Digital Humanities – Spring 2018

What is this digital public history exhibit about?

This digital public history concerns advertisements that were printed into newspapers 250 years ago. Every day, a new image of an advertisement is posted displaying what was published in the news 250 years ago that same day. Most of these advertisements discuss slavery and slave auctions, as this was the main subject of news and advertisements at this time.

 

Who made it, and why?

The main contributors to this exhibit are students from Colonial America, Revolutionary America, and Public History courses at Assumption College. Every semester, new students guest contribute to this exhibit as part of their coursework. This project is administered and operated by Carl Robert Keyes, the associate professor of history at Assumption College.

 

What kinds of primary sources did you find?

Every post in this exhibit is a primary source, as they are images of real-life newspapers from 250 years ago.

 

Overall, what did the digital public history exhibit do well?

One thing that I believe this exhibit does very well is that it is easily accessible to all of it’s users. The main dashboard displays the advertisements from 250 years ago of the day you are on the website. All of the information is easily discoverable, as on the right-hand side, the user can see all recent posts, as well as all of the posts completed in the last year categorized by month. If a user has a date in mind, they can easily search for it on the right-hand side as well. All information on the website and it’s contributors can be found by clicking on the different tabs located on the top of the page. I did not find any of the information to be difficult to find, unlike many other websites I have used in the past.

Overall, what could be improved in the digital public history exhibit?

One thing that I believe can be improved on in this exhibit is the difficulty level of reading the advertisements themselves. Obviously, language has changed much from 250 years ago, from phrases, to words, and even to letters. I found it very difficult to read some of the advertisements, as the letters and words sometimes looked like other letters and words, making it hard to comprehend what the writer was trying to say. The contributors to this website can fix this problem by transcribing the text underneath the image, allowing readers to see the words far more clearly and understand what is trying to be said.

Thinking about digital humanities more broadly, what is gained, and what is lost, when representing the past through this digital public history exhibit?

One thing that is gained through this exhibit is a perspective on how both society and media has changed over time. By reading the information that is presented on this website, it is obvious how much society has changed, the number one difference being the abolished slavery. News and advertisements have completely changed, and are also more universal to include many different topics rather than just one. By simply looking at the website, the viewer can see how much media has changed from 250 years ago. During this time, newspapers were the main way to get information across to people; now, online digital media is the main way for people to access news and information. Currently, most people have access to the internet and utilize it to gain information for all different uses. Containing these images and this information on this platform allows people from all over the world to access this information easily, anywhere they want.

What is this digital public history exhibit about?

This digital public history exhibit is titled “The Adverts 250 Project”. The purpose of the exhibit is to explore different kinds of advertisements that were popular 250 years ago from today.

Who made it, and why?

Carl Robert Keyes is the creator of this digital public history exhibit. It was created to educate the public about things that aren’t tangible. These sources won’t be easily available to the public, so Keye’s exhibit allows the public to get a hold of this information.

What kinds of primary sources did you find?

New paper clippings

*Above is an example of a clipping from The Abvert 250 Project*

 

Overall, what did the digital public history exhibit do well?

The organization of the digital public history exhibit is very appealing. Posting day by day advertisements was a very clever to help keep things from being confusing.  Navigating the website was very easy.

Overall, what could be improved in the digital public history exhibit?

They could make it easier to get to posts from past months. It was hard to look at posts from the beginning of February. It required you to scroll endlessly through posts to find the post you want.

Thinking about digital humanities more broadly, what is gained, and what is lost, when representing the past through this digital public history exhibit?

Digitizing things allows us to preserve our past without the fear of it getting lost. There are many ways to save and share digitized artifacts. The authenticity of an object or artifact is lost when it is digitized. Being able to have an artifact in your hand is very different from looking at it on a screen.

This project was about advertising slaves for sale in the 18th century. Each day on this site advertisements are published.

The man who made this site is Carl Robert Keyes a professor from Massachusetts. I think it is very important for people to see this kind of stuff to get a dose of reality and how similar and different people were back then. This country needs to remember history and not just forget about it. They need to be reminded of why we should be fighting for equality and what our ancestors went through/ did to others.

I found newspaper clippings and advertisements. It honestly saddened me to read these clippings, but at the same time it made me think and thats what this site is supposed to make you do and feel in my opinion.

I really enjoy that there is a new post everyday from 250 years ago. It’s also great because its easy to read and not all over the place.

The access to the original sources needs to be a bit easier to find. The feeling of the actual newspaper in your hand is the only down fall for me, just like when you buy an e-book instead of a regular book in your hands.

-Monique Walsh

The Adverts 250 project is a digital history exhibit that republishes advertisements from 250 years prior on an online forum. This project was created by Carl Robert Keyes and is supported by his “curators”, students taking Colonial America, Revolutionary America and other Public History courses at Assumption College. The purpose of this project is to allow people today to view advertisements from Colonial America, which include advertisements of different merchandise as well as slave sale and information. While searching through the website you are able to come across different primary sources. These primary sources include clippings from newspapers at that time that express the different aspects of life 250 years ago. Some of these primary sources include slave owners reporting run away slaves, the sale of slaves and even different tradesmen marketing themselves and their product.

