This week I have been getting ready for the field work portion of my internship which happened today. This week I was given an assignment to answer a few questions, purpose
and goal of project, methods (how did you collect data), background of Florida history, focused on European occupation, especially
focusing on Territorial Period and after, and a short couple of lines about what you hypothesize you may see in
data collection. The third question I needed to answer is taking longer then I thought due to Florida history being so vast, and me forgetting all I used to know about Florida History which I learned in the fourth grade only. It is all interesting and relevant to the work that I am doing. Depending on the changes going on at the time in the state it can have an effect on the iconography of the marker. A problem I had answering these questions was that I did not make it academic enough, I realized after rereading it was that I wrote it as if I was writing for my blog. I have come accustomed to writing my blog and unintentionally forgot to write in a more academic manner. It has been a little since I have written a paper so I need to practice my writing, because if you are not progressing you are digressing. What I also needed to do was to get volunteers to help me collect the data. In the end I could not get many volunteers to help me collect the data today, but I did have my significant other come to help me put. It was exactly what I was expecting, and it was simple to gather the information that I needed to get. The way I wrote down the information was in sections, each grave that I went to I wrote the number, name, birth date, date of death, material of the marker, and the iconography (the visual images and symbols used in a work of art or the study or interpretation on these). As I was collecting the data I had an idea of how to make my data collection more efficient which is to take pictures of the graves this way I can enter the information straight into excel and even add a hyperlink if possible. I am still dabbling with the program to see what will work and what will not work. It is all about testing the waters with excel it is a testy program that can be useful if one knows how to use it. By no means am I done with this cemetery, but I now understand first hand what needs to be done and just having an example of what I need to do helps me tremendously. Something I noticed while collecting the data was that not all graves are in even columns or rows some are a bit scattered and it can get confusing to follow a specific order. I was told that this cemetery is in a better order then the other one so I will need to be careful not to mix things up, but I am optimistic. I was also given directions to the White cemetery, another cemetery I will be collecting data from. In all today was productive for me and has me enthusiastic about going out again and collecting more data. Monday I will be going out again and I have two volunteers coming to help me out this time instead of one so we will be able to collect more data.
Friday, March 27, 2015
Friday, March 13, 2015
Field work planned
This week I have learned that I will finally be doing some field work, the long awaited time has come to pass. The first day of field work will be taking place two weeks from today, the 27th of this month and I am very excited. All of the planning is what brings me to the field work portion, the research I have been doing is the main thing that will help me. The place my internship supervisor said to meet at will be at the Oakland Nature Preserve, then we will head over to the cemetery. It is kind of hidden so this way I can just follow his car there until I have it memorized and then I can get there on my own. One of the main things we did talk about was visiting more then one cemetery, that way the data will be more broad. The other main thing was that he was going to help me get volunteers to help out with the data collection due to it being a large scale collection of data. The more help I get, the more I can use to compare and contrast which will be helpful, because I am just one person and just me going an collecting the data would not be enough to get a well rounded analysis to answer my research question. The data template I made will be coming in handy when I start with the data collection, it will also be used by the volunteers. The goal is by the end of the day after the data is written down in the template I will be looking at all the information and putting it into the deliverable poster. This is also where my knowledge of Florida History will be needed, to see if any of the changes in the cemeteries happened because of a major even going on at the time of their death. With the book I will be looking at will be population, the Indian removal act, seminal wars dealing with the relocation of settlers, urbanization, and soldiers being sent to train in Florida during WWII etc. This way I know what was going on. All of these things in Florida History will be considered variables, as each of these things could explain changes. This week has been very busy for me so far, as I have begun to outline the book I mentioned last week, Gannon's The New History of Florida. I keep wanting to just read it through in order due to habit, but that would just be a waste of planning. After my internship is over I am planning to read it fully because it is an interesting read and what I like about it is that it is not just like reading a textbook which can get boring. The reason I do not is strictly time based, due to all of the work I will be doing with the data collection, I have no choice but to just do an outline of changes that would effect cemetery change. Such as the things I have mentioned sentences above. I realized when I begun reading it that I needed to buy some colored tabs to make it easier to find the things I am looking for in the book. Instead of buying colored tabs though I decided to make some out of old construction paper I had lying around. It was a good idea and makes it much easier for me to find what I am looking for.
