Too much information, not enough time.
How do I even begin to think about all the history I have access to this summer? It’s something I’m thinking about with excitement and fear (as my history thesis advisor told me, the only thing I worry about you is that you want to say too much!) Today we looked at online resources that give us access to what are quite literally millions of documents. If possible, I’d love to look at everything. However, due to both the time constraint (and my lacking the ability to read script – I literally looked at it today and laughed at myself for even attempting to read it – this is not a possibility.
Historians want to know too much
And this isn’t a bad thing. It’s in our nature – I believed that everything relates to an event that happened forever ago and impacted the life we live now. One small change could have led to a completely different world than the one we find ourselves in and it’s important to study that! I think this is called the Butterfly Effect. Please forgive me for linking Wikipedia, but it’s a good general overview of what the theory is.
Yet, as I know deep down inside, I cannot know all of history and try and figure out why everything is the way it is today, despite my best efforts. Yet, what I can do is attempt to reconstruct the past in such a way that my own general wishes and thoughts are fulfilled. Primary texts, such as maps of Schenectady done by Pearson can be used to interpret the present-day – why are impoverished communities located in certain areas, and is there a link that can be made between the 1800s and 2021? I know I’ve mentioned this before, but by creating a digital edition of Pearson’s diaries, I want to give the reader a look into the world he found himself in. By providing as much context through images, texts, and sources from the 1800s, I hope to be able to acocmplish my goal