AHIS290, Spring 2016
Digital Sources are any kind of information that is encoded into machine-readable content and they have opened up a whole new set of opportunities and perspectives for historians in terms of historical analysis. Digital history and research can help us understand the patterns of history on a large-scale basis better than more subjective individual accounts like archives. Digital sources can offer tons of information and statistics about the collective group that we call society. Non-digital sources like archives or encyclopedias can be used to better understand more specific accounts such as what it was like to be on a ship in the 1700’s. Digital sources are best suited for more statistical history research such as the unemployment rate of a country during a specific interval of time. Using this can lead to a better understanding of the conditions of the economy of that country as a whole rather than researching into one or a few accounts. The major points of Schmidt’s essays consist of why digital humanities should spend more time focusing on larger trends in history rather than individual stories even though this is an unpopular idea, and what needs to be done in order to humanize the way we research using digital data.
Schmidt expresses the idea that digital history and data are much more useful to historians and their research if it does not focus as much attention on subjective accounts. If you want to better understand specific statistical changes than it is more efficient to use an account that is focused on the entire group of individuals because it offers many more perspectives which leads to more accurate research and Schmidt stresses the importance is using digital history correctly, meaning using the general, non-subjective digital sources because it will lead to the most optimal analysis. Although this idea is seen as “dehumanizing” Schmidt makes the case that his idea is less dehumanizing than forcing a history that is centered on the collective group to pretend that individual actors could or did make the difference. This is highly unlikely and therefore it only makes sense that less individuality in digital history is beneficial to historian’s research and understanding.
Schmidt feels there are three things that need too be done in order to make digital history more humanized and that is adding a filter on the information that gets digitized so we can know what information is reliable, reformulating the information into a more understandable format and finally finding ways to relate to the context. In doing these things, it eliminates the bias within digital history and narrows information down to the most vital and useful information.
Schmidt’s correct way of utilizing digital history is an unpopular opinion, but it makes sense that if we exploit digital sources and non-digital sources and use them to their strengths than it limits the amount of bias information and enhances the research historians do. The humane thing to do would be to limit the amount of bias we have in our information because it leads to a better comprehension of our history.
Why is it that individual accounts are not as useful in digital history?
Why does Schmidt suggest reformulating the content of digital history into a more meaningful form but his work is very difficult to read?
Why does reformulating the content of digital history help us understand it better in some cases?
All of my links relate to riots and protesting in the Albany area. The first link, from 1951, is a newspaper clipping about juniors girls at Vincentian Institute protesting off-shoulder dresses. They believed that girls should look more wholesome during their school dances, and chose to protest by wearing their school uniforms to their Prom.
To contrast that, my second post (from 1957) is a newspaper article concerning teenagers (mainly girls) throwing rocks at members of a band at a free concert in Albany. They were upset because the music was too slow for their taste. Many officials were upset that these young girls were so invested in rock ‘n’ roll, and that they would do something so barbaric at a concert which “doesn’t cost them a nickel…and it’s all for their own benefit”.
I found my last source amusing. It is an advertisement (appearing to be from the newspaper) urging people to get riot coverage. I found this most amusing because it was from 1921, whereas my other sources for protests or riots were from the 50s. I hope to be able to explore and see what kind of riots were present in the 1920s, and the extent of these riots. What was going on in the 1920’s that made people riot, and riot insurance relevant.
http://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/704?tour=2&index=10#.VsNLO_krIdU
We had two assigned readings for class on Tuesday. These readings were “How does OCR document scanning work?” by Chris Woodford and “Is Digitizing Historical Texts a Bad Idea?” by Mills. First I would like to discuss the article by Woodford. Woodford gets into OCR or Optical Character Recognition. Optical Character Recognition in simple terms is a program that computers use to view printed text in an easier format. It allows for your computer to recognize printed text. There are two basic ways for OCR to work. The options are Pattern Recognition or Feature Detection. Pattern recognition works to see the pattern of letters and feature detection looks for things such as strokes of handwriting when writing the letter. OCR is a very useful tool. Using it you can almost always at least get a decent guess at what is written. Even if someone with extremely sloppy handwriting is writing a message OCR may be able to decode it using pattern recognition and feature recognition. It simplifies this process even further if you have some background information on what the person may have been trying to say. OCR was invented earlier than I would have thought for sure. It’s roots date all the way back to 1928.
How Does OCR Scanning Work? by Chris Woodford
In our next reading by Mills the topic is digitizing of historical texts. His main point seems to be that if we digitize texts they lose some of the connection in general. He spoke about how he was showing some students an old book and while they were not excited to start with they became intrigued by the book and by the end enjoyed the whole experience. Would this have happened if he had shown them a digitized version of the same book? While the answer may have been no, there is also an argument on the other side of the spectrum. There are a lot of advantages do digitizing texts. The main advantage is the audience you can reach with digitized text expands greatly. Mills and his colleagues debate over this topic for what he describes as a few weeks and he himself is still unsure while writing this article which way he is siding with. I believe the pros outweigh the cons in digitizing historical texts. In my opinion, digitizing historical texts is beneficial because it opens the text up to a way larger range of people and it becomes easier to access and sometimes even to read. The only argument, although it is a big one, to not digitize historical texts is that it takes away from the physical aspect and the historical connection that the text contains. This is a good point, but I sway towards digitizing these texts.
