Robertson and Mullen said in their introduction of “Arguing with Digital History,” arguments and interpretations should not be “the ends of digital history… but they are an end that digital history should pursue” (pg. 1006). While I can appreciate the argument they are making, sharing that there are a majority of history projects across the digital historiography focus primarily on sharing information in an archival manner, or as a tool that should assist historians in research, I would argue that interpretation is at the core of digital history and is responsible for the widespread growth of the field.

Both authors are digital historians themselves with previous experience working on important digital projects like Digital Harlem and the America’s Public Bible project. The authors believe that this experience, along with exposure to the other work being done in digital history gives them the authority to share this information.

As I stated previously, Digital Harlem is mentioned as a digital project (pg. 1007) that attempts to “make an argument.” Yet, last semester, in the readings regarding this project specifically there were criticisms made by reviewers, namely Joshua Sternfeld, who challenged the efficacy of the actual level of interpretation and argument-making that the project contained due to its missing or incomplete data sets, lack of diversified sources, and difficult user experience that interfered with complete interpretations of historical questions. As this is an older project, and it was published alongside a book I can see the argument that the book and digital companion are a different type of medium to most digital projects. However, I myself was disappointed by the utilitarian experience I had trying to use Digital Harlem, so I am wary of Robertson’s opinion.

In M.H. Beals’ “Close Readings of Big Data” primary sources, British newspapers from the years 1820-1840 were analyzed for repeated information. This repetitive wording was broken down into different topics and was then visualized in a series of different ways including charts and wordclouds. While at first this may appear to be a paper describing textual analysis of newspaper ads and articles, it reinforces the arguments surrounding early-mid 19^th century newspaper ethics. I found this article particularly interesting because of my own experience with historical interpretation. I interpreted the print shop at a museum and when printing newspaper pages, we shared how there were specific amounts of ratios between text and pictures that had to be included or not included because newspaper subscribers paid for the written part of the newspaper, sometimes by the word. Understanding this, it makes sense that repeated information in newspapers would be a concern and an interesting thing to analyze through textual analysis, something that would be impossible to do without digital history techniques.

Another example I examined was the article by Maeve Kane, “For Wagrassero’s Wife’s Son” which analyzed social networks of Indigenous women during the colonial era. Examining the works of colonizers speaking about Indigenous women shares not only the direct information about Indigenous women but also the perspective of the colonizers, how they viewed Indigenous life from their own position and biases, and how they viewed women living outside their perspective of approved gender norms. I found the breakdown of social networks and the information shared across the journals in the form of spreadsheets to be fascinating. Visualizing networks in this manner I believe gives historians an easy to understand and interpret sources in a way that, to me at least, is easy and cost-effective in terms of funding needed for specific software. It’s an accessible research and visualization medium.

I understand the concern that there are not enough projects making interpretations through digital mediums and I welcome a series of elements to professionalization like the ones that Robertson and Mullen set out along with the annotated projects they have selected in an effort to expose the wide array of projects out there. The digital history landscape is an ever-changing and growing one and it can be difficult to keep track of all the various ways digital mediums are being utilized in historical scholarship. The annotated examples serve as a good survey of the field as well as a guide for historians, showing them what can be done with technology, and, more importantly, what is publishable.

Bibliography

Beals, M. H.. “Triangulating Patterns of Textual Reappearance and Attribution in the Caledonian Mercury, 1820-1840,” Victorian Periodicals Review 51, no. 4 (2018): 616–639, https://doi.org/10.1353/vpr.2018.0046.

Kane, Maeve. “For Wagrassero’s Wife’s Son: Colonialism and the Structure of Indigenous Women’s Social Connections, 1690-1730,” Journal of Early American History 7, no. (2017): 89–114, http://doi.org/10.1163/18770703-00702002.

Robertson, Stephen, and Lincoln A. Mullen. “Arguing with Digital History: Patterns of Historical Interpretation,” Journal of Social History 54, no. 4 (2021): 1005–1022, https://doi.org/10.1093/jsh/shab015.

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.