What’s the Update?
My goal for this project is to add to the traditional narrative of white middle-class suffragists. To do so, I originally proposed a historypin map with both African American women and working-class women to add a new layer of historical information. While I was researching and creating the map, I realized that a combined map might lose its clarity and power. Because of this, I decided to create a single map with only African American suffragists and women’s rights advocates, which you can find here. I’d love to get some feedback on it! I’m really excited about the number of variety of women whose stories I was able to capture, but there is always room for improvement.
What’s Next?
There are a couple things I need to do for this project to be complete:
- Update the “About” text with more contextual information.
- Decide how to cite my sources. For example, should I create a bibliography section a the bottom of each pin?
- Figure out why the map keeps glitching – when you look at the whole map sometimes it shows many more pins than I’ve created, but not always.
- Decide how, if at all, I should incorporate working class women back into this project, for example by creating a second map that displays their history.
Hi! Excellent project! I took a look, I definitely would love a Preferred Citation section at the bottom of each pin as well as Bibliography. In terms of glitching, I always say call the IT, there is nothing more that guarantee reaching them I think in my experience. They would walk you through it, if you get to them whilst listening to some elevator music.
Hi Katie! I enjoyed using this map a lot! I think if we’re talking about a feasible scope for a project of this type, sticking to a clear and consistent message/emphasis on African American suffragists would probably be better than attempting to pivot to include a second group as well. If you had grant money and lots of time to work on this I would say that making an inter-sectional map that really digs into questions of race and class simultaneously would be great. As for creating a second map, if you already have the material and time to do it that could be cool, but it may not be feasible at this stage to take on what sounds like a second project on top of this one.
I really enjoyed perusing your historypin site! It’s easy to navigate and each pin biography was sharp and well written. Interesting to see the location of these women throughout the country. Makes me curious to research why most of them are located on the east coast and northern states.
I agree with Laura, definitely would prefer a citation section at the bottom of each pin. Considering these women come from different walks of life and contributed to the suffrage movement in their own way, I would like to see the different sources for each woman’s story.
You’ve done some really amazing work here! For the bibliography question, I think it would be kind of cumbersome on the Historypin system to include citations on each pin—it’s not the friendliest UI already, and I don’t think that would be the best place to put your bibliographical information. What might be better would be to add to the about section a kind of “suggested reading” or “selected bibliography” section that points people more generally to resources where they can find more information. You do have 35 women on here (wow!) and having a source for every single one of them would be perhaps too exhaustive to be strictly useful. But a selected bibliography might be helpful in directing people towards some helpful resources!
It’s really exciting to see this project coming together! I think it was a great idea to focus on African American Women. Overall, the project is looking great.
On your question about a bibliography, It might be worth thinking about setting up a really simple wordpress site or something that could serve as the anchor for your project. That way you could fill in any background info you have on the project there and then link out to the historypin collection.
It might also be worth thinking about using the tour function in HistoryPin to set up a guided process through the set of pins you’ve created. That would offer the ability to provide a more linear movement through the various individuals you are documenting.
You might also want to think about pinning people to more specific geographic locations. I zoomed in on washington DC and there were a bunch of pins stacked up on top of each other. I’m guessing because they are pinned to DC and not to particular places in DC. If there are specific geographic locations in cities that you can associate the people and pins with I think it will likely make for a more interesting map.
Hi Katie, I am loving this project! You’ve done a lot of amazing work and I’m learning so much from this collection.
I agree with Katherine about the bibliography- I think having a separate page with some selected sources is enough. If you want to add citations to each pin later on, that would be fine, but I think for now your suggested bibliography is a great resource already!
I also took a look at the tour you created using your collection (I’m glad you got it working!) and it looks wonderful! Also- I noticed that your collection is “open” and users can add to it, I love that! I think the public will have a great time learning from what you have put together here, and they’ll also appreciate being able to contribute to it as well!