Four Different Approaches to History on the Internet

How do these four websites represent different approaches to history on the Internet?
The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War (VOS) is a concise, yet comprehensive website with a purposeful and deliberate agenda. Offering tens of thousands of newspaper articles, 1,400 letters and diaries, full census records from 1860, forty-five Geographic Information System (GIS) maps, and more than 700 photographs and images, VOS represents the new genre of historical websites. This new genre is called “invented archives” because the site not only archives primary sources but also interprets, however slightly, historical evidence. This interpretive feature certainly leaves the door open for (historical) argument. The archive of primary sources is extremely organized into three sections: The Eve of War, The War Years, and The Aftermath. There is not a single story being told on this website. The primary evidence included on this site is extensive which allows visitors considerable leeway with respect to historical interpretation. These pieces can be used as a valuable resource for teaching. This website provides practical ideas for educators and others to effectively utilize and incorporate the wealth of information contained within the site. The various text and visual documents provide the “stuff” from which plausible and probable theories of this time period can be made. Serious scholarly research and academic discourse is possible because the sources have been authenticated and the information has been organized logically. It is necessary to revisit this site often because the site offers so many pieces to the “puzzle of the past”.
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/vshadow2/
The History Channel (HC) has a highly commercialized look and feel. Across the bottom of the home page there is a large banner advertising three DVDs for $30. Despite the commercials to buy cars, the magazine subscription offers, and DVD sales advertisements, there is a lot of exciting history contained within the site. This website is successful in making history fun. The site definitely caters to young people because there are numerous video games that allow visitors to fight against various martial artists, play Sudoku, and other (fun) games. There are numerous other features that make visitors want to return often to the website (e.g. e-cards). There are community discussion boards available to discuss topics such as wars, sports, and religion. Without commenting yet on the veracity of the comments on these discussion boards, the feature itself has attracted thousands of comments.
The History Channel offers a lot of videos and television programs. There is a listing on the website of show times for various historical programs that will be shown on the History Channel. It is obvious that the History Channel caters to a younger audience often creating simulations of past events, including large sections entitled Extreme History, Modern Marvels, and . HC is a good resource for presenting visual concepts; providing both audio and video stimulus for the younger generation accustomed/responsive to media stimulation since birth. Mysteries of history are appropriately included on this site (e.g. UFOs.). HC merges the past and the present, offering historical footage with contemporary interpretations. This is not a site for a serious historian because there were no primary documents or artifacts included on the site. The serious historian will be sorely disappointed, possibly even angered, with the inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and plain “fabrications/speculations” of some of the videos presented on the History Channel, however, kids will have blast learning about the past. HC succeeds in capturing its audience, the adolescents.
http://www.historychannel.com
Do History is a semi-instructive and interactive website that encourages readers to recreate/interpret the past based on the surviving fragments from the diary of the eighteenth-century midwife Martha Ballard and Laural Thatcher Ulrich’s study of it. This experimental resource allows for a lot of personal interpretation. The site is designed to teach the basic skills and techniques historians need to interpret the past in the present. In addition to the diary Martha Ballard left behind, there is a timeline of relevant events, historic maps and pictures, and a current day walking tour to help readers understand Martha’s life in relation to history and geography. This site is helpful for writers or movie producers who want to recreate the nuances of a particular time period to get a certain feel for the mindset or atmosphere of a certain period. This site is designed for a particular purpose without much incentive to return to the site.
http://www.dohistory.org
National Museum of American History (NMAH) presents history through tangible objects that can be seen, felt, heard, etc. Although the (NMAH) site boasts more than three million objects, the site does not seem to offer very much. This may be a matter of website design or simply the nature of museum culture, the need to rotate exhibits over a cyclic period of time. This site seems like an acceptable supplementary site, a site to enhance a primary research projects. The NMAH search engine is not as helpful as other history-themed websites. The objects are definitely the focus of this website. The unpredictability of the exhibits and collections featured in the museum makes it a secondary research site at best. With objects ranging from an old billiard set, a fake passport, and an old pacman game, the NMAH seems to be the perfect site for collectors and the seekers of nostalgia. Traditional historians would be better served looking elsewhere.
http://americanhistory.si.edu/index.cfm

Blog Review: Cliopatria

Cliopatria, a site enjoying its fifth year in existence, is a blog created for both serious and amateur historians, as well as laypersons interested in reading and discussing current events. The site follows the common blog format. Each blog entry on Cliopatria has a date header, a title, the time stamp/permalink, the name of the author, a comments option, and the trackback option. Cliopatria is actually a group blog, meaning there are numerous contributors to the site.
The blog is well organized. In the left column, there are numerous departments such as: news, HNN articles, Hot Topics, Roundup, Blogs, Books, Features, HNN Videos, HNN Podcasts, Student Shortcuts, Teacher’s Lounge, and Jobs. Each department offers a wealth of resources.
Since the site covers a myriad of topics and time periods, there are numerous categories/departments from which to begin your search. Moreover, these categories are designed to “take the guess work” out of finding the appropriate level of historical rigor within the site. For example, students would immediately be drawn to the Student Shortcut Department, which offers links on Doing Research on the Web, 9-11, United States History, World History, Science and Technology, Applying to College, etc. On the other hand, teachers would be drawn to the Teacher’s Lounge, wherein there is a Syllabus Finder, Classroom Lesson Plans for the K-12 and K-16 Teachers, and a Technology in the Classroom Link.
The site is informative for historians with either a liberal or conservative orientation. I detected no bias to either extreme, regarding volume. Both sides were represented, equally. Consistent with the culture of blogging, many bloggers submitted frequently, apparently omitting the typical peer review formalities. In order to maintain some semblance of integrity within the site, Cliopatria has a Contributing Editors link that allows users to read and verify the bloggers’ credentials. Bloggers posting regularly included a blogging professor from Princeton University, a Stanford educated blogger, and bloggers serving on various historical/research advisory boards.
Fortunately, I did not detect a particular agenda being pushed by the site. The contributing editors cover a variety of topics and offer equally compelling intellectual opinions/insights. In Chronicle Careers, Ivan Tribble states “blogging was not a good idea for graduate students and junior faculty members . . .”. However, there are serious intellectuals foregoing this well-intentioned cautionary advice and are publishing maniacally. There are posts added throughout the day from as early as 1:54 AM to 2:00 PM.
The posts have varied considerably over the course of the week. Cliopatria is updated daily, multiple times a day. However, the site is easy to follow over the short and long term. The site has an Archive Section which catalogues itself (e.g. articles, previous blogs, etc.) monthly, organized by both month and year. This archive section offers sixty links, covering the twelve months in a five year period. Cliopatria, the blog, exists as a part of George Mason University’s History News Network. This may be responsible for the high volume of traffic which visits the site regularly.
The blog offers up to date information. There are numerous links with current pictures, clear videos, and audio/podcast options. There are many incentives to return to the site daily such as: Top Young Historian, History Doyens, On This Day in History, and Quote/Unquote of the Day. This blog is highly recommended!!!

Rodney King

In the words of the infamous Rodney King, "Can we all just get along?"