Project Reviews
The Countryside Transformed: The Eastern Shore of Virginia, the Pennsylvania Railroad, and the Creation of a Modern Landscape
Created by William G. Thomas III, et. al. and maintained by Southern Spaces, 31 July 2007
http://www.southernspaces.org/contents/2007/thomas/1a.htm
Backed by an already impressive opus of digital work, William G. Thomas again wades into the web and continues to demonstrate the advantages digital history has for the historical profession. Completed in 2007 and created under the direction of the Emory University Digital Library Research Initiative and hosted by the peer-reviewed Southern Spaces, Thomas was joined by Brooks Miles Barnes at Eastern Shore Public Library and Tom Szuba at the University of Virginia in producing this study of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the transformation of the landscape along the Eastern Shore of Virginia. Academics and nonacademic alike will find much to explore and enjoy.
An easy to navigate site introduces readers to the construction of the Pennsylvania Railroad system that opened the remote Eastern Shore to social and physical changes. The intersection of technology, people, and landscape produced a new environment. In about a decade, the railroad connected the Eastern Shore to markets in the East and Midwest. New infrastructures, including post offices, lighthouses, railroads, and roads, transformed the rural landscape. Environmental effects accompanied the railroad's construction. New agricultural technologies resulted in changes in nutrient balances and runoff, two unanticipated outcomes. New extractive industries like oystering proved an economic boon to the region until the market ran against nature's limitations. The over-harvesting collapsed the market. Meanwhile, competition abroad forced prices lower for other goods produced in the region. Through modernity, says Thomas, people formed "a supreme conviction that the command of technology and the market gave these people unstoppable advantages" (Conclusion).
Thomas persuasively lays out the social, cultural, and environmental impacts railroad expansion had on the Eastern Shore, introducing the region to a new "engagement with technology and rapid transformation of the landscape [that] betrayed other allegiances, motives, forces, and effects" (Introduction). Building on a wealth of primary sources, including newspapers, pamphlets, first-hand accounts, and public documents, the work pieces together a thoughtful narrative encompassing the impact of modernity, the compression of space and time, demographic patterns, and the interconnections between race, labor, wealth, and communities. The building of the railroad networks transformed the Eastern Shore from a "distinctly Southern . . . cultural landscape seemingly frozen in time" to a region intimately connected to broader commerce and culture (Introduction).
The Countryside Transformed represents an ongoing trend in the historical profession. The increasing amount of digitization and the emergence of new digital tools make it possible for historians to collect and present the past in new ways. Unlike his previous Valley of the Shadow project with Edward L. Ayers, Thomas presents a flowing narrative and interpretation to guide visitors through the site. What gives the project its digital quality is that several primary sources are a point-and-click away, giving researchers, teachers, and students unlimited access to documents that otherwise could be painstakingly difficult to reach. Thus, a digital archive is built within the narrative. The digital archive is divided into four sections: topic, geography, chronology, and sources. Viewers can scan sources related to maps, source topics, environment, people, organizations, and several other criteria. Included within the archive is the ability to keyword search, allowing readers to plunge into the depth of the archive. Manuscripts, first-hand accounts, maps, photographs, newspapers, and a wide range of other sources are available and instantly accessible. The archive serves as a useful alternative to brick-and-mortar institutions and will be useful for researchers and students lacking access to research establishments.
Skeptics may find this little more than an accumulation of data that breaks down traditional historical narratives, but Thomas's project should put those at ease. The project presents a thoughtful and flowing essay divided into several sections. Readers are free to explore each segment or read the work in its straightforward presentation. The site is organized thematically, addressing the issues of modernity, the economic effects of the railroad, and the limits on the natural environment. Accompanying the text are photograph slideshows that correlate to the subject matter. The Countryside Transformed showcases how digital media is transforming how history is read and presented. Far from being mere sophisticated footnotes, the hypertextual writing allows readers to explore terms, events, locations, and other objects as they arise. A deeper and exploratory narrative enriches the writing of history, allowing historians to offer several layers of complexity. Digital historians should be cautious in presenting too much complexity in fear of presenting history as unknowable; however, Thomas includes the sources necessary to sustain his argument without driving the reader into a daunting sea of sources and limits hypertext so readers are not distracted from the narrative.
The quantity of sources available and searchability is certainly one of the most valuable digital tools of this project. One would like to have seen more tools available to manipulate maps or images. The slideshows provide a degree of visually showing change over time, but the images are static and cannot be manipulated. Maps with a series of tools that would allow readers to zoom, add or subtract layers, and provide an interactive timeline that would visualize, for example, railroad expansion or infrastructure development (similar to Andrew Torget's interactive maps in his Texas Slavery Project) would be a wonderful addition. Slideshows accomplish the job they were intended for, but interactive maps and images would give the site an added degree of functionality. There is also a disconnect between the essay at Southern Spaces and the evidence stored at the Virginia Center for Digital History (VCDH). Although the system works, if VCDH moves their files to a new server the possibility exists that the hyperlinks at Southern Spaces will lead nowhere. Southern Spaces would better serve their digital projects by self-containing evidence and sources within digital projects rather than rely upon external systems that they have no editorial control over.
The advances in digital scholarship over the past ten years offers proof that serious scholarship can be produced on the web. The profession's many audience members, starting with Clio who we so diligently serve to academics and nonacademics, are well served by the introduction of the new medium. Digital scholarship not only augments the role of public intellectuals, but allows historians to connect to the broad audience they enjoy over other disciplines. The Countryside Transformed demonstrates how individuals or smaller institutions lacking large budgets can generate a typical narrative and valuable collection of resources while integrating new digital tools. The vast collection of maps, documents, and images interwoven with the argument makes the site a key source for how technology transforms landscapes.
Jason Heppler
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Reviewed: February 2008
