“And love is love is love is love is love”

cw: This blog post will discuss the events that occurred in Orlando on Sunday, June 12th

 

In light of the shooting that occurred at Pulse nightclub early Sunday morning, I have been devoting a lot of thought to the vision and goal of my project.

It is obvious that there is still a need for people to take action and a stand for the rights of those communities who are the targets of hate and discrimination. College students have the unique opportunity to not only shape their institution’s history, but also to learn from one another and consequently advocate for the values of acceptance and respect in the world outside of their undergraduate career.

The readings and discussions we have encountered as a part of this fellowship have stressed the communal aspect of the digital humanities. Creating a timeline that incorporates past and present social justice movements effectively establishes a community of people who can learn from one another’s experiences. It is my earnest hope that my website users will be inspired by the social movements that have occurred at Gettysburg College and take action to further advance the causes begun by others so that campus communities and the world in general are righteous places where all people, regardless of identity, can thrive.

ZeeMaps

ZeeMaps is a mapping tool that has multiple marking tools and annotative abilities. ZeeMaps is different from other mapping tools in its simplicity, it is literally just a map that you can add annotations to or connect markers. Other mapping tools like StoryMap JS or ArcGIS try to present their maps like stories, which is great for presentation but the presentation takes away from the map itself in some regards.

ZeeMaps would help me in regard with the visualization of the journeys of all the cadets through the war and would show their connections since many of them were at the same battles or arsenals. Using the Connect tool, you can connect multiple locations which can show the individual journeys of cadets.

This is an example of a connection on ZeeMaps
This is an example of a connection on ZeeMaps

However, what I at the current moment cannot figure out is how to turn off the distance calculator for the connections because it makes it quite messy and you cannot see the connections or markers as well.

Alonzo Cushing's Journey in ZeeMaps
Alonzo Cushing’s Journey in ZeeMaps

What makes ZeeMaps super helpful to me is that it has the ability for different colored markers and connections that can easily differentiate the cadets.

Cushing is red and O'Rorke is green
Cushing is red and O’Rorke is green

ZeeMaps is free except a couple of features that require payment to use. The features that you have to pay to use are just bulk features so really, you get the full experience of ZeeMaps for free.

ZeeMaps only requires location to put down a marker, but there are many features that you can add to the markers such as: title, annotations, media, audio, youtube videos, pictures, etc.

Options of Media in ZeeMaps
Options of Media in ZeeMaps

ZeeMaps is very easy to use, no expert needed. Every feature on ZeeMaps can be figured out and explained easily. Even if you already put down a marker, it can be easily edited, removed, what have you. There is no html, CSS, JavaScript experience needed to work ZeeMaps unless you wanted to edit the code itself.

I could very well use this tool in my project. I have shifted my thinking from doing a huge timeline/map that encompassed each cadet into making a timeline for each cadet individually and a big map for a visual reference, showing their journeys and the connections in their journeys. While ZeeMaps does not have the neat presentation of other mapping apps like StoryMap JS and ArcGIS, it would serve the purpose of showing the cadets’ journeys. But it does have very very simple presentation which I think might clash with the aesthetic of my project, but I could see if it would look better while embedded into a website. Another downside to ZeeMaps is that there are only 31 markers, I need at least 38 for all of my cadets. However, with all 38 cadets, the map will get messy and confusing and I am not really sure how to handle that at this current moment, but I am sure that I will figure it out with more experimentation and work on ZeeMaps and other mapping tools.

Hot Mess of Markers
Hot Mess of Markers

An Evaluation of Timeline JS

Timeline JS is a free digital tool that allows a user to create a customized digital timeline. Its ease of access, both in accessing the tool and using it, make it unique.

Organizing research in a chronological format is a useful way to show trends and development. Using a timeline in my project will show how various events at Gettysburg influenced the others. I can also create parallel timelines that detail what social justice movements were taking place on other college campuses and across the nation. Because of the way Timeline JS is structured, I can embed multiple forms of media (such as Youtube videos or pictures) so that I can visually represent the people who were involved in each social justice instance.

Timeline JS is well known and documented. The timeline JS website has a documentation page featuring tips for beginners as well as links to FAQs and support forums. There is information about the Northwest University Knightlab (the Timeline JS creators) at the bottom of each page, and they provide means of contact.

Timeline JS provides each user with a template that adapts the user’s research and formats it into a timeline. The first thing the template asks for is the beginning and end dates of the event. The next section asks for a display title for each event, and a brief description of what happened. These titles can be hyperlinked to other pages.  The template also provides a space for including media and documenting and captioning any media that’s used.

The only privacy concern associated with Timeline JS is that the template is hosted on google sheets, which means that a user needs to log in with their google account, which could provide Timeline JS with some of the user’s personal information.

Timeline JS is an easy tool to master. The spreadsheet is an easy means of compiling and presenting data. As a beginner, I had next to no problem using the program, and the questions I did have were easy to answer. Additionally, the program adapts the actual timeline according to any changes that are made in the spreadsheet, so it is easy to embed and work on continually.

I will absolutely be using Timeline JS in my project. Its most redeeming quality, in my opinion, is that it presents a timeline in a way that engages the user.  The timeline output is clean and easy to navigate. Additionally, because it updates along with the spreadsheet, it allows for the potential to be updated as further social justice movements take place. I am confident that I will be able to use Timeline JS to both my advantage and the advantage of my users.

