A while back, as part of my minor field readings in History and New Media, I was tasked with creating an interactive story related to historical thinking, the process of archival research, or a historical topic you have researched. I produced a sort of “Choose Your Own Adventure” wherein the adventure is visiting an archives.…… Continue reading Implicitly Learned: Archival Research
Author: Megan
More than 140 characters
I tweeted earlier tonight “The further I get in my PhD program, the riskier it feels to publish a blog post.” This is entirely true. When I was writing for class, I not only had readily provided topics to blog about, but I had a deadline and the illusion of a limited audience. Before September…… Continue reading More than 140 characters
Papers of the War Department
One of the projects I work on at RRCHNM is the Papers of the War Department. I’m fond of it because it was the only project I worked on my first year, it falls within my temporal period of study, and I’ve discovered some very entertaining letters which generating metadata and summaries for it. Lately…… Continue reading Papers of the War Department
Some of the tools I use
My work life this summer has been predominantly focused on two summer institutes, one for art historians and one for historians, which give the participants an introduction to concepts and methods in digital (art) history. It was a lot of information to pack into two weeks per institute, and very thought-provoking for everyone involved. As…… Continue reading Some of the tools I use
SVG and WordPress
Palladio is a lovely visualization tool, with the ability to export graphs to svg and save your work. But using it posed a new question: how the heck do I display an svg file in a WordPress post without digging into the CSS or php?* I tried installing two plugins, one of which allowed me…… Continue reading SVG and WordPress
Teaching History to Captain America
I started thinking about this post in 2011, Captain America: The First Avenger came out. The movie came out the summer before I started my PhD program, and Clio Wired in particular made me think about how digital tools could make history education more accessible on the move. It was a sort of thought experiment:…… Continue reading Teaching History to Captain America
Compare and contrast
On my way back from Poughkeepsie, I stopped in New Paltz to visit Historic Huguenot Street, which popped up on my twitter feed on Sunday evening. Once I arrived, I realized I’d been there once during my college career, but only to wander around outside, never in the buildings, and moreover they’re in the process…… Continue reading Compare and contrast
Reunion
Last weekend I attended my 10th college reunion. In addition to seeing people I haven’t seen since our 5 year, enjoying the annual alumnae parade (headed by a woman from the class of 1934!), and generally indulging in nostalgia, I had a chance to reconnect with two aspects of my undergraduate experience which helped shape…… Continue reading Reunion
National Park Service’s LBGT Theme Study
On Tuesday, I attended the Department of Interior’s inaugural panel discussion for the new theme study on Lesbian, Gay Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) history in the National Park Service (NPS). The study is part of a larger effort within NPS to ensure that the histories of minority Americans are included and communicated in their sites.…… Continue reading National Park Service’s LBGT Theme Study
Belle
I recently saw Belle (2013), a film based on the true story of Dido Elizabeth Belle, a woman of color and status in late eighteenth century England. While the film diverges from the actual facts, it does so to underscore the messages of the film. Some reviewers have pointed out the “Austen-esque” nature of the story,…… Continue reading Belle