For my final project, I chose to complete my digital project in which I have selected several memorials and monuments to individuals, groups and events commemorating their significance to the Battle of Gettysburg. I have narrowed my tour from significant sites at Gettysburg to commemorations in order to show how it is we remember this battle & who/what we’ve chosen to remember, providing a different approach to touring the battlefield. I have also expanded my original idea of twenty to twenty-five sites to thirty-six total sites, including monuments and memorials to people, states, events, and groups from both the Union and the Confederacy.
In terms of advertising and evaluating, I still intend to accomplish this through a grassroots program. I will be making fliers, though after in-class discussions I think I will simply provide access to the website’s link & not a QR Code- they’re ineffective, as we’ve discussed. But I do think providing this to people at the site is the best way, and I may still reach out to reviewers and tourism groups in the Gettysburg area once it is completed. My main evaluation format will come from Facebook and in-person field research conducted in the area after the fliers are put up.
So far, I have completed several of the pins/tour stops that will be included on the tour. This was a process, as I found out that HistoryPin does not allow you to change a Pin from a text-based to a picture-based format (Attempt One), nor does it allow you to remove a pin from a tour once it has been added (Attempts Two and Three). So this is my fourth attempt at setting this up, with two sets of pins and multiple tours established for this one project (go to my profile on HistoryPin- found by clicking on my name on the tour’s home page- if you don’t believe me). Each pin consists of the name of the monument, the year in which it was dedicated, a picture of the monument, and a brief 200 word description of the contributions made by the honoree of the monument to the Civil War and the Battle of Gettysburg. I chose this short format so as to not lose the visitors’ interest, and while I am giving up some information provided, I feel like more will cause the visitor to lose interest. In addition to completing the pin, I have organized the tour to make sense geographically so that a visitor can progress on foot, bike, or car (likely car- it’s a big battlefield) and enjoy their tour.
This having been said, I still have work to do to complete my project. I will have to complete the pins that are still unfinished, as well as completing the fliers that I intend to hang up around the battlefield at likely tourist stops in order to draw attention to my tour, plus the poster for our in-class presentations. I also think that I might add a longer description of my tour which would include a works cited to provide credit for the photos and information provided within my pins. This aspect of my tour will be completed in the coming weeks before the end of the semester. Then, during the summer, I intend to travel to Gettysburg and hang my fliers and begin to conduct field research to receive feedback on my tour at desired intervals (unsure yet what these intervals will be) and determine if my tour has been successful in reaching a broader audience.
What do you guys think? Any suggestions for me to make over the coming weeks or months? Let me know!
Thrilled to see how your project is coming together!
The idea of zeroing in on commemorations is great. I think that helps you have a tighter focus and it provides a space to focus on a significant historical aspect of the space that is often overlooked. This lets you get at a lot more layers of history.
My one comment on this point is that the text of the pins is still very much focused on the individuals or the events that are being commemorated. It would be great to see if there are any ways you could bring in more context on how and why these commemorations were created. That is, monuments and memorials are always as much about who and when they were created as they are about their subjects. To that end, you might also think about incorporating historical photos of the monuments and memorials too. I took a look in LC’s historical photo collections and it looks like there are likely a bunch of out of copyright images of some of these from around the times they were constructed. https://www.loc.gov/photos/?q=gettysburg&st=grid
It’s great that you are thinking through was to get the word out about the tour. I think your grassroots ideas make a lot of sense. Your short format for text for the pins makes a lot of sense. It’s good to be concise on these kinds of things.
Overall, this is coming together really well. Keep up the great work.