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Digital Archive Analysis : Histories Of The National Mall

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Digital Archive Analysis: Histories of the National Mall

Histories of the National Mall is a digital Public History project backed by the National

Endowment for the Humanities, sponsored by George Mason University. and developed by the

Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media. There is a search bar at the top and

underneath is a section entitled “discover.” Under this heading there are links to maps,

explorations, people and past events. The links are sectioned out into squares with images

included. The title page is overall aesthetically pleasing and very colorful. Under the discover

section there is a square that explains how to uncover the many histories of the national mall.

Next to the uncover option there is a …show more content…

Such a variety of markers ensures that the average person could always learn something

new.
The “explorations” option offers a series of various questions and detailed answers to the

questions. Questions include everything from “Was the Mall ever used as farm land” to “How

have protests on the Mall changed over time.” Linked to the explorations tab is a scavenger hunt

selection. At this point, it is almost certainly geared towards a younger audience. There are only

four options in this section: The National World War II Memorial, The Smithsonian Castle, The

Korean War Memorial and the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial. A description of each sites’ location

and several zoomed in photographs of aspects in the site are the only components included.

The people tab articulates prominent figures from the past and present that influenced the

formation and development of the national mall. One in particular is Jacob S. Coxey who led the

first march on Washington in 1894 which involved the increase in unemployment at the time.

Coxy was arrested and jailed for 20 days because the law at the time prohibited gatherings on

capital grounds. Much of the information used to craft these descriptions is compiled from the

Library of Congress collections and Smithsonian Institition Archives.

The last subsection is concerning “past events.” Topics are divided into time periods

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