Entry #10: World War I Project for Digital History

My digital history course is working in conjunction with the Connecticut State Library in an effort to unearth facts about the state and its World War I involvement. There are many different projects that the individuals in class could choose to be apart of. I had a very difficult time choosing which piece of the project I would like to work on. I am a fanatic about digital history and World War I which made it hard to choose.

The class was given numerous project choices including but not limited to working with the Historypin channel for the state initiative, solider/citizen profiles, community profiles, metadata creation, outreach and Digitization events, and lastly memorials. My choice was a difficult one to make but I decided to do two aspects of the project: taking an inventory of memorial in New Haven and gathering their history and metadata creation.

I started on my research for the memorials in New Haven and my findings have been good. I will say that I am a little behind in my research but this week I hope to make strides in the topic. So far I have done basic internet research and sent out an email to the New Haven Museum and Historical Society for any information they may have on the various memorials they have in the city. I am  I still have to find a way to get information on the memorial at Yale. I have to contact Yale archives for information on the memorial.

I would also like to do a solider profile. I would like to do one from my home town or New Haven but I want it to be a name of someone lost to the war lifted off of one of the memorials I have inspected. This project will be an excellent look into the local life during the War and how it impacted the community.

This project is going to need a lot of time to work on in a very limited time frame but it is a challenge I am willing to accept not just because it is a class assignment but because it brings to light information on a war that is generally ignored by the public. The First World War is the most significant war of the modern age, because it bought about many of the advances in warfare.