Glad you’re here. Can’t wait to hear your story.
As a Digital Public Historian, I love to teach and share stories, but my passion is using digital tools to make the past become present in an interactive, engaging, and creative way. My interests include historical research, digital exhibit design, content creation, and original learning activities that help museums and historical organizations share their stories online and expand their audiences.
I’m a graduate of George Mason University’s Digital Public Humanities program and have worked on projects at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, The Washington DC Chapter of the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE), Belle Grove Plantation, and The French & Indian War Foundation.
What’s digital history, and how can it help you?
To do digital history, then, is to digitize the past certainly, but it is much more than that. It is to create a framework through the technology for people to experience, read, and follow an argument about a major historical problem.
Douglas Seefeldt and William G. Thomas 1
Every historian you talk to is going to have a different definition of digital history, but I like to think of it as a modern way to engage with the past. Historians have digital tools like interactive timelines that allow you to travel through a story chronologically and basic zoom functions that allow you to engage with a handwritten document closely. These digital tools help historians share stories and teach history in an engaging way to a diverse online audience, from students to the general public and everyone in between.
One of the things I love the most about history is that it’s simply a story, and I love a good story. A lot of smaller historical institutions and museums have these wonderful stories that live within their staff and volunteers and tourists who visit, but they don’t have the broad audience they deserve.
That’s where I come in.
As a Digital Public Historian, I work with smaller historical institutions and museums to research these stories, build online exhibits that provide public outreach, and create learning activities that provide educational outreach. Before I started my business, For the Love of History Consulting, LLC, I worked in the software development industry for a decade and understand the importance of knowing your audience and thinking about the end user experience.
History can be complicated and emotional, but by using digital tools, we’re able to break down events and layer in primary sources so that end users can interact and engage with a story in a very personal way.
So what’s your story?
Announcements
We made the front page!
Thank you so much to Brian Brehm at The Winchester Star for a wonderful writeup on our latest project, “From Surveyor to Patriot: The Story of George Washington & Fort Loudoun.”
As a historian running a small business and working with small historical organizations, the community’s support is everything, so thank you!
We’re live!
Our new online exhibit, From Surveyor to Patriot: The Story of George Washington & Fort Loudoun, takes you on a journey as George Washington gains experience on Virginia’s western frontier as a young surveyor in the Shenandoah Valley; goes on to build Fort Loudoun in Winchester, Virginia during the French & Indian War; and then ultimately becomes an iconic patriot during the American Revolution. It’s an incredible local story that we’ve scaffolded into greater historical context, covering a lot of history along the way.
This exhibit was made possible by a generous grant from the Virginia American Revolution 250 Commemoration – VA250 and Virginia Humanities.
Latest Projects
- What is digital history? | Perspectives on History | AHA. (n.d.). https://www.historians.org/research-and-publications/perspectives-on-history/may-2009/what-is-digital-history ↩︎
