JAMES KLOTTER CHAPTER - BOYD COUNTY HIGH SCHOOL
Corps of Officers
Minimum Barriers Initiative
Digital Humanities Center
Academic Resources >
KY Humanities & Social Sciences Degree Index
Scholarships & Programs
Clark Award Recipients
Donald Award Recipients
Alumni Welcome Center
Alumni Hall of Honor >
Undergraduate & Graduate Programs Index
Klotteriana Blog
DH 101: Digital History in the Classroom
​Introducing DH 101: Digital History in the Classroom, the DHC's biannual report on new resources for integrating digital history into the public school classroom.
Whether you're a teacher looking for ideas or a student writing a research paper, we've got you covered.
Keep reading to learn about the latest in digital history!
For students and educators alike, there's no denying it: 2017 is a very promising year for the digital humanities at JKC and beyond. We've got a few exciting digital initiatives getting ready to launch here at home in Kentucky and there's some great work going on elsewhere in world, including projects that involve JKC alumni. With Black History Month behind us and Women's History Month here, this issue of DH 101 is especially focused on projects, new and old, that help faculty and students digitally dive into the important historical issues of race, slavery, rights, and minority histories. Take a look at some of our favorites:
Civil War Governors of Kentucky Digital Documentary Edition. CWGK is a digital documentary edition under development by the Kentucky Historical Society that seeks to digitize, transcribe, footnote, and make available every document ever sent to/from the governors (both recognized Union governors and the claimant Confederate governors) of our state during the American Civil War. Drawn from a variety of archives and expertly edited, the documents in this collection number in the tens of thousands and are fully available to you online. You'll find letters and notes from both everyday Americans and the state's most prominent political figures, including several documents from Boyd County. The full edition launches later this summer (and KHS is celebrating this with a symposium of historians from across the country) but you can access many of these documents right now through the Early Access version above. Fun fact: Tony Curtis, a member of the editorial staff, is a BC native!
Kentucky Humanities & Social Sciences Degree Index. A project straight from the DHC at JKC! This mammoth undertaking is currently cataloging all available undergraduate degrees (both associate and bachelor level) in humanities and social science subjects at Kentucky higher education institutions. When completed, any student anywhere can be directly linked to official information about every H/SS degree at every college/university in the state, all from one central hub. Periodically updated links to information on these degrees will be made available to students on the JKC Digital Humanities Center webpage. The first edition of the index is projected to be completed by December 2017.​
Digital Library on American Slavery. Did you know that we're in the midst of the Reconstruction sesquicentennial? That combined with the current political climate makes issues of race ever more vital to study in historical context. Hosted by the University of North Carolina - Greenboro, DLAS gives you direct access to the Race and Slavery Petitions Project, NC Runaway Slaves Advertisement Project, Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, and People Not Property: Slave Deeds of North Carolina. Sure, DLAS isn't a new DH project by this point, but it remains a wonderful resource for engaging digitally with one of the most fundamental aspects of American history.
Digital History Projects at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. From the Pennsylvania Abolition Society Papers to documents on psychiatry and the struggle for LGBT rights, the HSP has got six digital history editions with plenty of primary sources on great topics.
Projects at the Virginia Center for Digital History. Interested in original TV broadcasts from the Civil Rights Movement? Looking for sources on historic Jamestown or Southern black communities during Reconstruction? Several such projects (and more) are right at your fingertips, courtesy of the Virginia Center for Digital History.
Umbra Search. Looking for sources on African American history? Umbra Search is a new DH project launched by the University of Minnesota earlier this year. It provides free digital access to over 500,000 items from centuries of black history drawn from more than 1,000 archives, museums, and libraries across the country.
SourceLab. Another new DH initiative that's really starting to take flight! Sponsored by the History Department of the University of Illinois, at SourceLab students are developing classroom-based publishing practices and technologies that will help people interested in history take advantage of newly-digitized materials more knowledgeably and efficiently. Our very own RK alum Austin Justice '16 is a SourceLab team member; he reports that he's currently part of a working group designing a prototype digital documentary edition on graphic portrayals of the 2nd Anglo-Afghan War in 19th century print. But while you keep an eye out for that edition (and others!), you can already check out a few of their published prototypes. SourceLab might be especially useful for teachers looking for innovative ways to get their students involved in digital history; in fact, every spring SourceLab accepts proposals for new editions from the public!
Do you know of any other great digital history resources for faculty and students? Drop us a line on the contact page, comment below, or shoot us a tweet @RhoKappaBCHS!
Welcome to Klotteriana: the blog for everything James Klotter Chapter.