Wednesday, December 19, 2018

Some Cool Projects by Students


This fall semester, three seniors did cool projects.  Joe Aldridge wrote a senior thesis on the history or propaganda in which he looked at several case studies in the United States of propaganda and misinformation, older versions of "fake news."  Gina Gerard created a web page on Games in Education with resources and plans for educators using games to teach social studies.  Jeremiah Horrigan's thesis on the Compromise of 1850 provided an interesting look at the political conflict that was a stepping stone to the Civil War.

Over in the archives, students working on history internships with Dennis Frank did good work.  Ashlee Gray's work on the NY 154 resulted in, among other things, the map that visualizes casualties mentioned earlier.  Joseph Giglio worked on the John F. Carr collection.  Adam Wojcik did extensive archival work in the Antonucci Collection of World War II materials.  All gained valuable experience working with original documents and preparing them for use that includes digital access.

The Hardtack Regiment Newsletter mentions the good work of our students.  Mark Dunkelman writes,

"Recently I had reason to visit the website of the Dunkelman and Winey Collection of the 154th New York at St. Bonaventure University for the first time in quite a while and was greatly pleased to find much progress has been made in digitizing materials and adding links to them. University Archivist Dennis Frank credits intern Ashlee Gray and work/study student Anna Giglio for their work on the site. Anna has been working on the A-F list of soldiers; Ashlee on the P-Z list. There is still plenty to be done, but these two dedicated women are steadily chipping away at it and I’m very grateful to them for their efforts. Take a look:  http://achives.sbu.edu/civil_war/154th_site.html



Tuesday, December 11, 2018

Data Visualization and History Internship


Ashlee Gray, double-major in History and English, is wrapping up her internship in the University Archives with Dennis Frank.  Ashlee, an alumnus of the digital history class that experimented with app making, worked on collecting, analyzing, and displaying data from the New York 154 regiment papers in the University Archives.  She worked in Microsoft Excel and then moved on to visualizing and mapping the data.  Above is a map she produced.  Next semester she plans on continuing the project to produce a more refined final product.  (Hint:  give it a moment to load and it works best if you expand it to full screen.)

Thursday, December 6, 2018

Practical Advice on Getting a Public History Job


The American Historical Association has a nice article, Practical Advice on Getting a Public History Job, that is worth a read.  The short version, in addition to studying history get the media, communications and other skills you need to land a job.

Tuesday, December 4, 2018

Board Games on Friday

It's the last day of classes!  Blow of some steam.  Chill before finals start.  Friday Dec 7 we'll be playing games and eating pizza (as long as it lasts) in the uppers seminar room in the Friedsam Memorial Library.