Many Pasts at http://historymatters.gmu.edu/browse/manypasts/

Geoff Schmalz

Many Pasts is a portion of the History Matters website at George Mason University.

Selection Procedure: Text, image, and audio primary documents that illuminate the opinions of everyday Americans were chosen and then either transcribed into HTML or digitally scanned if text, digitally scanned if an image, or digitally recorded if audio. They were all considered by a professional historian and have metadata with them placing them in historical context.

Object Characteristics: The objects are sorted by date. Most of the objects present on the first two pages of the site are text in HTML format, including A Letter Home from Massachusetts from 1631. The texts are from all over the Colonies from New England to South Carolina and span from the early 17th to the early 19th century. There are also some images of documents present, including ones concerning witchcraft in New England and slavery in South Carolina. The 1003 objects can be searched by subject, date and keyword using the full search feature. Such a search reveals that the objects span from early Colonial America up to the present day.

Metadata: Each HTML text or scan of a document is preceded by a description of the document in its historical context. The metadata for the letter home in 1631 includes reference to the Great Migration of 20,000 people to the Massachusetts bay Colony in the 1630s. The introductory meatdata to the slavery scan of the South Carolina Gazette mentions that breaking tools and running away were common tactics. However, it further explains that most of those slaves who ran away were cought and returned to their owners. The meatdata about the witchcraft image indicates that it is from a cheap pamphlet and that the "monstrous birth" depicted was thought to be a sign of witchcraft.

Intended audience: Since the items selected for Many Pasts are supposed to be about the experience of "everyday Americans", this digitization project seems intended to serve the general public. In addition, educators and their students are often interested in how the common person of the era they are studying viewed events. The texts and images in the Many Pasts project affords them the chance to see through a lense other than that of political leaders or kings. So I believe the intended audience of this digitization project is both the historical researcher seeking the opinion of everyday people, as well as teachers, and their pupils looking for a deeper understanding of how common people fit into and viewed historical events.

I like how the Many Pasts site is designed because it allows the user to search by up to 33 topics and offers a fascinating look into the lives of everyday Americans. As a historian I heartily approve of the presence of metadata that places each record in context, so that its place in grander historical trends can be divined.