Sunday, September 27, 2015

What is and isn't real?

In digital history the reality of subjects is often overlooked. What is real? What is not real? What makes something real versus not-real?

When I was a little girl I was in love with the American Girl Dolls. Samantha was a character who grew up in 1904, and Felicity grew up in 1774. I was fascinated by the stories surrounding Samantha and Felicity, every one filled with bits of historical truth about the time periods they lived in. What made it real for me was applying things I learned from those books to real life. My parents gave me a Samantha Cook Book with recipes from 1904. I made these special biscuits all by myself following the recipe, and my dad even got me an old fashioned flour sifter to use to make it feel a bit more authentic. In one Felicity book I remembered her entertaining her younger siblings by mixing a bit of soap with water in a shell and using a reed to blow bubbles. I recreated this using a bowl, a bit of dish detergent, and a straw. I was able to use my imagination to put myself into Samantha and Felicity's shoes. I believe that's what can make history real for some people.

On the other hand, look at how popular Colonial Williamsburg and Historic Jamestown are. Visitors are able to reconnect with the past by seeing the clothes and tools, smelling the animals and cooking fires, hearing the interpreters talk about their daily lives, and touching the recreated village. At the Frontier Culture Museum in Staunton, Virginia, visitors can walk through actual dwellings that were taken apart in their original locations in Europe and reassembled on site to show the change in building styles in the Shenandoah Valley and how they were influenced by the immigrants' cultures. As a visitor you see the woodwork, the brick ovens, the narrow staircases, the plaster walls, and many historically accurate reproduction (or period) furniture pieces. Even though a lot of these things are recreations of what it would have been like in the 17th and 18th centuries, and not actually the historic object itself, does that make it any less real? If a little girl put on a costume styled to look just like her favorite American Girl doll's garb, would that not make it real for her?

One part of digital history that is possibly the most difficult when speaking of what is real and not real is written documents. Paper, over time, becomes very fragile and needs to be preserved - therefore, not many people have the opportunity to hold very old original documents, especially not with their bare hands. It can be very difficult to fully grasp a concept or put it into context if you cannot see what it would have originally looked like on paper. I was recently looking up old land deeds and came across many abstracts and indexes for these historic records. I found some transcripts of deeds as well. It was very difficult for me to fully understand the age of what I was reading (from 1619!), even with the old spellings and language. Perhaps if I were able to see a facsimile or scanned digital copy of the document, then I could have seen the handwriting of the clerk, and understood it in a deeper way.

I believe there are many levels of what can be real and not-real, and it could differ from person to person. For some, simply reading a transcript could be enough to make something real in their minds. Others may need a reproduction or image of the actual object to make the connection. There is a site called Digital Karnak that has computer generated images of the hieroglyphics and layout of the sacred site in a way that a visitor can explore an area that is almost non-existent anymore. When I looked at just one part of the temple wall, I was amazed at how many hieroglyphs would have been in one area, and how the grouping could tell of special ceremonies and rituals. Seeing this digital representation, being able to click and zoom in on the glyphs, made it more real to me.

While there are some disadvantages to having a simple *.pdf transcript of a historical document, there are many other ways digital technology has of making something more "real." Digital history must remember to always put things into context as much as possible and within whatever limits the current digital project has.

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