History Commons^™

From The Trenches: Cross-Campus Digital History Collaboration, Amy E. Lucadamo, Ian A. Isherwood, R.C. Miessler, Jenna Fleming, Meghan E. O'Donnell

R.C. Miessler

In September 2015, our team launched The First World War Letters of H.J.C. Peirs (www.jackpeirs.org), a digital history initiative built on collaboration between faculty, students, and library staff. The project is founded on amazing primary source material, but with limited financial support and little dedicated staff time. We leveraged the creativity and hard work of our team members to build a website that is maintained by students and enhanced whenever possible with features and commentary from faculty and staff. Members of #TeamPeirs discussed the evolution of the project, the nature of our collaboration, and the intersection of audiences …

In The Beginning... A Legacy Of Computing At Marshall University, Jack L. Dickinson, Arnold R. Miller Ed.E

Arnold R. Miller

This book provides a brief history of the early computing technology at Marshall University, Huntington, W.Va., in the forty years: 1959-1999. This was before the move to Intel and Windows based servers. After installation of an IBM Accounting Machine in 1959, which arguably does not fit the modern definition of a computer, the first true computer arrived in 1963 and was installed in a room below the Registrar’s office. For the next twenty years several departments ordered their own midrange standalone systems to fit their individual departmental requirements. These represented different platforms from different vendors, and were not connected to …

A Comprehensive Bibliography Of Nineteenth Century Bicycling Periodicals, Christopher A. Sweet

Christopher A. Sweet

Shining A Light On The Past: History In Your Ir, Jennifer Deal

Jennifer Deal, MA, MLIS

See how one health care system digitized and uploaded historical photographs and printed materials for their IR.

Mystery To History: An Uncommon Way To Teach The Common Core, Reneé C. Lyons, Deborah Parrott

Reneé C. Lyons

With the transition to Common Core, school librarians are called to collaborate with teachers as well as to provide library media instruction for the preparation of our students in college and career readiness. How do we assist our teachers with Common Core instruction while preserving our love of fiction? How do we achieve Common Core Standards in our own instruction while sharing our treasured stories? Although Common Core focuses on informational text, there are numerous ways in which we can incorporate fiction as well as nonfiction into the curriculum.

Conflicting Philosophies: Two University Librarians And A Presidential Bibliophile, Meg Miner

Meg Miner

Fall 2017 Report On "Portrait Of A Collector", Meg Miner

Meg Miner

Mapping The Oratory Of Frederick Douglass, Olivia Macisaac, Peter Harrah, David Lewis, Lynette Taylor, Leann West, Matthew Young

Olivia MacIsaac

This project is a multidisciplinary study of Douglass’s speaking tours throughout his long public career as an abolitionist, human rights advocate, and politician. For this initial phase, our primary aim was data collection for which our research team sampled a single year from each of the six decades from the 1840s to the 1890s. This was the time period in which well-known runaway slave and civil rights leader Frederick Douglass toured the United States and Europe. The purpose of this study is to develop a spatial representation of the itinerary of Douglass’s speaking-related travels. This will not only enable us …

Crowdsourcing Digital Public History, Jason A. Heppler, Gabriel K. Wolfenstein

Jason Heppler

The generation of communal knowledge is not a new phenomenon. In the late nineteenth century, the Oxford English Dictionary solicited volunteers to submit words and their usage for inclusion in the dictionary ( 1 ). Carl Becker, writing in 1932 on what was already an old discussion in the historical profession, noted that "if the essence of history is the memory of things said and done, then it is obvious that every normal person, Mr. Everyman, knows some history" (2). The historian Jo Guldi's work on participatory mapping shows that urban planners in the middle of the twentieth century attempted …

A Call To Redefine Historical Scholarship In The Digital Turn, Jason A. Heppler, Douglas Seefeldt, Alex Galarza

Jason Heppler

This is a collaboratively-written call for the American Historical Association to appoint a task force to survey the profession as to the place of digital historical scholarship in promotion and tenure and graduate student training and to recommend standards and guidelines for the profession to follow. This document is a product of many of the exciting changes discussed below. It began at a session atTHATCamp AHA 2012 that included graduate students, tenured and non-tenured faculty, and librarians. These participants and others continued their conversations at the physical conference and afterwards on the web. Additional signatures and edits in the …

The Early History Of The Mill Valley Public Library, Rebecca Karberg

Rebecca Karberg

Questioning The Past And Possible Futures: Digital Historiography And Critical Librarianship, Heidi Jacobs, Calin Murgu

Heidi LM Jacobs

The role of history as a discipline is, as Burton and Sweeny claim, not only to transform our understanding of the past and the present but also to shape possible futures. Digital historical projects are transformative endeavors that attempt to negotiate and navigate the past and articulate these possible futures. Drawing on the foundational ideas of critical librarianship to “intervene in and disrupt” structural inequities and on examples from digital historiography, we argue for a more robust role for librarians within these transformative endeavors. In so doing, librarians can use conscious, deliberate, reflexive actions to work toward animating values central …

Shining A Light On A University Special Collection With Data Visualization, Lisa Deluca, Katie M. Wissel

Kathryn Wissel, MBA, MI

The Politics Of Special Collections And Museum Exhibits: A Civil War Or The War Of Northern Aggression?, Christopher J. Anderson

Christopher Anderson

This essay examines the political nature of curating special collections and museum exhibits. Exhibits are designed to draw attention to historical or contemporary issues in order for viewers to reflect on the past and to ask questions in the present. The contents of an exhibit also echo the educational backgrounds, interests, and biases of both curator and curatorial team. As a result exhibits are framed ideologically, sociologically, and even theologically in order to give voice to the voiceless and to champion certain positions from history. This essay investigates the contested nature of exhibits by highlighting their basic and complicated spectrums …

"The Horace Chilton Memoirs, Part Ii." Chronicles Of Smith County, Texas 30 No. 2 (Winter, 1991): 1-11., Vicki Betts

Vicki Betts

Senator Horace Chilton's description of Tyler, Texas, from when he was a boy during the Civil War.

