Introductions

"From this point forth we shall be leaving from the firm foundation of fact and journeying together through murky marshes of memory into thickets of wildest guesswork."

This quote, from the venerable Albus Dumbledore (via J.K. Rowling, via Divine Inspiration), may be a little too whimsical for the comfort of most historians when it comes to approaching a project. However, after spending a few short months with the stories of only about 10,000 of the 1.28 million Civil War ghosts archived in the Widows' Certificate Pension Series (Record Group 15) at the National Archives, it is all too clear to me how much guesswork and, at times, divine inspiration comes into play.

A little explanation about the project. It all started when an Act of July 1862 granted widows and dependent family members of Civil War soldiers a pension of a baseline $8 a month. Officers' dependents would receive more, and later acts would increase the amount and grant an additional sum for each child the soldier left behind. From 1862 all the way into the 1930s, 1.28 million pensions were awarded. The National Archives, in conjunction with Family Search and Footnote.com, is currently digitizing these pension records through the Civil War Conservation Corps (CWCC), an almost entirely volunteer effort. I am one half of the whopping two NARA staff members who oversee the project. At its inception, the digitization was slated to take about 90 years to complete. Only a few years later, we have that number down to 53 years. And so, as you can imagine, there is never a dull moment at the CWCC.

As the CWCC project manager's student assistant, I follow the records through the entire digitization project. I often grapple with (what seem like) the best efforts of the volunteers and the indexers to foil the integrity of the project-- I have to determine not only what is the correct information, but what a novice would assume about what is given, and how to then tailor it such that they won't get it wrong somewhere along the process once the files have left my hands. In short, I am a freshly minted classically trained historian (has Notre Dame ever trained anyone UNclassically?) surviving in a digital historian's world. I have to learn how to think like a digital historian on the practical end before I can begin to actually conduct historical inquiry on the content end.

The purpose of this blog, to be frank, is to force myself to collect my thoughts over the next few months. I am currently taking Clio Wired I, an introduction to the digital humanities, as part of my MA program in applied and digital History. At the end of the semester, I have to present some sort of paper or project relating to the digital humanities. Obviously, I'd like to do something involving my work, both to make the legwork easier on myself and to potentially benefit my office by enriching its mission or enhancing its productivity. Until lightning strikes and I come up with the perfect project idea, I will stay here on my safe little blog. Every day, I will record what I see, hear, and think during my day of work at the CWCC. Interesting files, funny names, and disturbing medical ailments will most assuredly make their way here. If I have any readers at all beyond myself, I hope at the very least this will provide you with some amusement at the goofy humanity of our venerable ancestors in the 1860s. I welcome any and all comments-- as I have recently learned through Clio I, the practice of digital history is necessarily becoming a collaborative effort, and any questions, comments, or exclamations you, nonexistent reader, might have could potentially inspire my final project's subject, aim, and scope. Although (sorry kids) we can't all be history detectives wielding stack keys, we're all participants in history whether we like it or not. And so, as future victims of our great great grandchildren's mockery and consternation at the ridiculous lives we lead, join me in this circle of life by doing the same to our own predecessors. Americans in 1860 were together brilliant and brave, dirty and deranged, stupid and slutty. They were heroes, idiots, martyrs, criminals, saints, and whores. In short, they were just like us. Commune with them, and enjoy their stories.