Overall, the digital history exhibit is easy to navigate. It allows you to look into different months and years as well as having explanations that make it easier to understand what is shown in the photos. The exhibit could’ve been better by narrowing down how to search for different dates, as well as trying to make the adverts more legible by having a verbatim copy somewhere in order to better understand the photo. The digital history exhibit is also not very visually appealing. When presenting history in a digital exhibit there are definitely positives and negatives. Some positives include the gain of knowledge about what was common 250 years ago and being able to have a small insight into what happened then. It shows different trades and things that were of importance at this time period. Viewing information this way gives a more indepth viewpoint than it may when reading about these occurrences in a history textbook. Negative aspects of the digital history exhibit include the predescribed explanation of these documents, which can include certain bias. It is also much more powerful of an experience if an individual can see these advertisements in person rather than through a screen.

Kara Smith

This website is a blog post format that displays old newspaper articles and slavery advertisements from Colonial America 250 years ago. It was made by Carl Robert Keyes, a professor at Assumption College. The general purpose of this website is to show the old articles as a means of displaying history, followed by analysis and commentary.

The sources consist mostly of newspaper articles/advertisements that were accessed by the Accessible Archives website which digitized them.

What I like about this website is how they deliver their content. It is uploaded running parallel to the calendar of America 250 years ago. If an individual is really interested in history during this period, then they will always have something to look forward to every day/month. That makes the consistent schedule of releasing material kind of ironic in a way because what people are looking forward to seeing has technically already been in existence, yet it is presented as new reading material for the public. The page itself is neat and the list of months on the side is convenient for quick navigation to certain articles within that period of the year.

I have little to criticize about this page mainly because of the fact that it executes it’s sole intention: playing the role of a newspaper delivery man who time-travels 250 years into the future. Essentially what will be the death of this website will be time itself, then again, the 250 years in the past will never catch up to the present time since they move parallel to each other. But eventually the 250 years in the past will reach a point where computers and other technologies exist, decreasing the historical beneficial value of this website.

What is gained from this website is an engaging experience into what people read in the newspaper 250 years ago. It teaches how blunt and different people were back then, and just how inhuman human beings were during that time. Regardless if they were aware or not, the diction and vocabulary that they use in the advertisement is quite unsettling to be placed in a newspaper. It felt like I was in a black market sort of atmosphere (not that I ever shopped in a black market before). As for losses, I don’t necessarily think anything is lost from this website. It executes its purpose.

-Grant Boyd

 

 

 

What is this digital public history exhibit about?

The Adverts 250 Project is a digital exhibit that is about advertising in the 18th century. Everyday there are new posts on the site that were published 250 years ago in colonial newspapers. Below the article that they post, there is a written explanation that goes further in depth to provide you with more knowledge on the piece.

Who made it, and why?

The exhibit is managed by man named Carl Robert Keyes, who was a professor at Assumption College in Massachusetts. Some students from the college have also added to the site. The exhibit was created to explore the history of advertising during the 18th century in great detail. It also serves as a great plane for comparison for us. We can look at what is being advertised in this day and time, compared to what was being advertised on this exact day many years ago.

What kinds of primary sources did you find?

The primary sources that I found were all of the newspaper articles/ advertisements, since that is the sites main focus after all. Seeing the slave advertisements, like the one I’ve inserted below, really hit home for me. It’s very hard and disturbing to think that people used to treat other human beings as property.

 

 

 

Overall, what did the digital public history exhibit do well?

I think that the digital public history exhibit did a good job with organizing the site. Articles can be accessed by date, which I was a big fan of. This would make it easy to see articles and advertisements from a certain week in history, if you were doing research on a certain time perhaps. I also really like how the actual articles are scanned onto the site, because even though you can’t hold then physically, at least you get some kind of feel for the article itself. I think that the exhibit did a good job doing what it was meant to do.

Overall, what could be improved in the digital public history exhibit?

Yes, the site was organized, but it was rather dull. Not that the website should be super upbeat or radiating sunshine, since a lot of it is about slavery, but the gray background just really wasn’t doing it for me. That would probably be the only thing I would fix or think that they could do better, but thats just a personal preference. Overall, I don’t think much could be improved.

Thinking about digital humanities more broadly, what is gained, and what is lost, when representing the past through this digital public history exhibit?

My biggest thing with all of the digital public history exhibits that we have viewed is that yes, they are great tools. They are great tools because you can have many resources at the click of a button right at your fingertips, and don’t have to drive all the way to an actual exhibit to obtain this information. However, I am really not a fan of them. By viewing things on line, we lose the emotional aspect of what they truly are. Seeing, or even possibly holding an advertisement for slaves being sold would take so much more of an emotional toll than just seeing a scan of it online.

 

 

-Megan Bender