Is Digitizing Historical Texts a Bad Idea? by Mills
These two articles are very much intertwined. The OCR article speaks about computers being able to detect handwriting and digitize it and the second article speaks about the debate over digitizing historical texts. If you side with me on the discussion about digitizing historical texts than Optical Character Recognition seems to be a great tool that may be able to be used in the process of digitizing historical texts. In our homework for this week we have to transcribe part of an old Albany census. There are certainly going to be some names that we are not sure about when we are reading the census. An OCR machine may be able to pick up on patterns in writing that we are not able to and digitize this text for us, but it also may not. Also our homework is another good example of why digitizing historical texts is necessary. Us transcribing the census into print makes for a way better resource than the original because it will be easier to get the content even if it takes away from the historical connection.
Questions I would like to pose:
1: Do you think that Optical Character Recognition is reliable and a good source for transcribing?
2: The obvious question of this write-up, do you think it is a good idea to digitize historical texts?
3: Do you think that Optical Character Recognition could play a part in the digitizing of historical texts?
Fashion in Albany can be quite a midterm project topic because Albany is known for its cold weather, so as historians we can see how that effected life in the 1900’s. We can also see what different staple locations in Albany contributed to the fashion culture and how different or similar the location is to serving the purpose that it once did.
For potential project ideas, I chose entertainment in the Albany region. Since, attending a University in the state’s capital, I chose specific events and landmarks that I found were popular and traditional in Albany. The first choice was the Paramount Theatre established in 1929. The image accompanying the information on the map does not look like theaters that we see today. I found the construction of the building to be unique. It would be interesting to know who attended the theatre, the cost of admission, and what were the biggest films being played at the time. The second choice was the Tulip Fest. I had no prior knowledge of when this event started, its purpose, and how it had become a tradition in the Albany community. The images showed the annual fest occurring in the spring, the inducted Queen, and other activities. The last choice was a fight at the Albany Armory between Muhammad Ali and Ernie Terrell. The cost of admission was only $4.50 to see such famous fighters. The Armory today, is typically used for parties and concerts. The layout that I remember is similar to a basketball court for a gym, but the outside structure shows how historic and memorable the building is.
Metallurgy and the trade of blacksmithing is the area I chose to focus on for a number of reasons. The primary reason is that I am fascinated by the craft; it is an occupation that once helped revolutionize the world yet it seems all but forgotten in modern times.
There were a number of blacksmiths and silversmiths during this time period such as James Bishop and Benjamin Browning of 279 and 202 Washington Avenue, respectively. During this time period, there were a total of 8 blacksmiths just in the immediate city of Albany. Today, the John Eagan Blacksmith sign pictured above still stands as a reminder of the past to this day on Liberty Street in downtown Albany.
Similar Tour: Mel Rose & Rose Iron Works
Religious Albany, New York, Saint Peter’s Bell
Religious Albany, New York, Saint Peter’s Church, State Street and Barracks (Chapel) Street
Religious Albany, New York, Saint Peter’s Church, State Street and Barracks (Chapel) Street
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https://www.google.com/maps/dir/125+Eagle+St,+Albany,+NY+12202/107+State+St,+Albany,+NY+12207/10+Lodge+Street,+Albany,+NY/First+Church+In+Albany,+110+N+Pearl+St,+Albany,+NY+12207/St+Joseph’s+Terrace,+Albany,+NY+12210/62+S+Swan+St,+Albany,+NY+12210/275+State+St,+Albany,+NY+12210/405+Quail+St,+Albany,+NY+12208/@42.6598593,-73.7762165,13.3z/data=!4m50!4m49!1m5!1m1!1s0x89de0a22cd423549:0x877219abd8418f10!2m2!1d-73.7598914!2d42.6476819!1m5!1m1!1s0x89de0a2421936aef:0x5e76103e93a9bc4a!2m2!1d-73.7540206!2d42.6509774!1m5!1m1!1s0x89de0a26623558bb:0x8d27a196fb19e89e!2m2!1d-73.7528015!2d42.6518573!1m5!1m1!1s0x89de0a2633c7330d:0xddf36129e1230a2a!2m2!1d-73.7506732!2d42.6535577!1m5!1m1!1s0x89de0a29183502b7:0xdad04f1af8d6f903!2m2!1d-73.752369!2d42.656719!1m5!1m1!1s0x89de0a2566b76f59:0x78352f4963991a72!2m2!1d-73.7578227!2d42.6546411!1m5!1m1!1s0x89de0a3aeb2b8d9b:0xb171ffbab8d18106!2m2!1d-73.7610466!2d42.6543185!1m5!1m1!1s0x89de0a5c7e0e0f4b:0xd337c53bd827be9d!2m2!1d-73.786095!2d42.6540589!3e2?hl=en
Cleveland Walking Tour: St. Augustine, Pilgrim Church, Old Stone Church
http://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/103#.VsNKVvkrIdU
http://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/93#.VsNLFfkrIdU
http://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/165#.VsNLafkrIdU
