Website Launch

The website launch went wonderfully!  The event planning committee did an amazing job.

I am proud to present the Hiram Wilson project website: http://www.uwo.ca/huron/promisedland/wilson/

Our class would  like to thank the Huron History Society for their help organizing the event and for helping invite Dr. Roland Baumann, Archivist Emeritus at Oberlin College.  Dr. Baumann gave a wonderfully put together talk about the anti-slavery movement, Hiram Wilson, and the historian's craft (clearly playing into all the themes of our class nicely).

I would once again like to thank all those involved with the website and those who helped make the project possible.

Congratulations History 3801E!

A Special Visit

On March 3^rd Prof. Boulou from the University of Ottawa, head of the Promised Land Project, came to Huron in order to speak with a group of secondary school students from Chatham, Ontario.  Following this he was able to visit our class for a short time in order to discuss our class projects and the use of technology in history with us.  During his conversation with the Oberlin Project group we told him about our individual portions of the project which led to a discussion about the digital humanities.  The importance of interdisciplinary projects, intersections of different ways of thinking and producing work, and new ways of thinking through disciplines and their connections were focused upon.  He described the Promised Land project as a converging object, within which multiple disciplines can find their voice—our class project is a microcosm of this.  By allowing each person to explore their strengths multiple perspectives and truths can be explored within the context of the project that no one person may be able to delve into on their own.  In both cases multiple people/disciplines are able to find a voice within the larger project and historical materials are able to be explored without necessarily utilizing traditional historical methods to do so.  Opening up the project to a large number of researchers, from various disciplinary backgrounds and allowing it to appeal to a broader audience.  This discussion helped to reaffirm the importance of the project to the group and demonstrated to us the practical abilities we are taking away from a largely theoretical course.

February Update

Last week we did another check in for the Oberlin Project.  Pieces of the projects are going well and steadily coming together, making it easier to see how pieces of the project connects to each other and the larger question of abolition in South Western Ontario. 

• The Goggle Map for the interactive timeline and Wilson locations is going well.  Logistics have been worked out; however the task of coding and finding the exact longitude and latitude of locations have proven to be another feat.  An issue arises particularly when reference is made to locations that no longer exist or utilize the same name as another location.
  
• The mini biographies of individuals mentioned in the letters have been going well also.  People in the letters have been identified and basic information is being compiled.  A link will be created to show people where more information can be located on these individuals.
  
• The Hiram Wilson biography is progressing well—an early version has been posted on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiram_Wilson-- this page will have a link to the website once it is completed).  Unlike other works dedicated to Wilson’s life there has been an attempt to delve into his life after he left Dawn and went to St. Catherin's.
  
• A small trip to the Uncle Tom’s Cabin site is being organized in order to find out a bit more about what was set up at Dawn.  
  
• A few weeks ago I attempted to upload the first version of the video that is being created regarding the trips taken during the completion of this project.  Unfortunately this was unsuccessful.  Following the completion of the video—after the trip to the Uncle Tom’s Cabin site, the video will be exported to another format and upload will be attempted again.
  
• An extensive bibliography for the whole project is being compiled, though there has been some question about how precisely to divide it up or organize it.
  
• And finally, now that all the letters have been edited I will be able to compile them into one document which may be used for the embedded Google search for the letter content.

In the end website construction has been going well, it is hoped that a preliminary launch will occur just after reading week (this will allow us the opportunity to explore the website and work out any kinks prior to the official launch).  All the individual and collaborative portions of the website are to be given over to the members of the class working on the website on Thursday, the 17^th of February in order to make sure the launch date can be met.

Through the creation of the website it is hoped that accessibility to the information gleaned from the Hiram Wilson letters, and the project as a whole, will increase and awareness will be spread.  As part of the ever expanding archive of digital history and knowledge is important to be mindful of the image and interpretation of the facts we are displaying on the website.  Besides being a digital history project the website will delve into areas of history from below, religious and abolitionist areas of historical investigation, issues of memory, and the realm of public history.

Our next task is to try and link the Oberlin and Chatham projects—our two main ideas being the idea of global citizenship or the trans-Atlantic freedom movement.  This is being done in order to figure out precisely how to organize and advertise the launch of the website and the guest lecture being associated with it to occur in March.  Our class is looking forward to the event.

Progress Update

After a lovely holiday season it is back to work on the Hiram Wilson Project.  Prior to the winter break our class updated one another about the status of our individual portions of the project-- another session like this will be taking place on February 1st and 3rd, and this Thursday the project groups will be getting together during class time to discuss progress on individual projects that are combined.  In other news the launch of the website has been scheduled for March 24th, to coincide with the visit and lecture of Dr. Baumann.