Playing with Maps

This week, the Fellows were asked to research a digital tool. I decided to work with StoryMap JS. StoryMap is a digital mapping tool that allows you pinpoint specific areas on a map you want to describe, add text, and images to. This tool stood out to me because it was very easy to use and I was really able to play around with it. StoryMap also seemed like the most functional digital mapping tool use for my project. It worked the way I wanted it to work for my project and I was able to bring the vision that was in my head to reality. The other mapping tools seemed more complicated than StoryMap and not as useful for my project.

This tool is completely free to use and very accessible to the public. All you need is a Google account, and is this day and age you are bound to create a Google account sooner or later in life. It is a very user friendly tool. There was some directional advice, but I have a very bad habit of not reading directions and decided to get right to it. I am personally not very tech savvy yet and I was able to get the hang of it very quickly.  Although StoryMap was pretty easy to use, I did find myself having a hard time understanding what they meant by some of their setting options. For example, I wasn’t sure exactly what “toner lite”, “gigapixel”, or “map box” meant.

The only part that I know I will definitely need help with is inserting a picture as the map background instead of the standard maps StoryMap gives you. I would like to use old Gettysburg College maps I found in Special Collections as background maps. I was told that I could absolutely make that happen–I would just need to change the maps setting to “Gigapixel”. At first, I thought this would be an easy task to figure out on my own, but I was mistaken. I was very confused when I changed the setting to Gigapixel and was unsure what I was supposed to put in the information boxes.

Still trying to see if I could figure out this task on my own, I decided to enlist the help of the internet. The technical detail tab on the StoryMap website told me how to insert the image by way of coding. Having only completed half of Codecademy, I definitely did not have the knowledge to understand the directions. But, we will be having a mapping workshop in the future where I am sure I will be able to get some help.

Overall I really enjoyed using this digital tool. If you are new to using digital tools and need an easy mapping tool, this definitely could work for you. I am considering using it in my digital project but am unsure if it compatible with Scalar. If I am able to use StoryMap, great! If not, I am open to learning how to use other digital mapping tools!

Visualizing Research

 

While researching, I find myself visualizing my research and wondering how it will look like in a digital platform. Today, I was researching academics during the 1950s and 1940s. While copying multiple courses and major lists, I tried to stop and think about how I was going to display this information to my audience. It would be boring to just put up a list of majors and courses offered or even a picture of the source. I am sure the reader could have read the book in which I found the information just the same. How can I display this information in an interactive and visually pleasing way? I guess I will have to experiment with new digital tools and use my imagination.

 

On the importance of knowing your audience

This past week, we spent a lot of time planning our websites and exploring digital tools, constantly keeping our potential audience in mind. Throughout this process, I thought a lot about how projects in the digital humanities are meant to engage an audience. If a project’s digital platform is hard to use, it detracts from the user’s experience and distances them from the project. As such, it is vitally important that a website be easy to understand so that a user can connect with the material on it, the person who created it, and actively learn something new from the material presented to them.

Confusion in Special Collections

I spent some time in Special Collections today looking for information about Esther Fortenbaugh, a graduate of the class of 1946. While scrolling through the yearbook, I failed to see her name among the students. Confused, I enlisted the help of an archivist to point me in the correct direction and see if I made any errors in my research. At first, we were looking for Esther. In our search, we found Ruth Fortenbaugh, who was thought to be Esther’s daughter. But, it made no sense for Ruth to be her daughter because Ruth was a member of the class of 1950, four years after Esther graduated. So we dug deeper, looking at the Fortenbaugh Family finding aid. After about twenty minutes of confusion we finally found out that Esther married into the Fortenabugh family. Esther’s maiden name was Kenyon. I paged through the yearbook again and found Esther under her maiden name. All I have to say is….thank God for finding aids.

Shot to the Heart (or Abdomen in Alonzo’s case)

This week, while doing my research I learned the position of a cadet’s battery at the Battle of Gettysburg. Not just any cadet but James Dearing, West Point Southern hotshot who would’ve graduated first in the class if he didn’t drop out when Virginia seceded. Also, one of Alonzo Cushing’s best friends. The full tragic and heroic story of Alonzo will be posted at a later date, but for this micro-blog’s purpose, Alonzo was basically disemboweled by an artillery shell or shrapnel that came before the charge from near the Peach Orchard. Kent M. Brown’s biography of Alonzo Cushing, Cushing of Gettysburg: The Story of a Union Artillery Commander said the fire started from Eshleman’s guns from Washington Artillery, right before the main bombardment.

Eshleman’s Battalion had 8 Napoleons and 2 12 lb. Howitzers at the time of the assault.

A Napoleons’ range is 1480 yards.
A 12 lb. Howitzers’ range is 1072 yards.

Alonzo’s position was over a mile away which is 1760 yards.  I do not think that it is very plausible that Eschleman’s Battalion wounded Alonzo. However, there was a battalion beside Eschelman’s. The batteries commanded by James Dearing, Alonzo’s former comrade and classmate.

Dearing’s Battalion had

2 20 lb. Parrotts
3 10 lb. Parrotts1 3 in. Rifle
12 Napoleons

A 20 lb. Parrotts’ range is 2100 yards
A 10 lb. Parrotts’ range is 1900 yards
A 3 in. Rifle’s range is 1830 yards
Again the Napoleons’ range is 1480 yards.

3 out of 4 of Dearing’s guns were able to hit over a mile. I created a map through Google maps with the position of their monuments in the approximate positions of their receptive guns.

Cushing Dearing Map
The distance between Dearing’s Batallion and Cushing’s Battery. The gray star is Dearing and the blue star is Cushing.

In conclusion, my heart now hurts knowing that James Dearing probably inadvertently caused the eventual death of Alonzo Cushing, his friend and classmate. And that’s what I learned this week.