Author: Michelle Taylor

For my final project, I set out to design a digital exhibition that features the material culture unearthed and interpreted by the descendants of the enslaved families at James Madison’s Montpelier. The reason that I selected the home of the nation’s fourth president was because I have collaborated with the archaeology and historic preservation departments over the past decade since uncovering my ancestral ties to this historical institution. I embarked on my first archaeological excavation at the presidential estate in Summer 2012 during an excavation expedition led by Dr. Matt Reeves. The experience was inspiring and shifted the trajectory of my academic and professional career. My hopes are that this digital exhibition will inspire the next generation of archaeologists, historians, and museum professionals.

Originally, I published the proposal for this digital project on February 16, 2022. While conducting initial research for this digital project, there was an article published in The Washington Post on March 25, 2022. The article stated that board members of the Montpelier Foundation had blocked structural parity between the board and the Montpelier Descendants Committee. Descendants including myself have played an imperative role in contributing to the archaeological and historical research at James Madison’s Montpelier.

The proposed digital exhibition highlights five artifacts including an iron key, clothing thimble, toy clay marble, wooden pig toy, and a brick with a finger impression. I was able to create a working proof of concept for my digital history project while this struggle for structural parity continues. There are elements discussed in my proposal that could not be achieved due to the current climate at Montpelier and without proper permissions.

When I decided to implement 3D objects into the digital exhibition, it was because of the need to make history education more accessible. However, throughout researching this topic, I learned that other institutions such as the Smithsonian Institution use 3D technology to showcase their immense collections to a global audience. The Smithsonian states on their website that their collection has over 155 million unique artifacts and specimens with only 1% of their collections actively on display.

In comparison, Montpelier has over 1 million artifacts in their archaeological collection with less than 1% of their collection clearly displayed for visitors. The only 3D scanned artifacts that are accessible online are those scanned by the Virtual Curation Laboratory at Virginia Commonwealth University. James Madison’s Montpelier collaborated with the Virtual Curation Laboratory at Virginia Commonwealth University to 3D scan artifacts from the vast archaeological collection at Montpelier. While some of the artifacts are on display for visitors, a digital exhibition that features the material culture unearthed and interpreted by the descendant community would expand the reach of the archaeological collection to a larger audience while providing a wealth of data for researchers and family historians. These 3D objects that were scanned by the Virtual Curation Laboratory have been uploaded to SketchFab.com for academic outreach with Creative Commons Attributions (CC-BY-NC-ND).  

The past 35 days since the board’s decision have been extremely difficult to witness as a descendant of the enslaved community at James Madison’s Montpelier. Especially, once I learned that two staff members who are deeply admired by the descendant community were fired and other respected staff were suspended without cause. Their firing has caused increased concerns from the descendant community and professionals throughout the digital humanities. Also, there are concerns of how the archaeological collection will be maintained in the future when staff with the most familiarity of these collections are faced with employment uncertainty.

My proposed digital project requires the collaboration between staff and descendants. This partnership has been created and maintained for over two decades and these times of uncertainty stress the importance of the digitization of historical objects. The artifacts associated with individuals who have been omitted from written record including the hundreds of enslaved men, women, and children at James Madison’s Montpelier are especially at risk. The time is now to preserve and share the artifacts with a global audience.

My proposed digital project is attached below.

For my final project, I set out to design a digital exhibition that features the material culture unearthed and interpreted by the descendants of the enslaved families at James Madison’s Montpelier. The reason that I selected the home of the nation’s fourth president was because I have collaborated with the archaeology and historic preservation departments over the past decade since uncovering my ancestral ties to this historical institution. I embarked on my first archaeological excavation at the presidential estate in Summer 2012 during an excavation expedition led by Dr. Matt Reeves. The experience was inspiring and shifted the trajectory of my academic and professional career. My hopes are that this digital exhibition will inspire the next generation of archaeologists, historians, and museum professionals.

Originally, I published the proposal for this digital project on February 16, 2022. While conducting initial research for this digital project, there was an article published in The Washington Post on March 25, 2022. The article stated that board members of the Montpelier Foundation had blocked structural parity between the board and the Montpelier Descendants Committee. Descendants including myself have played an imperative role in contributing to the archaeological and historical research at James Madison’s Montpelier.

The proposed digital exhibition highlights five artifacts including an iron key, clothing thimble, toy clay marble, wooden pig toy, and a brick with a finger impression. I was able to create a working proof of concept for my digital history project while this struggle for structural parity continues. There are elements discussed in my proposal that could not be achieved due to the current climate at Montpelier and without proper permissions.

When I decided to implement 3D objects into the digital exhibition, it was because of the need to make history education more accessible. However, throughout researching this topic, I learned that other institutions such as the Smithsonian Institution use 3D technology to showcase their immense collections to a global audience. The Smithsonian states on their website that their collection has over 155 million unique artifacts and specimens with only 1% of their collections actively on display.

