Tredegar
This archival site on Tredegar Iron Works, Richmond, Virginia, in the latter half of the nineteenth century is very much in the beta/inception/conception stages--barely off the ground. Specifically this is intended to explore the ironworks, business and technology of the iron industry, and the interlocking elements of local, state, and regional history.
Tredegar's corporate records housed in the Library of Virginia may comprise the most complete extant collection of any nineteenth century southern business. They are not widely explored. This collection has informed narratives of the antebellum and Civil War eras--in fact, Charles Dew's work, Ironmaker to the Confederacy is iconic--and remains almost the last and almost only, look at this institution; yet, materials on post-Civil War years gather dust. Tredegar remained a linchpin in Richmond's industrial and business development, and its owners, major movers and shakers among Richmond's elite. Their story is intrinsic to theories of southern industrial development and to a narrative of southern identity, of tension between memorializing the Confederacy and building a modern city.
This site will collate varied objects and materials about Tredegar Iron Works from Reconstruction through the end of the nineteenth century, situating the company in southern economic development and within a regional and national narrative of American industry and technological change.
This site will be part of a digital component for my dissertation, and it's challenging what I know and don't know about working with primary sources. There's a dual analytical component here, at least during developmental stages: the narrative itself, of course; then, what kinds of documents among the tens of thousands available materials tell the story? How do extensive financial records, accounting documents fit together across ledgers and daybooks? What documents are useful? How do we read them? What do we need to know about accounting methods of that time period? How do we contextualize their contents? What information, then, illuminates business history, and why is it a valuable historical focal point?
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Tools used
Omeka
Omeka is a content management system designed for the display of library, museum, archives, and scholarly collections and exhibitions. Omeka falls at a crossroads of Web Content Management, Collections Management, and Archival Digital Collections Systems. Omeka is designed with non-IT specialists in mind, allowing users to focus on content and interpretation rather than programming. It brings Web 2.0 technologies and approaches to academic and cultural websites to foster user interaction and participation. It makes top-shelf design easy with a simple and flexible templating system. Its robust open-source developer and user communities underwrite Omeka’s stability and sustainability. Omeka allows users to publish cultural heritage objects, extend its functionality with themes and plugins, and curate online exhibits with digital objects.
Scripto
Scripto is an engine for crowdsourcing the transcription of content that can be integrated with a custom transcription GUI and existing CMS.
WordPress
WordPress is an easy-to-use web publishing platform originally designed around blogging that has now evolved with functionality as a robust content or learning management system, with many themes and plugins for extra functionality.
Scripto
Scripto is an open-source tool for community transcription of documents, images, and multimedia files. Registered users are permitted to view digital files and transcribe them with an easy-to-use toolbar. The tool includes a versioning history and editorial controls to make public contributions more manageable, and supports the transcription of a wide range of file types. Scripto works as an extension to popular open source content management systems, including Omeka, Wordpress, and Drupal. Installation procedures vary for each CMS but all projects must install a dedicated instance of MediaWiki. WordPress and Drupal require Zend Framework. Scripto can be used out of the box or it can be customized to individual projects. Scripto is useful for materials for which transcribing content is important, but where faithful reproduction of format or appearance of an item is not necessary. N.B. currently the Zoom.it service is unavailable rendering the WordPress and Drupal plugins inoperable. (Oct 30, 2014)