Throughout my past experiences, I always believed that timelines were very useful in terms of understanding history. For starters a good timeline is aesthically pleasing and they can provide a perspective of important events occurring throughout the world. For example, when I am learning about the Civil War I can take a look at a timeline and see what events are occurring in other areas and see if they are relevant as timelines allow for easy comparisons, patterns to be observed, and interpretations to be made. In the article, Rosenberg and Grafton put a lot of emphasize on lines as the means of representing time. This illustrates how simple but still useful timelines can be. One simple line can give “visions of past and future,” which illustrates the importance of chronology (Rosenberg, Grafton, 11). Chronology is significant in understanding history because events in the past, drive the future. Through studying time, historians can make assessments as to why certain events occurred and what spurred them on. It is important to note that although a timeline may appear as simply a line, the makers of timelines must be given a lot of credit. Timelines can be difficult to create as Rosenberg and Grafton point out, because the events must “be revealed as possessing a structure, an order of meaning, that they do not possess as mere sequence” (11). It is not enough to place events together, they should have a deeper meaning that can be analyzed.
Although I am a huge proponent of timelines, I do not find the TimeMapper that we made in this class very helpful. The timeline is very squished together which makes it difficult to search for connections among the events. Additionally, events related to history, sports, english, and miscellaneous events are all put together on the timeline. It would have been more helpful if we split up the events by category in order to make the events easier to analyze. The way I went about analyzing the connections and relevance among the events was by clicking each one and reading through the description given. By doing so, I was able to find some interesting connections. This timeline made it possible for me to discover that in the 1860’s the Suez Canal opened, the first bicycle was invented, the Pony Express was founded, and the first continental railroad was constructed. All of these four events are related to traveling and communication, which makes me wonder if there is a reason as to why they were invented around the same time, and if the makings of one or two inspired the others to be created. I would not be able to dig deeper into this connection if this timeline did not help me notice that they all began in the same period of time.
One aspect of the TimeMapper that I did think was useful was the map. The map had blue ticks of where each event took place, and by scrolling over the blue ticks, you could see which event occurred there. For example, through the map I can find out that the First Transcontinental Railroad Construction occurred in North America. I could then continue clicking through the blue ticks on North America to discover other important events that happened in the 1860’s. I think that it is important to not only analyze events by times, but also by location too.
Since James Merrill Linn only discuses events that are specifically related to h
im, and not in the world around him this timeline serves as a useful tool to enlighten us of the global issues and accomplishments of Linn’s time. For example, through this timeline I was able to discover that in 1861 the Fall of Fort Sumter was the battle that began the Civil War. This is important because it gives background to Linn’s experiences during the Civil War, and we can literally see where his diary entries fit in. There are other events that are specifically relevant to Linn and the Civil War such as the secession of the Southern States. Through this timeline I learned of important events that occurred both prior and during the war that Linn failed to discuss or mention in his diary entries.