For my final blog post, I decided to revisit the assignment we did on Omeka. I really enjoyed this assignment because it really opened my eyes. I didn’t know that there was a way for me to access such historical photographs and documents. While searching for what content I wanted to upload, I came across so many important pieces of history. I think that digital history is one of the greatest things invented. We not only have access to photos and documents but to databases and networks too.
I added this photo to my omeka because it was very unique. The event that is going on is usually called the “Slave Ball”. A German painter who migrated to American worked a great deal in the south as an artist specializing in scenes of everyday life. Although writers often characterize this painting as a slave ball or dance, the people shown may have included free domestic servants as well as slaves attending their wealthy owners on holiday. This infamous painting can be found in the North Carolina Museum of Art. When learning about enslaved people growing up, moments like this was hardly ever brought up. Although so many were bound and enslaved, there was still a moment that made them feel normal again.
What I enjoyed so much about Omeka was the ability to not only post text but visuals as well. It was very simple to navigate through although it held such important pieces of history. Watching this small portfolio come together was amazing because it allowed me to keep up with all of the new things that I was learning and coming across.
Overall, I enjoyed creating this small portfolio of mine. It really opened my eyes to how much knowledge is at my fingertips and although growing up I wasn’t taught so many things, the power of the internet has made researching easier. I am a visual learner, so photos, graphs, anything visual helps me learn better. It’s one thing to read articles on your topics of interest in history, but to actually come across documents, objects and photos make learning so much fun. It’s like you’re actually time traveling back into those days.
Moving forward in my personal life and my educational life, I’ll be sure to go the extra mile and find the information and digital history I need to make learning easier and more attainable for me. Knowing that so much information is out that awes me. But to know that I have access to it brightens me because I never knew that I could.