"The Horace Chilton Memoirs, Part I." Chronicles Of Smith County, Texas 30 No. 1 (Summer 1991): 1-19., Vicki Betts

Vicki Betts

Senator Horace Chilton's memoirs of growing up in Tyler, Texas, during secession, Civil War and Reconstruction, including an account of the emancipation of the family's slaves. His father, George Chilton, belonged to the Knights of the Golden Circle, was a delegate to the Secession Convention, and served in the Third Texas Cavalry, then as ordnance officer under Gen. Bee. He was elected to Congress after the war but was denied his seat.

"The Civil War Letters Of Elbridge Littlejohn, Part 2." Chronicles Of Smith County, Texas 18 No. 1 (Summer, 1979): 11-50., Vicki Betts

Vicki Betts

The letters of Elbridge Gerry Littlejohn, Co. G, 10th Texas Cavalry, to his wife Sallie Jefferies Littlejohn, in Smith County, Texas, during the Civil War.

"The Civil War Letters Of Elbridge Littlejohn, Part 1." Chronicles Of Smith County, Texas 17 No. 2 (Winter, 1978): 8-60., Vicki Betts

Vicki Betts

Letters between Elbridge Gerry Littlejohn of the 10th Texas Cavalry, and his wife Sallie Jeffries Littlejohn in Starrville, Smith County, Texas, during the Civil War.

"Newspaper Notes, A Continuation: The Texas Methodist Newspapers, 1878-1879." Chronicles Of Smith County, Texas 38 No. 2 (Winter 1999): 19-29., Vicki Betts

Vicki Betts

Articles from the Texas Christian Advocate, a Methodist newspaper, 1878-1879, concerning Tyler and Smith County, Texas.

"Newspaper Notes, A Continuation: The Texas Methodist Newspapers, 1874-1877.", Vicki Betts

Vicki Betts

Articles gleaned from the Texas Christian Advocate, a Methodist newspaper, which deal with Tyler and Smith County, Texas, 1874-1877.

"Newspaper Notes, A Continuation: The Texas Methodist Newspapers, 1872-1873." Chronicles Of Smith County, Texas 37 No. 2 (Winter 1998): 16-25., Vicki Betts

Vicki Betts

Articles from the Texas Christian Advocate, a Methodist newspaper, 1872-1873, concerning Tyler and Smith County, Texas.

"Newspaper Notes, A Continuation: The Texas Methodist Newspapers, 1851-1859." Chronicles Of Smith County, Texas 36 No. 1 (Summer 1997): 16-25., Vicki Betts

Vicki Betts

Articles from the Texas Wesleyan Banner and Texas Christian Advocate, both Methodist newspapers, from the years 1851-1859, that deal with Tyler and Smith County, Texas.

"Newspaper Notes, A Continuation: Newspapers." Chronicles Of Smith County, Texas 31 No. 1 (Summer 1992): 36-44., Vicki Betts

Vicki Betts

Articles gleaned from regional newspapers concerning newspapers in Tyler and Smith County, Texas, 1860-1875.

"Newspaper Notes, A Continuation: Miscellaneous." Chronicles Of Smith County, Texas 35 No. 2 (Winter 1996): 18-24, Vicki Betts

Vicki Betts

Newspaper articles about miscellaneous activities in Tyler and Smith County, Texas, during the Civil War and Reconstruction, gleaned from regional papers.

"Newspaper Notes, A Continuation: Business & Communications; Marriages & Deaths." Chronicles Of Smith County, Texas 32 No. 1 (Summer 1993): 24-36., Vicki Betts

Vicki Betts

Articles gleaned from regional newspapers concerning businesses, communications, marriages, and deaths in Tyler and Smith County, Texas, 1860-1875.

"Early Lindale Businesses." Chronicles Of Smith County, Texas 31 No. 1 (Summer 1992): 25, 31, 35., Vicki Betts

Vicki Betts

A listing of businesses in Lindale, Texas, as rated by the Mercantile Agency Reference Book, 1880-1897.

Gill Library At 75: Looking Back While Looking Forward, Ana Fontoura, Martha Counihan O.S.U.

Martha Counihan

No abstract provided.

The Myth Of Freedom Of Information., John Chenault

John Chenault

The article discusses the myths surrounding the founding of the U.S. and the freedoms of information supposedly conferred by its founders in the drafting and ratification of the U.S. Constitution. Particular focus is given to the efforts of libraries in defending the public's right to know and their attempts to inform and instruct the public on the significance of openness in government. The misuse of a quote by former U.S. President James Madison about freedom of information is explored.

The William F. Charters Collection: An Introduction, George W. Geib

George W. Geib

No abstract provided.

This Was J.C. Penney: A Century Of James Penney’S Main Street Department Stores In The Rocky Mountain West, David Delbert Kruger

David Delbert Kruger

The article discusses the history of the department store chain J.C. Penney in the Rocky Mountain region of the U.S. West, particularly focusing on Montana. It comments on founder James Cash Penney's early retailing efforts and his time working for the Golden Rule chain of stores. The author examines the configuration, size, and logos of J.C. Penney stores, and describes the shift in the location of stores from main streets to shopping malls. The impact of the Great Depression in the 1930s is also addressed.