Mapping Union Draft Riots with Brian Valimont
The CDH regularly speaks with students, faculty, and members of the community about their experience with Digital Humanities. Want to contribute to “Conversations on DH?” Let us know!
First tell us about your research
I transitioned from a background in archaeology to study history at the graduate level. During my first career, I often encountered historic archaeological site remains. Undertaking deed, probate, and genealogical research on past historic occupants of site properties spurred a passion for historic records research that led me to Southern Miss. Simultaneously, I spent my spare time reading histories about the American Civil War and grew increasingly fascinated by it. This led me into investigating declining support in the North for the Civil War as the conflict intensified. Currently, I am analyzing and synthesizing information about a series of riots that capture this dissent. These occurred across the Union because of multiple factors including the military draft, the changing goals of the war, and wartime inflation.
How did you first become interested in digital methods and/or digital humanities scholarship?
Brian Valimont is a PhD student in U.S. History at the University of Southern Mississippi. For fun he enjoys fitness, playing and listening to music, and taking care of his two dogs.
I first became interested in Digital Humanities methods and scholarship during a Public History graduate class I took at Salem State University. I realized that presenting historical issues in digital formats was most likely going to become increasingly common, and I noticed that digital methods were an excellent way to disseminate and explain complex historical questions, debates and large-scale data in an easy-to-understand manner. I also understood that digital methods would be useful to share historical inquiries not only with the scholarly community but also with the general public. When I started the PhD History program here at the University of Southern Mississippi, Digital Humanities was offered as a research skill that was highly applicable to both the program and to my research interests.
How do you utilize digital methods in your research or teaching?
I have learned a combination of practical digital skills and I've engaged with a variety of scholarly issues that are common to digital humanists. One question that interests me is “who is included and who is invisible in archival resources?” Another intriguing question is “what are some of the hidden underlying realities behind quantitative data that is often portrayed as authoritative and definitive?” I've also had the chance to develop my own website and learn how to craft efficient yet effective blog posts. At my site, I also experiment with creating historical data and presenting my analysis through digital exhibits. I want this website to serve as a digital companion to my dissertation so that my scholarship and the data that supports it is accessible to colleagues in the field and to the wider, history-curious public.
Which platforms and/or DH tools have you found the most useful and why?
This website uses Omeka, a tool used to make digital archives. There was a bit of a learning curve to become familiar with its functionality, but once that was achieved, it became easy to update, change and expand. If you get a Reclaim Hosting account, for a pretty reasonable annual fee, you can set up and operate both a WordPress based blogging website as well as an Omeka based digital exhibits website. Another digital tool that I am quite interested in is Storymap JS, which provides a very easy to use digital format for creating map- and image-based timelines. It is especially useful for conveying historical phenomena over space and time. Here is an example of what can be done with this digital tool.
Name 1-3 digital projects and/or scholarship that you find inspiring and influential
Through my university courses as well as my own explorations of the cavernous digital world, I have been influenced by several digital projects. They also provided inspiration about what a researcher can achieve with the digital humanities. I am a proponent of digital archives – websites that make collections of historic documents accessible online. One such is The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War. This digital archive brings together over 12,000 mid-19th Century documents from Augusta County, Virginia and Franklin County, Pennsylvania. Another digital archive I really like is The People’s Contest: A Civil War Era Digital Archiving Project. It brings together Civil War and Reconstruction Era documents from Pennsylvania and serves as a hub for finding out about non-digitized collections archived in the state. An additional digital archive which I find very helpful is Freedom on the Move. It is a digital collection of over 30,500 fugitive slave advertisements from Colonial American newspapers. Making research materials available digitally will make the future of research easier and more efficient.
Going forward do you see yourself using more DH tools/platforms in your research and presentation process?
I see the utility and importance of digital humanities as part of the future of any area of study, especially for history. I plan to continue implementing digital methods, platforms and theoretical concerns in my future research. One digital format that I really want to learn to utilize is mapping programs, such as QGIS. My interest in using maps to convey information about the past carried over from archaeology into history. I simply haven’t had the time yet to indulge in learning and utilizing it. With so many pots simmering on the academic stove, I hope that I’ll have time to get cooking on digital mapping programs sometime soon! Another aspect of digital humanities that I really want to delve into is producing podcasts. Podcasts are an excellent medium for conveying historical studies to the academic community as well as the general public. People may not have the time to read everything, but they can always listen to a podcast while exercising, driving or shopping. I want to make podcast versions of different sections of my dissertation. In the long term, I would also consider creating and managing larger-scale digital archives projects.
