I have always viewed myself as somewhat of a material cultures kind of historian with a bit of oral history, public historian thrown in for good measure. I started amassing military items and collectibles from the age of four and began seriously talking to/interviewing veterans from the “Great War” through Vietnam since I was old enough to want to know more about war. I mean as a kid, I was like “Whoah, wait, you were in a war? War, war, what war? What did you do? Please tell me all about it it…..” I know that I had to be the biggest pain in the butt for many veterans. I am learning now, as I move forward towards getting my MA in History, that I made several stupid mistakes along the way. I did not start recording the interviews and questions until very recently and that their stories now are not technically documented as part of the historiography of the events which I found to be so fascinating.

This frustrates me because I have so many rich and detailed stories from all sorts of veterans; Army, Navy, Army Air Corps/Air Force, Marines, and not just from an American standpoint. I have talked to veterans, survivors, civilians, victors, as well as those defeated, and family members who have lost loved ones, from the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam to name just a few.  There are always many different facets to a story and I have learned so much just from listening to their stories, some funny, some outrageous (bordering on near impossible, yet always documented with eyewitnesses and or photographs), some sad, and all extremely riveting. When you learn the true history behind history, you find that it is not always what is written in the history books. There is always a “bigger” picture. This is what the past is made up of; different cultures, different experiences, different stories, all woven together (as we learned in Thompson’s writing last week), to form a very rich tapestry of our past.

I have mentioned before that I consider myself a living historian, and try to immerse myself in the culture of past times. I have some insight into what it may have been like to live in the 18^th, 19^th, and early to mid 20^th centuries, as I have experienced much of the daily grind of living during those time periods. This has been very enlightening and eye opening to experience these immersions, as when I read about certain events in history, I can kind of imagine, or reenact if you will, these events in my mind, as well in person. This helps me to use primary sources to help recreate, thus educate the public along the way.

As I mentioned earlier, I have amassed a large collection of original items or militaria over the last four decades, and now have a substantial amount of educational tools. These items allow me to tell of people and their lives, that without someone like myself, then these items may have been thrown away, and the people which they represent, lost to history forever.

I do feel that cultural history is a HUGE part of our history and that by incorporating this important part of our history into the historiography of our past, we can get a richer, fuller picture of the past. The old adage of “history is written by the victors” is one that proves that not everyone has had a voice in the past. As historians, we can change that, especially with the new advances in the way we are “doing” history. Those people that have not had a “voice” in the conversation of the historiography of certain topics can now be heard through us. We have the opportunity to be their voice. Their culture can no longer be forgotten or overlooked. We have the capability to “speak” for them, as long as we can verify the information as being correct. That being said, sometimes that one source, as in the case with the cat massacre, can open up a whole new dialogue, which can provoke more interest and research to be done on the historiography, which in turn gives us a much clearer picture in the end, or in some cases, gives rise to more questions about the past. This can create new ideas and hopefully will entice future generations to want to know more about their past, a past in which we now live in. Knowing this, we can hopefully provide a solid collection of information, from which they can draw from to learn more about their past.

When I began reading Geoff Eley’s book, A Crooked Line, I was really struck by his comparison of historians and “professional guardians.” This made me think back to our discussion in regard to being “gatekeepers.” Last week, Claire’s viewpoint was incredibly accurate due to the fact that we, as up and coming historians, are no longer acting in the sense of those gatekeepers. In class, we have established the premise that to move forward in our field, we need to improvise a way to gain a foothold in the digital age. We must then adapt our way of researching, analyzing, writing, disseminating, and recording history, to make this, and future generations aware of their past. It will be up to those that absorb this new history, to distinguish which information has been properly researched and written, or which “facts” are ones that can be trusted.

This week, I was astounded to find that Laura and I had been thinking along the same track, when I saw her use of the quote from Eley’s book. I had intended to use that very same section, as it really spoke to me in a way that helped me understand more fully, what our job entails, demands, consists of, etc. as rising professional historians.

