For this week’s blog post, I decided to create a storymap that covers the spread of the cotton empire in the United States. I wanted to focus on the cotton empire because I understand how important it was to the expansion of industrialism around the world, and was interested in learning more information on the topic. Creating this storymap was an interesting experience that was somewhat difficult for me, but also somewhat enjoyable. The most difficult part for me was navigating the storymap site and figuring out how to use it, but I definitely think I started to get into the swing of it after making my first few slides. Another difficult aspect involved in this week’s blog was finding good pictures to use for my slides. Although this part was difficult and somewhat time consuming, it was also very enjoyable at the same time. It was interesting to see how many different pictures exist for certain events in our history, and I had fun comparing the different photos and analyzing their similarities and differences. While one photograph can depict a certain scene or moment in time well, I think it is even more beneficial to observe numerous photographs from the same event. By doing this, you are able to see the scene from different viewpoints and perspectives.
Doing research and analyzing sources to gather information for my slides was my favorite part of this assignment. It was extremely interesting to read accounts of certain events in history that came from different sources. While lots of the sources included the same information, there were definitely some that seemed to come from a biased viewpoint. Some sources seemed biased because their information and accounts of events didn’t match up with what the high majority of other sources claimed. I think this is an important thing to keep in mind when doing research, because it’s always helpful to know whether or not a source is biased. My extensive research on the cotton empire definitely helped me understand how to tell the difference between a biased and unbiased source. This is an extremely important skill that I’d like to retain for future research assignments.
Your choice in focusing on the global aspects of the cotton empire made this historical narrative perfect for a story map! Your map turned out amazing and I really appreciate the effort you put into the details of the slides
as well as your analysis. I am also glad to hear that you enjoyed the process of building the map, minus some small challenges along the way. The global approach to this history definitely opens more doors to additional research that goes beyond the scope of Schermerhorn, but I think you laid some strong foundations for understanding the depth of research necessary to address this topic. I learned a lot about the economic, social, and political scope of the “Cotton Empire”, thank you for sharing this!