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Data
“Records of the Reformed Dutch Church of Albany, New York, 1683–1809.” https://mathcs.clarku.edu/~djoyce/gen/albany/refchurch.html. [Download]
“Founder’s Online Metadata.” National Archives, December 11, 2017. https://www.archives.gov/open/nhprc/dataset-founders-online. [Download]
Benjamin Franklin, “Post Office Book, 1748-1752.” American Philosophical Society. https://diglib.amphilsoc.org/islandora/object/post-office-book-1748-1752#page/1/mode/1up [Download]
Billy G. Smith, “Almshouse Admissions Philadelhia 1796-1803.” https://repository.upenn.edu/mead/42/ [Download]
Billy G. Smith, “Philadelphia Census of Almshouse 1807-1810” https://repository.upenn.edu/mead/2/ [Download]
“Directory of the City of Albany, 1815.” Albany Public Library. [Download] (NB: There is no external ‘about’ for this data)
“US Census, City of Albany 1850-1940.” https://data2.nhgis.org/main [Download extract] (This is a VERY large spreadsheet, use only if you have a speedy computer!)
John Hammond, “Revivals in New York and Ohio, 1825-1835.” https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR07754.v1 [Download NY extract]
Wendy Lucas and Noel Campbell, “George Washington’s Shipping Invoices from London Factors 1754-1772.” https://repository.upenn.edu/mead/25/ [Download textiles extract data] [Download key]
“African Names, African Origins: Transatlantic Slave Trade.” http://www.african-origins.org/. [Download]
“England’s Immigrants 1330 – 1550.” https://www.englandsimmigrants.com/. [Download]
“University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology – Online Collections – Data.” https://www.penn.museum/collections/data.php. [Download early modern extract]
Albany County National Historic Places Register [Download]
Sharon Howard. “Middlesex Convicts Delivered For Transportation 1785-92.” Zenodo, November 21, 2015. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.34086. [Download]
“Eastern State Penitentiary Admission Books.” American Philosophical Society. https://search.amphilsoc.org/collections/view?docId=ead/Mss.365.P381p-ead.xml [Download]
Wendy Lucas and Noel Campbell, “York County Probate Records 1700-1800.” https://repository.upenn.edu/mead/26/ [Download data] [Download key]
Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman, “Slave Sales and Appraisals, 1775-1865,” https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR07421.v3 [Download]
“Whaling Crew List Database.” https://www.whalingmuseum.org/online_exhibits/crewlist/about.php [Download]
“The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database.” http://www.slavevoyages.org/voyage/search# [Download]
Evert Wendell, Account Book. [Download] (NB: there is no external ‘about’ for this data, but a published version is available as To Do Justice to Him and Myself)
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Course Requirements
Required software (please download and install these on a computer you can bring to class):
- A text editor like Atom, Sublime Text, or Komodo Edit (not Komodo IDE).
- Tableau Public
- OpenRefine
- Zotero
- An internet browser that is NOT Internet Explorer or Safari
Required accounts:
- A working Gmail account that you can easily log in to
- A Zotero account. Join the course Zotero group.
- A Slack account. You must sign up with your Albany email! Slack is a private group chat platform. You can use Slack in a browser or in the Slack app, both are fine.
- An account for the course blog.
- Please choose account names that are safe for work and identifiable as you. This does not need to be your full name!
Software you might want to download later in the semester, depending on your final project:
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Project Review Assignment
Due: Tuesday February 5
Undergrad: Approx. 300-500 words each (1 post per person)
Grad: Approx. 500-750 words each (2 posts per person)
Project critiques should be addressed to an audience of historians, not digital specialists. Think of it as a book review of a digital project. The Journal of American History has guidelines for reviewing the three most common types of digital projects:
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Infographic Assignment
Due: Thursday February 28
Using Piktochart or Infogram, create an infographic based on a historical Wikipedia article of your choice. See this Pinterest board for some examples of history infographics. Your team should identify interesting or important numbers, people, locations, quotes, or other information to highlight. The purpose of this assignment is to visually summarize a scholarly argument. You should use as little text as possible while communicating a unified idea or argument as clearly as possible.
Your team’s infographic must:
- Have at least three distinct blocks of information
- Include a combination of words, images, graphics, and numbers
- Use fonts in 3 hierarchical levels to denote importance
- Include a linked citation to the article your infographic is based on
- The post must be tagged with your team’s name and the name of your Wikipedia article
Post your infographic to the course blog using the “Infographics” category. Include the image file of your infographic as the featured image. In the post itself, reflect on why you selected particular images, facts, or numbers to contextualize your article’s topic or argument. What choices did you make to draw attention to the most important information? Was there anything you wanted to include but couldn’t, because of space, lack of information, technical constraints, or your own skills?
Adapted from Bill Wolff’s Infographic Assignment
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Data Critique Assignment
Due: Tuesday February 12
Approx. 500 words.
Select one sample data set. You may optionally complete this assignment in a team of two.
Your post should explain what information is in your dataset, what kind of events, people, or phenomena your dataset describes, and what it cannot describe. You might use databasic.io or a spreadsheet filter to get an idea of what kind of data you’re working with. What is the scope of your data temporally, geographically, in number of records, or in other dimensions?
As best you’re able to determine, you should also describe how the data was generated, what the original sources were, how the data was collected, and how your data is divided. What is an individual record row? How is the data divided into columns and why? If this dataset were your only source, what kind of information would be left out?
Your team should complete this assignment by creating a post in the “Data Critiques” category. If you complete this assignment as a team, each team member needs to do a team assignment evaluation.
Adapted from Miriam Posner’s Data Critique.
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Post Guidelines
When it’s your turn to post, give your post a title and hit enter to begin writing your text. A title is required for all posts, including assignment posts.
Your post must include a “Read More” break after the first or second paragraph.
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Introductions
Comment in the course Slack #introductions channel introducing yourself to the course, responding to the questions below.
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An example of embedded slides
This post is an example of text with embedded slides. The slides show how to get an embed code and include the embed code in a post.