The First World War Letters of H.J.C. Peirs is a digital project made by Dr. Ian Isherwood, Amy Lucadamo, R.C. Miessler, with the help of student assistants and letters donated by a former student named Marco Dracopoli, a descendant of Peirs. They made this project to preserve the history of Peirs and create more of a learning opportunity for the students. Each letter by Peirs is digitized, transcribed, and annotated before being published 100 years to the day of when it was written.
The project was made for WWI historians and students, but is also meant to be approachable by the public who may have an interest in a more intimate understanding of what transpired during WWI through the eyes of someone who was there during the major campaigns. The project states its main goal is to make these letters widely available, and focuses more on preserving the history with some commentary about how he writes about the war to his family back home. The authors talk about the way Peirs describes the war and also what he doesn’t describe, especially since Isherwood knows a very good history of where Peirs would be when the letters were written, and can compare his accounts with other, more graphic accounts.
The home page is inviting and interesting, and the site itself is easy to navigate. Isherwood’s writing style, while still has some formalities, is approachable and understanding to keep in line with the project’s main goal of making the letters widely available.
The project utilizes a WordPress site and puts the scans of the Peirs letters next to a transcription of them. The authors also put Peirs’ location when the letter was written on a StorymapJS map, and I’m surprised at how accurate they made it, right down to the trench location. Frankly, I find that incredible that we’re able to do that with a single man, all of my issues I discussed in my review of StorymapJS aside.
The project I would say is far more interesting and interactive than a traditional research project because you can build more and more on it as time goes by, with the touch of putting up a letter 100 years from the day it was written letting the project be a longer time commitment with an easier and steadier pace than doing it all at once. Isherwood or other members of the staff can add his own little chats on the side when he has an idea or thought about what may have been running through Peirs’ head when he was writing his letters, and connect it to other events and a bigger picture of the First World War.
War and history can be tough subjects to sink your teeth into, and for some Americans it can be even harder for some since we came into the war so late, and at least until my junior year of high school the only thing discussed about the era was the League of Nations and that’s it. The Peirs project does what it aims to do- make this available and approachable, and I really like it. Thanks, Gettysburg Staff I Totally Don’t Know.
-Britt
Thanks! It’s been a great project to work with, and the awesome thing is that we can continue to expand it even after 1918 by adding even more content about the Great War, Jack himself, etc. Long-term projects like these are great to get involved with, because you have stability and a team to work with.