In this post I will explain how the Lincoln at 200 project uses digital humanities to commemorate the Lincoln bicentennial. There are three sections to the website, Lincoln & The West, The Fiery Trial, and Archives.The primary DH focus on this website is transcription. There are hundreds of archives on the website open to the public eye. These archives are anything from maps to reward posters to portraits of Abraham Lincoln. With the use of a website called Zoomify it is possible to look at the archives in a whole different way. While before it was very difficult to make out some of the writing in letters, records, etc., now it allows anybody to just click on the image and zoom in to what they would like to read.
The other important approach this website uses is mapping. In almost every single section there are maps of Kentucky, the Western States, etc. The Lincoln & The West section of the website uses maps and other archives to show and explain the land on which the president was born and raised. Lincoln was born in 1809 in a one-room log cabin on farmland near Nolin Creek in Kentucky. Through Zoomify it is even possible to see the creek on a map printed twenty-five years before Lincoln was even born. (The creek is in the bottom left hand corner)
An additional appr
oach that this project used was visualization. The Fiery Trial section of the website works as a digital version of an exhibition at Chicago History Museum that ended in 2010. Using the visual part of this website, you can not only read about Lincoln’s presidency but also see portraits of what is being discussed, and letters written by the president himself.
I think this website is a very good tool for anyone who wants an inside look into the 19th century and Lincoln’s life. This website did a fantastic job by putting so many archives up for the public to see, and it is just a sample of all the amazing things digital humanities can do.