Author: Mario Sosa

Sherman’s March and America: Mapping Memory. http://shermansmarch.org/. Directed by Anne Sarah Rubin (Professor of History, UMBC). Received production assistance from the American Council of Learned Societies’ Digital Innovation Grant Program, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and the Dresher Center for the Humanities. http://shermansmarch.org/about/credits/. Reviewed on April 18, 2019.

As the title suggests, this site maps out General Sherman’s infamous march across Georgia near the end of the American Civil War. Starting off, the homepage is a single image of the title and map. Title aside, the homepage has very little to offer in hooking the audience. The map section features five different types of perspectives: Sherman, civilians, tourism, soldiers, and fictional (which consists of historical songs). Each type has a different map aesthetic but all feature pins that point to interesting events. Clicking on a pin opens a brief description of events that occurred at that location, usually accompanied by an image. Some of these pins only have an audio clip, although it takes a few seconds to open, and there is no way to pause or move the clip forward or backwards. Unfortunately, the map is a work in progress. Many of these pins are blank, especially the “tourism”, “soldiers”, and “fictional” maps. I believe that more images and more primary sources could benefit this site, as only a small number of images are displayed. There should also be some indication as to whether the pin is a text entry, video or an audio file. The site has a small bug in which clicking and exiting out of the Covington pin on the “civilians” map causes it to freeze. On a smaller note, each popup could have an exit button to make it easier to close, as some people may click the back button on their web browser which takes them back to the homepage.

Aside from the map, the site has a blog that gives first-hand accounts of Sherman’s march. These include memoirs of Sherman and diaries of soldiers and civilians. While this is a nice addition, I wish there was more background context to these posts. It would also be nice to have the primary source attached to each blog post.

The site is said to be completed by November 15, although no year is given. It is unclear as to when this site was last updated, but it seems recently because of the copyright. This site is aimed towards a large public audience, as the author points out that they do not wish to fill the viewers with text-heavy documents. While more work needs to be done, like a more engaging homepage or more pin entries, the site is making progress, and has the potential to attract a wider audience.

Railroads and the Making of Modern America. http://railroads.unl.edu/. Directed and edited by William G. Thomas, III (Professor in Humanities at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln), Richard Healey (Professor of Geography at the University of Portsmouth U.K.), and Ian Cottingham (Software Engineer for the Computing Innovation Group at UNL). Received production assistance from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. http://railroads.unl.edu/about/team.php. Reviewed February 22, 2019.

Railroads and the Making of Modern America is a digital project that looks at the social impacts of railroads in 19^th-century America. It covers topics such as slavery, the Civil War, politics, migration, segregation, tourism and railroad work. The website implements visual aids including documents, maps, and statistical graphs.

As an example, when you look at Slavery and Southern Railroads under the topics tab, there are two columns: On the left are documents and on the right are visual aids. Under documents, you can take a closer look at contracts, annual reports of railroad companies, and letters. When you click on contracts, there are seven items – all of them are receipts for a slave purchase. One receipt was for the sale of slaves to the Mississippi Central Railroad Company on March 5, 1860. It briefly describes and shows a photo of the receipt. Underneath it is the metadata in the “about” section. It gives the source, the citation, the date, and other related topics. In the letters, they all have a description, but some do not have the photograph of the letter. However, these contain a transcript of the letter. As for the visual aids, many are maps to visualize information. Some require Adobe Flash Player 8 to view.

The next tab on the website is “views”, which are specific cases that focus on a research question or problem. Some of these “views” include passenger mobility in the 1850s, land sales in Nebraska, the growth of slavery and Southern railroad development, and women’s experience on the Great Plains in the 1850s. Just like the topic section, these “views” use multimedia when presenting the material.

This project openly shares their data and tools used in the making of this site. Under the data tab, you can download these resources for free. The authors encourage you to use these resources for your own research. The search bar for this project has several categories to limit your searches. These include types of document, the topic, scope, year, and publication.

Railroads and the Making of Modern America features four railroad-related projects from several graduate students in history from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Finally, this site offers teaching materials such as seminars, interviews, worksheets, and links to other teaching sites for university, college, secondary and elementary school teachers. Just like the sources provided in the data tab, these resources are free and open-source.

Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, American Council for Learned Societies, Economic and Social Research Council, and the UNL Office of Research, this digital project uses digital tools and primary evidence to analyze social changes and impacts that relate to the development of the railroad. There is plenty of data here already, but this is a work in progress. The project team is currently working on adding documents and visual materials to the website to further help teach American history. This project is most suitable to those who want to research this topic or teach it in an academic field.