The boundaries between history’s professional precincts and the wider realms of the public are far more porous than most academic historians might allow. Once we admit that porousness, we relativise our understanding of the professional historian’s influence. If we ask where society get its sense of the past, for instance, only delusions of grandeur could induce historians into claiming much of the credit. For most people, knowledge about the past comes very rarely from its professional guardians and then usually at several times removed. Even those of us squarely inside the profession spend much of our time responding most urgently to questions coming from elsewhere, from beyond the safety of the archive, the library or the seminar room. (Eley pg. 8)

We have the responsibility to become “sharers” within our discipline, which means that we need to allow others within their respective field into our little “sewing circle.” What I mean by this, is the way we, as historians know that we have to put together the various scraps of material, which we find in our research, (kind of like when sewing a quilt.) Imagine if you will, a beautiful patchwork quilt; it starts off with various swatches of material, scraps, patches, and many of them do not match, right? Well, in an old timey sewing or quilting circle, (sometimes not old timey, as there are modern sewing circles;) people would invite friends, family members, and often members of church, social, or other community groups, over to a sewing bee. They would come together and after working together as a group, the end-product or result would be a beautiful “patchwork” quilt. I personally feel that by allowing other disciplines into the “conversation” in the methodology of writing the historiography about various topics in history, then we are melding together and making a beautiful “patchwork” history.

As I am trying a new idea this week, (recommended to me by my writing class professor,) I am trying to not write a novel on all of the readings. Rather, she suggested that I should just try to pick one thought within a reading and focus on that in my blog. So, in conclusion, I firmly believe that there is always more room in the “sewing circle.” The invitation is out there for others, in other disciplines, to come on in, join the circle and by doing so, we can broaden our minds, and as Eley said, create a more “porous” way of learning history. We can all let our minds, which like sponges, are ready to soak up a broad range of topics, take it all in. The melding together of other disciplines and other guardians within their own fields can only solidify the historiography through these new ideas with the methodology of recording history.

When I was sitting in our GTA workshop class the week before actual classes started, I was introduced to a term which I had never heard before. This moniker was “digital age immigrant.” You see, that explains what I feel that I am right now. I grew up in an age when there were no computers in classrooms, we were not allowed to have calculators in class, and people didn’t all have smart phones. This has turned almost a complete 180 degrees now, as students mostly have laptops in college, they used computers since elementary school, and almost everyone has at least a cell phone, if not some sort of smart phone. Young people now are considered to have been born in the digital age and since I am a student during this time, I am considered a digital “immigrant.” This kind of sums it up for me, as I often feel like I am behind the 8 ball when I am in class with these younger students. I am at a loss on the newest and best technology, and couldn’t tell you how to hardly turn on some of these smart phones, let alone operate one of these new I-pads.

I thought at first that this was going to be a tough assignment (only because it is something that I am completely unfamiliar with,) on using digital sources to record history. However, reading the “digital born” articles this week gave me new insight into the possibilities of how the use internet to help get the subject of history out there on the “cutting edge” of technology. While reading the article on the ship’s logs and being able to actually see the ship’s voyages and routes (which certainly outlined the continents,) I was pretty amazed and I did not have to try and “visualize” what the author was trying to say, I could actually see what was meant in the way it was posted online. In this article, I was most impressed by the way the information was shared, and as the author stated right from the get go: “the differences mean that we need to reinvent, not reaffirm, the way that historians do history. This leads me in a very different direction form my previous train of thinking. The way that new, more recent historians are writing about history does not mean that they are not good historians, they are just trying to write about history in such a way that it will benefit the most people in a more accepted way.

The drawback that I was envisioning, is one that Leslie Madsen-Brooks discusses in her article “I nevertheless am a historian”: Digital Historical Practice and Malpractice around Black Confederate Soldiers. This shows where anyone can post something online, without any shred of proof or fact based research. This can be very misleading to the inexperienced researcher. My fear was conveyed in class, but after our discussion and after thinking on it a while, I have come to realize that there are also countless sites out there that provide very valuable research right at the tip of our fingers. This fact was made apparent when we looked up MLK, and Dr. Nelson talked about the various sites we found on Dr. Martin Luther King. This was very educational to me, and I found myself changing my mind and leaning more towards a more open minded approach to the use of the internet when doing research, which I previously had seen as an unfortunate direction in which modern historians were heading.

