No one can deny the rapid progress of information technology over the last few decades.  We have seen these changes in all aspects of our lives, from the workplace, to consumerism, and transportation.  These changes have had major implications on historicism as well.  Cameron Blevins provides an explanation about the production of space and place in America during the late nineteenth century in “Space, Nation, and the Triumph of Region: A View of the World from Houston.”  Similarly, Matthew Wilkens’ article, “The Geographic Imagination of Civil War-Era American Fiction,” details how he was able to use documents in the nineteenth century to draw an imaginative geography of America.  So how have these modernized changes, discussed in these two articles, affected the capabilities of researching and documentation of history?  Continue reading →

Computers have become the historical researchers’ powerful ally when it comes to discerning patterns amid data in text. Technology has allowed researchers the ability to complete projects that would have been impossible without these computational methods. The typewriter allowed the researcher the ability to create a manuscript that was legible and edits were cleaner, unlike handwritten documents that needed a cypher. Word processors, the internet and digital databases that allowed researchers the ability to not only type up and revise documents, but to complete research from the comfort of their office without having to drive to a library or archive to review written sources. While some of these tools were advancements allowing finished research to become published article or monograph faster, research has advanced to combine critical thinking with computational data mining that creates new assessments of old research. Continue reading →