Aspects of the website that members of the Hiram Wilson Project have been working, and updated one another on at the end of Novemeber are:

• An interactive map to show where the letters were coming from and where Wilson traveled to as he wrote.  This will likely be done using google maps and gps, indicating Wilson's route, and demonstrating the spatial dimension of the abolition movement.
• Mini biographies of the individuals Wilson's letters are addressed to, or who are mentioned frequently in the letters, will also be created-- this will be done in conjuncture with the interactive map in order to see the locations of these individuals in relation to the wider abolition movement and expand upon the idea of how people's lives were being affected.
• Contextual information about what was occurring in the places Wilson mentioned, traveled, and wrote to will be offered.
• A biography of Hiram Wilson is being written for the website, and will also be added to Wikipedia as there currently is not a page dedicated to him.
• A time line of the abolition movement and Hiram Wilson will be made, using pop-ups to indicate date and offer specific information.
• A comprehensive bibliography of sources used in the formulation of these aspects is being compiled.
• Website design is going well, a the time of these updates the sidebar and banner were being worked on.
• Event planning is in the initial stages.  A video and pamphlet are being created for the event and related usage.

As for the Chatham project, things are beginning to pick up for them as well and their group blog may be found at www.christchurch3801.blogspot.com

Update to Follow

Now that the initial transcriptions are complete the various pieces of the project can start to move forward.  The week on November 30th our class will be discussing the progress people have made on their specific pieces of the project (a similar update will occur the week of February 1st).  Following this I shall update the blog with what people are working on and how aspects of the project are looking as we move into the winter.  In the long run however it looks as though we are aiming for a website launch around the 24th of March, 2011.

In other news the Chatham/Christ Church project is beginning to pick up.  A link to their blog shall be posted in the near future as well.

Transcription

The initial transcription process, though daunting at times, is remarkably rewarding.  Being able to allow others access to a primary source that was previously restricted to hands on use is one of the true callings of historians.  Through transcription, however, the historian is able to influence how the process occurs.  Punctuation, phrasing, illegible and missing words are unintentionally manipulated by the transcriber when attempting to put the document back together.  This is unavoidable unfortunately.  In order to delineate the original from the transcriber’s input we put changes in square brackets ([example]) so readers are able to pass judgment themselves as a photograph of the original will be included with our transcriptions.  No source can ever truly be pristine.

After the initial transcription process we face the issue of where and how to proceed.  As this is a class project it may be difficult to come up with any single solution to this but through individual portions of the project a large number of historical types may be wedded together to form the whole.  For myself social aspects of history are the key to understanding history in general as different areas (like politics and economy) can be understood and learned about through a social perspective as well as their own sub-fields of history—while, at least in my opinion, social history may be slightly more difficult to get at the other way around.  Despite this a holistic approach is usually the best option.  If a historian approaches a project hoping to find a specific element they most often will dig or interpret until they have found it, the same is true of the reverse.  By being open minded and not setting oneself up for particular interpretations a wider range of information becomes available.  

By having so many different individuals, mindsets, and perspectives working on a single project our class has the benefit of ‘forced holism’.  People innately interpret things based on their own paradigm and personal interest; as such the combination of people in the class will allow multiple sides to be seen.  The problem of wedding interpretations and gleaned information together is likely to arise but that is just another proverbial bridge the class, and any historian doing research, needs to cross and square off with.

Documentation and Research

While at the Oberlin archives our group, with the assistance of Tim and Devon (two graduate students from Western) and the assistant archivist, documented the Hiram Wilson letters.  We photographed the letters directly onto the computer so they could be taken at a higher resolution.  This would help to preserve the integrity of the letters and allow us to look at them more closely without losing anything or the image becoming too pixelated.  It will be the job of the class to improve the quality of the image and crop it to size so they can be uploaded onto the project website upon its completion.  We will also be transcribing the letters in order to provide a text version beneath the uploaded image.  We were instructed on using the archive’s database in order to gain access to related information as well.

On the main floor of the library we were able to use the Oberlin library website to use databases we do not have access to through Western.  Our group researched Hiram Wilson and emailed ourselves the information.  By doing this we will be able to continue using this information throughout the progress of the project.  Members of the group have been uploading the research they found to a secure wiki page so we may all utilize the information that we amassed while in Oberlin.

The transcription process is in its beginning stages and shall be blogged about in the coming weeks.