I am a more traditional learner and need the books to read, have my hands on, write my notes in the margins, highlight, or underline information if necessary, and actual books allow me to do that. However, I can see the definite advantages of having all the information anyone could ever want right at the tip of our fingers. This could also possibly be the downfall of some researchers and newer historians because, like I mentioned before, anybody can post something online, male a webpage, list information, etc. and in doing so, if it is not correct information, it can be very detrimental to more traditional; researchers and historians.

One last thing that I have a concern, if not a fear about is that everything is electronically stored on the internet. This can be very problematic if for whatever reason the internet ever goes away, either through government control of the flow of information, (from what I understand, or read on the internet somewhere…haha) people in China have limited access to information, or through Cyber terrorism. This is a very real threat and if someone can hack into the internet and destroy files, information, etc., it could be a severe setback as well as a major stumbling block for future historians. One last thing I worry about is that people have become too reliant on the internet for their daily lives. Again, I ask what would we do if the internet would suddenly become non-existent?

On page 1 of David Weinberger’s book, “Too Big to Know;” he includes a couple very thought prevoking lines; “Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?” I mean change is often meant to be good or at least is thought to be better than what we currently have. Everyone wants to get what is newer and better, or to keep up with the Jones’, but is change always for the better? When past generations changed with the times, wisdom was exchanged for what was thought to have been better or more advanced and in doing so a lot of common, everyday skills, arts, traits, and ways of life back then, became only distant memories. Take for example the art of starting a fire, cooking over that open fire, sewing by hand, curing meats, making shoes, milking a cow, making material to have clothes, etc. By progress, we have moved forward and have let knowledge slip through the cracks. I am not saying that change is bad, but when we become too reliant on the ease of doing something, (take for example Google search,) then having to do for ourselves becomes too much work. If we were faced with having to provide for ourselves without electricity, i.e. no lights, no heat, no refrigeration, no transportation, then we would be in a world of hurt. That means no Google to look up how to do something, let alone the zettabyte, or sextillion bytes Weinberger talks about (pg.7.) Speaking of bytes and such and with the internet having (according to Weinberger) at least a trillion pages, there is no way that all of those pages can contain fact filled accurate information…(again, what exactly is a fact?) That is where Weinberger says that we can get into knowledge overload, I mean 3 million hits on Google as to what knowledge overload actually is, come on. (pg. 11)

Weinberger also mentions “cherry picking” facts, which can hurt an historian just as quickly as can, reporting wrong facts, or not being objective, critical, or analytical of the research that one collects. For instance, last week we read how in the 1960’s, historians began looking at history in a more social science aspect, when we read this week, that this was not a new train of thought, i.e. looking at different points, such as social, economic, etc. to learn more about history. Malthus, as mentioned in Weinberger (pg.26) saw “facts” in a social point of view, i.e. “logical deductions from premises that he presents as self-evident.” However, later in his life, Weinberger writes, Malthus did further delve into a more analytical method of research. Weinberger also says that “Knowledge has always been social.” (pg. 51) It is this mode of research, that we, as up and coming historians, need to learn. This will allow us to move forward, using critical analysis in our own future endeavors. If we do not follow the methodology of proper research, and just start forming opinions on baseless facts, then as Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinions, but not to his own facts.” Weinberger (pg.36) This can be misconstrued when using the internet, even by some people reading this very blog, as it is only my opinion on what I took away from the reading. It is often inculcated in us (as the general public,) that what we “read” on the internet, is “fact.”

Tosh goes into great detail on how to use the various sources available to us as historians. These sources, such as WHOA…….what???  The WRITTEN word……Heaven forbid that we break open a book, or even visit the stacks in the library. There is nothing like getting out there and finding new information, be it in a primary sources, such as a narrative, a memoir, a diary, etc. I absolutely LOVE the feeling of finding something new to add to the story/conversation within the historiography of a subject, be it a person, or an event. He even goes into some options that many overlook, such as record sources, bureaucratic records, church records, government records, firms, etc. These can be a wealth of information. His details of how to go about uncovering this source material is very insightful, and is of great importance to us as budding historians. I found that the “gaps” section of Tosh’s text (pg. 132) left me wanting more information on how to manage those gaps in my research methods…but that might be something that I can just search the web for….,how about I use Google, … Bing, … Yahoo, …Ask Jeeves, …..just kidding.