In comparison, Montpelier has over 1 million artifacts in their archaeological collection with less than 1% of their collection clearly displayed for visitors. The only 3D scanned artifacts that are accessible online are those scanned by the Virtual Curation Laboratory at Virginia Commonwealth University. James Madison’s Montpelier collaborated with the Virtual Curation Laboratory at Virginia Commonwealth University to 3D scan artifacts from the vast archaeological collection at Montpelier. While some of the artifacts are on display for visitors, a digital exhibition that features the material culture unearthed and interpreted by the descendant community would expand the reach of the archaeological collection to a larger audience while providing a wealth of data for researchers and family historians. These 3D objects that were scanned by the Virtual Curation Laboratory have been uploaded to SketchFab.com for academic outreach with Creative Commons Attributions (CC-BY-NC-ND).  

The past 35 days since the board’s decision have been extremely difficult to witness as a descendant of the enslaved community at James Madison’s Montpelier. Especially, once I learned that two staff members who are deeply admired by the descendant community were fired and other respected staff were suspended without cause. Their firing has caused increased concerns from the descendant community and professionals throughout the digital humanities. Also, there are concerns of how the archaeological collection will be maintained in the future when staff with the most familiarity of these collections are faced with employment uncertainty.

My proposed digital project requires the collaboration between staff and descendants. This partnership has been created and maintained for over two decades and these times of uncertainty stress the importance of the digitization of historical objects especially those who have been omitted from written record including the hundreds of enslaved men, women, and children at James Madison’s Montpelier.

My proposed digital project will be attached below.

The assigned readings for this week mentioned some of the software and tools that we have been introduced to throughout this course. I found that the readings aligned with some aspects of my ongoing final project about the evolution of 3D printing in the classroom. We would learn this week that relics of the past are not just those that are on display inside of a museum. There was a collective sense of urgency to digitize “objects” in each reading.

The use of quotation marks for the word objects is because the definition “object” varies between authors. Sebastian Chan wrote about the collection of intangible objects such as “living systems” and the debate surrounding the @ symbol. Similarly, Dragan Espenschied examined intangible objects such as new media art and how it relates to digital culture. In contrast, Steven Lubar of Brown University dedicated a blog to the phenomenon in the museum world that presented random objects to Twitter. While three of the articles examined tools that have already been created, Sheila Brennan, makes a plead that history museums could greatly benefit from implementing digital tools and methodologies that have been used by colleagues throughout the world including Australia.

Brennan’s research into history museums revealed some areas in need of improvement such as limited online databases especially for researchers. These articles were all written nearly a decade ago which presents an opportunity for us to discuss the developments over the past decade especially since the emergence of the global pandemic in March 2020.

Questions for “Collecting the present: digital code and collections” by Sebastian Chan

1.  Sebastian Chan stressed the importance of collecting ample context at the time of acquisition. Were there any elements listed by Chan that were enlightening? Were there any other elements that should have been included.
2. Chan discussed that are institutions could possibly face legal ramifications when using objects that are not public domain. How thin is the line distinction between fine art and commercial work? Will this have an impact on digital historians in the future?

Questions for “Big Data, Little Narration” by Espenschied

1. What are the parallels between digital culture and social memory?
2. There is an array of internet webpages that have been archived on rhizome.org. Espenschied shows that evolution of internet browsers has caused these websites to no longer be accessible. What resources are available for digital historians to prevent websites from expiring in the future?

Questions for “Getting to the Stuff: Digital Cultural Heritage Collections, Absence, and Memory” by Sheila Brennan*

1. Will you use these collections if they become more widely accessible and available?
2. Do you currently use, or have you used, museum objects and collections, in your research?
3. How do you identify appropriate or possible museum collections to use in your research?
4. Would you be more likely to use museum collections as primary sources for your research if you could find them easily online?
5. Are you interested in gaining access to museum collections data for your own analysis, such as for text or data mining, topic modeling, visualizations? If yes, for what?

Questions for Museumbots: An Appreciation by Steven Lubar*

1. What’s offered to, or available for, the museum? What seems, to the public, or to dealers in art and antiques, appropriate for a museum?
2. What does a curator accept? What fits the collections, or the collecting plan, or upcoming exhibition needs? What can the museum afford? What does it have space for?
3. What does a curator choose to display? And it’s not just the curator, of course: What does the conservator allow the curator to display? What fits in the space? What exhibits does the director approve? What could the museum raise funds for?
4. What exhibits do I visit? What looks interesting on the museum map? What do other members of my group want to see? What has the museum PR department advertised?
5. What catches my attention within that exhibition?

*Questions presented by author