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IMAGING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

The University of California and George Mason University have teamed up to produce an entertaining and comprehensive website focused on the French Revolution. Imaging the French Revolution is an effort of George Mason’s Center for History and New Media, and is produced as an accompaniment to the Center’s Exploring the French Revolution: Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. The objectives of this site are different from that of other French Revolution sites in that its focus isn’t famous people and events. Instead Imaging the French Revolution seeks to help the audience understand the events of the revolution from the perspective of the mob. In hopes of achieving this creators have split the website into three categories; essays, images and discussion. The thought process behind the sections is to allow one to first gain an understanding of what occurred, next visualize the event through a collection of 42 cartoons and paintings and finally a discussion section that allows the visitor to read essays about web research and determine if the website has accomplished what it sets out to do. As far as the reliability of the sources the website relies on the scholarship is top notch. Everything on the website is written by scholars who are well respected in their field. Visually the website is very inviting and as an educational resource it does a great job of presenting the information in a stimulating manner without being overly flashy or boring. As soon as you enter the site a series of images accompanies a very basic overview of what the site has to offer allowing the visitor to go exactly where they would like to visit without any confusion or searching. The websites success can also be attributed to its utilization of adobe flash which especially for the images allows quick yet thorough browsing. Overall the website is terrific, it captures exactly what it set out to do, provide a website that transports the viewer back to the 18^th century. The websites modern look and use of new technology such as flash allow it to captivate the viewer visually in order to educate with the wealth of information it contains.

History Website Evaluation

The History Channel: Similar to the related television channel, the history channel website offers a very popularized as well as commercialized site for the study of history. Overall I found the site very visually appealing, yet it seems as though every other option on the website is a promotion or advertisement. I would recommend this website for the most novice of historical researches as well as young students. However the site does offer some great activities and links, such as the “this day in history” which details famous events which happened on that day in addition the speech archives and special exhibits are very entertaining. Overall this sight offers exactly what the television channel does and nothing more.

Do History: This site is a great resource in understanding how evaluate and utilize primary sources. Relying on the 200 year old diary of Martha Ballard, a midwife who lived during the American colonial era, visitors to the site are actively engaged in putting together various pieces of documentation. The site leaves much to be desired as far as the layout of the website is concerned. Almost immediately the website design struck me as crammed together and somewhat disorienting. With that being said I think that the sights creators were very successful in achieving their aims of providing a website that is both very interactive and fact filled. I would most assuredly recommend this sight to high school students as a means showing that history is more than just the memorization of facts but that at its core it is interpretation.

The Valley of the Shadow: To begin with the website provides an enormous wealth of social history dealing with antebellum America, the Civil War years and Reconstruction from the perspectives of both a town in the north and south. Although the site is very large I didn’t find it all that hard to navigate, with each section being clearly labeled and a simple layout on all the pages. I loved the fact that the website had several different mediums from which to glean information from. The viewer has the option of exploring maps, newspapers, government statistics and personal diaries. Overall the site is an extremely helpful resource to anyone wishing to gain insight into the social history accompanying the Civil War; the primary documents which are on the site are extremely beneficial.

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History: Although the website is an added feature of the actual museum, the site’s wealth of features and information make it a terrific resource unto itself. Unlike most of the history sites I’ve visited, the Smithsonian has no specific target audience. The visually stimulating site can be utilized and enjoyed by novice historians, children and researchers alike. The complex layout and terrific presentation provide for a great visit to the museum without leaving home.

History of Valentine's Day

Today’s modern Valentine’s day is a popular holiday that can trace its origins all the way back to Ancient Rome. Although there are several different legends regarding the holidays beginning the purpose of the holiday remains undisputed. The general consensus among historians is that our modern holiday of St. Valentine can trace its origins back to the Roman feast of Lupercalia. More than two thousand years ago the people of ancient Rome celebrated a feast on the 14^th of February every year in honor of the Roman goddess Juno. Juno was the Queen of Roman Gods and Goddesses and she was regarded as the Goddess of women and marriage. Coupled with the observance of Juno’s holiday the following day brought an additional festival. This holiday was known as the “Feast of Lupercalia”. The “Feast of Lupercallia” was celebrated in honor of the God’s Lupercus and Faunus, Lupercus was the Roman name for the Greek god Pan, the God of Nature and Faunus was his female counterpart. The date of the festival coincided with the anniversary of the founding of the temple of Lupercus. A tradition of the Feast of Lupercalia was to bring together young boys and girls, who were normally segregated in society. The night before the festival the names of the girls were written on a piece of paper and placed in a jar. The following day the boys would individually drew a slip of paper from the jar bearing a girls name; the chosen pair would then spend the entire festival together. Some stories relate that successful pairings would last until next years Feast. More common than not, the pairing would allow the couple to fall in love and later marry. This tradition lasted for centuries until it was deemed peagen by Christians due to the negative stigma attached to pairings by luck.

Although the Roman tradition of pairing gave Valentines Day its general theme, efforts of St. Valentine produced its name and modern celebration. According to legend, the Roman Empire during the 3^rd century was engaged in several bloody military campaigns which were severely unpopular. As it became increasingly difficult to recruit soldiers, the reigning emperor Claudius II determined men did not choose to join because they would be forced to leave their wives and families. In order to combat this, Claudius decided to prohibit all marriages and engagements. A romantic priest Saint Valentine decided to go against the emperor’s order and marry those couples wishing to do so. When the priest’s actions were discovered he was severely beaten and then executed on February 14, 270 AD.

The modern tradition of giving valentines cards to loved one's was first introduced in the United States by Esther Howland during the 19th century.

The difficulty in completing such a seemingly easy assignment can be attributed to the fact that the objective sought forces the historian to go against the very nature of historical research. In the evaluation of secondary sources I’ve always been tought to first identify the author, then attempt to answer a series of questions dealing regarding why he or she wrote the text, who the intended audience of the text is and then identify the unspoken assumptions or detectable biases. This assignment asked to disregard all of this and instead focus on writing a “history” without consideration to the validity and qualifications of the source. As opposed to traditional research from books and scholarly journals, internet research forces one to sift through what are seemingly reliable sources and determine if in fact they were placed on the web by a random person with access to the correct software. It became immediately evident from the onset of this assignment that internet research forces the historian to add additional questions when taking information from the web. One must look for credentials and determine whether the author is affiliated with a university or institution; the historian must also search for a bibliography and citations; find out when the site was last updated and lastly internet research really forces the historian to compare the information with other sources to determine its credibility. Overall what I learned from this assignment is that a normal "google" search may be able to provide the answer to almost any question posed but when it comes down 100% confidence in that answer only the proper techniques of great research can allow a definitive conclusion.