The markers of professionalization within any academic field come from the participation in traditional academic journals and the presence of reviews. Just like traditional history, digital history needs reviews to forward it’s sense of professionalization. After all, academics are considered professionals in their field because of their publications. Historians who create and publish digital projects should also be lauded for the extensive research and work that goes into the construction of their projects. Especially in the growing digitized globalized world we have today, the increasing importance in engaging with digital projects is paramount. As the introduction to the AHR Review says, graduate students and historians alike are all working in the digital world. Digital history is the future and developing rubrics for vetting professional digital projects is necessary for the growth of the field.

In addition to the use of reviews as signals for the professionalization and importance of digital history projects, the content of the reviews themselves are exceedingly important. Mentioned within reviews are both the pros and cons of each individual project and the concerns of reviewers are valid reasons to reflect on the usefulness of these projects. In reviewing Digital Harlem, reviewer Joshua Sternfeld was concerned by the lack of context and the potential of incorrect conclusions that may be drawn from a lack of spatially plotted data would make any teacher or student cautious about utilize it for research purposes.

This is a valid concern especially when it is noted that the creators of the digital project curate all of the available sources within the project. Sternfeld goes further saying that because of this curation there is an inaccurate amount of information that shifts interpretations towards a slant that is potentially not what the authors of the site were attempting to create. While there are attempts at trying to forward a narrative about race inequality in Harlem during the early 20th century the focus on crime and the use of police records and court documents draw a picture that is more focused on as Sternfeld put it, “everyday life 1915-1930, but rather everyday crime.” (153).

After attempting to utilize the site itself I noticed how it was rather unwieldy. On a laptop the digital Harlem project is difficult to navigate the cursor tool doesn’t really allow you to expand textual features including sources. This makes it very difficult to understand what type of sources are being utilized other than the very first two types of sources police records and court documents which come up with the text box. I also agree with Sternfeld’s criticism that the project lacks a sense of understanding of daily life which would be incredibly interesting for any social historian who wanted to learn more about everyday life in Harlem a place continuously depicted as one of rich culture and growth during this period of 1915-1930.

One of the authors of the site, Stephen Robertson does mention in his response to Sternfeld’s review that Digital Harlem was not conceived as a public history project but rather a chance for him and his colleagues to visualize the sources they were looking at and attempting to answer questions from. This is understandable but one must remember that if you are presenting digital work to a larger audience of professionals, then it still needs to have the trappings of traditional scholarship which means that context, source provenance, and a well-rounded catalogue of data points needs to at least appear to be more well-rounded. In the natural sciences there is always a control group, and with the addition of some other sets of data, like white crime rates in Harlem, further examination of sources like newspapers and other interactions of daily life may have created a more seemingly non-curated set of data.

Of course, pointing out the limitations of digital projects like Digital Harlem is not a bad thing. Especially when one is trying to reinforce the importance of digital projects in the field of history. In Dr. Jessica Johnson’s podcast interview with AHR she even mentions that sometimes it is necessary to try and “break” digital projects. Understanding where data can be seen as biased, disproven, or where there may be blind spots in coding or user experience is necessary for any app or website regardless of what industry it’s in.

A consistent theme that I have seen throughout my exploration with the digital projects of this course has been a lack of utility for user experience. Maybe it’s just the recent books that I’ve been reading which discuss the importance of utility for users (I just started reading The User Experience Team of One by Leah Buley so far 10/10 would recommend) but the theme of learning curves to utilizing projects is a detriment for public engagement in digital work. Throughout the past few weeks, we have continuously heard from historians that using digital tools is too hard especially for members of the historical community that may be older or unfamiliar with technology. Reviewing digital projects allows for historians to see how important engaging with different age groups and different technical capability levels are for the future of the field.

Robertson, Stephen. “Digital Mapping as a Research Tool: Digital Harlem: Everyday Life, 1915-1930.” American Historical Review. February (2016) 156-166.

Sternfeld, Joshua. Harlem Crime, “Soapbox Speeches, and Beauty Parlors: Digital Historical Context and the Challenge of Preserving Source Integrity.” American Historical Review. February (2016) 143-155.

Story, Daniel. Jessica Marie Johnson on the History of Atlantic Slavery and the Digital Humanities. American Historical Review Interviews. Podcast audio. February 21, 2021,https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/american-historical-review/ahr-interview.