This page links to IMDB, which is a great website to link to for getting a second opinion on the movies.
The "Help" Page is also valuable, offering a myriad of websites for evaluating history websites on the internet, a list of writing and citation guides, and other history websites which are valuable for looking at.
What makes this website so good is undoubtedly the presentation of primary sources. While not trying to be the definitive compendium for knowledge of antiquity on the Internet, it often comes off feeling that way anyway. For instance, it does offer 9 complete texts of major Roman historians, including Tacitus, Livy, and Caesar. In the Ancient Greece section, Herodotus, Thucydides, and others are represented. In an age in which classical learning is almost vanished compared to previous generations, it is refreshing to consider the wealth of knowledge about the ancient world available to us at our fingertips.
Yet despite the vast amount of red meat learning on the Ancient History Internet Sourcebook website, it is neglecting on presentation. It is obvious that the site is made by an amateur, Halsall, and nobody has bothered to remedy that. The lone pictorial graphic on the website is a cheap, clip-art picture of Ionic columns flanking the "Internet Ancient History Sourcebook" heading. The entire site is blue and black text on an off-white background, and Times New Roman font.
Navigating the site is easy enough, but should be better. A sidebar sits on the left side of the page, directing the user to the different topics of study he or she is interested in. Once the user accesses the main topic (e.g. Rome, Egypt, etc.), the subtopics are presented in outline format, which is good, but then once clicking the relevant link it merely scrolls down the page to the subtopic of interest, and the featured sources open in a new page. The result is that with everything bundled together the user feels somewhat overwhelmed. This site is in desperate need of an overhaul. The lack of color, art, and graphics, as well as a subpar yet valiant attempt at organization certainly detract from this site. Moreover, there is no content such as message boards, quote of the day, videos, etc. to keep the user coming back. If I didn't have to use this website, I would have no reason to return. This is unfortunate, because it offers such an excellent array of neglected knowledge that has potential to gain a wider audience.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
History Websites
The four websites visited all represented a broad spectrum of the presentation of history. In representing the past on the internet, we are confronted by the question of how to translate the complexities of history into a syntax that often relies on peppy design and user adaptability to preserve its relevance.
The first website, The Valley of the Shadow, is a primary-source based site for casual and professional historians alike, allowing the user to survey newspaper records, civil government statistics, soldiers records, church records, and other commonly used primary sources relating to several small towns in the Civil War. The main strength of this website lies in its clean indexing of topics, allowing the user to navigate with ease across the main groups of sources. This website, which I found to be highly useful, presents the study of history on the internet as an egalitarian pursuit. In the first place, the main introductory page depicts the portraits a white man, a white woman, and a black man above a small hill town. This seeks to reinforce to the user that this site is a very inclusive approach to the Civil War which will leave no part of society unrepresented.
In contrast, the History Channel’s website seems to be lacking in actual history content. On January 27th, the center of the main page features upcoming program on a recent UFO phenomena in Texas. In the “Video” portion of the website, the featured videos were mostly video of graphic car accident, ferocious animals, and an ad for a Hyundai Sonata. The “World History” (http://www.history.com/media.do?action=listing&sortBy=1&sortOrder=A&topic=WORLD%20HISTORY) section of the “Video” site mostly featured some video on modern police gear, though it did contain some videos tracing police gear through the ages. The general World History section of the website (http://www.history.com/topics/worldhistory_) was mediocre at best, presenting some stock “Mysteries of the Bible” content which generally reflects the dribble found in the DaVinci Code, and even referring to the post-Roman centuries as the “Dark Ages,” a term I completely abhor. In the “World War II” section of the history site (http://www.history.com/minisites/worldwartwo/), the content was very basic, although it would be a solid background for someone who really did not know anything about the war. I was dissatisfied with the “Key Allied Figures” and “Key Axis Figures” of the website. For the allies, HC failed to mention Marshall Gregori Zhukov, considered the greatest general of the Soviet war effort, or Harry S. Truman, who made the fateful decision to drop the atomic bomb which induced Japanese surrender. On the Axis side, there was no mention of Admiral Yamamoto, the architect of the attack on Pearl Harbor, or Heinz Guderian, the wellspring of the “blitzkrieg” attack. I believe that the History Channel, in this sense, has eschewed presenting either Harry S. Truman or Yamamoto for the sake of preserving a politically correct approach to history which seeks to downplay Japanese involvement in the war. Moreover, the HC channel site is all about luring in users with expressly non-historical content. Very much like TV in that it is designed for mass consumption, doesn’t respect the viewer’s capacity for new. Ultimately, HC sacrifices depth of content for the sake of commercial viability, but you will learn something along the way if you are a novice. Unfortunately, the history channel does not explicitly talk about historical scholarship itself, so by their standards, they want history to come to you.
The Do History Website was on the same level as the Valley of the Shadow site. This site, which unmistakably is a resource for women’s and gender history presents a rape case for not only illustrating the dichotomy of truth in differing historical accounts, but is also concerned with underscoring the disadvantages of women in bygone years. Most of the links on the site to other sites are concerned with women’s history. Unfortunately, the site is messy and unfocused, unlike the Valley site that focused on primary sources that is more cleanly organized. Has a nice little guide to using primary sources in the history toolkit section, this is an overall great site for people just beginning to do history and the example provided is great for understanding how history can be controversial. Overall, the site is not so much concerned with the subject as it is illustrating how history is done.
The National Museum of American History website is a colorful, well-designed site that is user friendly. This site depicts history as a story of objects, as the main page features things like Dorothy’s ruby slippers, a World War II helmet, and a locomotive. All of these artifacts are indeed treasures and do tell the story of America. In addition, the site’s purpose is to persuade viewers to visit the museum itself. The website does this by presenting objects that almost all Americans can identify in some sense with. As a result, this sense of nostalgia personalizes history, and makes you relevant to what the museum is presenting. For the MOAH, history is not just “us,” it is also “you.”