For my DH project proposal, I have decided to do a proposal on a digital archive centered around the Progressive Era in the United States. Here’s the abstract for it:
The Progressive Reformers’ Digital Archive is a unique digital archive that will focus on the Progressive Era in US history, which lasted from the late 19th century to the early 20th century. During the Progressive Era, reformers from the American middle class made significant strides in resolving social issues in urban areas and among the working and lower classes, such as tenement housing, prostitution, and other forms of corruption. Some well known reformers include Jacob Riis, the photographer and author of How The Other Half Lives, and Upton Sinclair, author of The Jungle, and Jane Addams, founder of Hull House. The Progressive Reformers’ Digital Archive will aim to preserve digital content in the form of photographs, maps, videos, audio, and written documents. All five of these forms of archival material to be digitized for the Digital Archive will all originate from such locations as the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC and the Museum of Natural History in New York City. Even though there are some video and audio materials from the Progressive Era still in existence, some members of the project team will be responsible for creating new forms of video and audio materials using some primary sources provided by historical institutions as a way to make the historical topics associated with The Progressive Reformers’ Digital Archive more easier to grasp for school age visitors/patrons.
Unlike other digital archives in existence, The Progressive Reformers’ Digital Archive will allow visitors to make scholarly comments on the digital contents found in the archive and will allow them to converse with other scholars who use and frequent the site. Some of the Archive’s audio and video collections will be based on written testimonials of people who experienced the social conditions and changes characteristic of the Progressive Era (primary sources). The Progressive Reformers’ Digital Archive will make contributions to the discipline of history by making learning about a certain period of the past more interactive and resourceful for the average, tech-savvy 21st century student. In addition, visitors and patrons to the Digital Archive will get a better sense of how an archive usually operates.
Feel free to give your feedback if you feel the need to do so. Any advice would be of great help to me.
I don’t have any suggestions, but I think this is a really interested topic.