Sources I am using for as of late:
- A Study of Duval County Grave Markers
by Lucy Ames Edwards
- Gone but not Forgotten: Wakulla County's Folk Graveyards
by Sherrie Stokes
- Graveyards and Social Structures
- Map and Database Construction for an Historic Cemetery: Methods and Applications
by: Johan Liebens
- Necrogeography in the United States
Published by: American Geographical Society
- Cemetery symbolism of prairie pioneers- gravestone art and social change in Story County
by: Coleen Lou Nutty
- Under Grave Conditions; African American Signs of Life and Death in North Florida
by: Robin Franklin Nigh
- Using Cemetery Data to Reconstruct Immigration and Migration Patterns: St. Michael's Cemetery, Pensacola, Florida
by: Sarah Elizabeth Patterson
- Gravestone Iconography and Mortuary Ideology
by: Frederick J.E. Gorman and Michael DiBlasi
- The Historical Archaeology of Mortuary Behavior: Coffin Hardware from Uxbridge, Massachusetts
by: Edward L. Bell
- A Study of Duval County Grave Markers
by Lucy Ames Edwards
- Gone but not Forgotten: Wakulla County's Folk Graveyards
by Sherrie Stokes
- Graveyards and Social Structures
- Map and Database Construction for an Historic Cemetery: Methods and Applications
by: Johan Liebens
- Necrogeography in the United States
Published by: American Geographical Society
- Cemetery symbolism of prairie pioneers- gravestone art and social change in Story County
by: Coleen Lou Nutty
- Under Grave Conditions; African American Signs of Life and Death in North Florida
by: Robin Franklin Nigh
- Using Cemetery Data to Reconstruct Immigration and Migration Patterns: St. Michael's Cemetery, Pensacola, Florida
by: Sarah Elizabeth Patterson
- Gravestone Iconography and Mortuary Ideology
by: Frederick J.E. Gorman and Michael DiBlasi
- The Historical Archaeology of Mortuary Behavior: Coffin Hardware from Uxbridge, Massachusetts
by: Edward L. Bell
- Death's Heads, Cherubs, and Willow Trees: Experimentral Archaeology in Colonial Cemeteries
by: Edwin Dethlefsen and James Deetz
Books:
- In Small Things Forgotten
by: James Deetz
Books:
- In Small Things Forgotten
by: James Deetz
- The New History of Florida
Edited by: Michael Gannon
Sears Catalog:
-Special catalogue of tombstones, monuments, tablets and markers. (1902) Sears Roebuck & Co. Chicago, Ill.
Sears Catalog:
-Special catalogue of tombstones, monuments, tablets and markers. (1902) Sears Roebuck & Co. Chicago, Ill.
Friday, March 6, 2015
Data Template
I had mentioned in my last blog that this week I as given an assignment due on Tuesday to create a spreadsheet through excel of how I will be recording my data when I start my field work. So far in my spread sheet I will have different sections where I will write the information, name, date of birth and day of death, iconography (what symbolism is on the marker), marker types (cement, granite, etc.), whether they are male or female, along with a photo of the grave that I will hyper link in etc. This will be instrumental in organizing my data, this way when I create my deliverable poster I will have everything organized. The point of the poster is to answer a research question that I will create when I get to the field work portion, and to better answer that question; organizing my data is key. When I get to the field work portion I will post pictures to give an example of how I am putting in the data after I see the marker, it will make much more sense after I get pictures. The other thing that I have been working on is finishing up on my last bits of reading from the papers and journals I had to go through. At the bottom of the page is the full list of journals, articles and book that I will be using throughout my internship most of them I have gone through and read the only exception is the New History of Florida because I had just gotten it as of yesterday after it finally became available via library. I did request it using the inter library loan but it was taking too long and I needed to get started on outlining the book. So far what I will be looking at will be population, the Indian removal act, seminal wars dealing with the relocation of settlers, urbanization, and soldiers being sent to train in Florida during WWII etc. All of these changes in what is going on in Florida at the time can affect a cemetery especially its iconography. So going over the book and outlining these key changes in Florida History will be my main priority in these next coming week before I get started on the field work portion of the internship. I will not by any means be reading the entire book, that would take much too long, but I will read in depth about the things I will be outlining (mentioned in the above sentences). Surprisingly when I started to read a few paragraphs I realized that I regrettably do not know much about Florida history. I am aware of what was going on in the United States at the time as a whole, but not specifically of what was going on in Florida due to policies that were created, urbanization, civil war, etc. The last time I had to learn about Florida history specifically was in the fourth grade in social studies class and much of what I learned was till 1865. So I think this book will be a great asset to me when I collect my data, this way I know what changes occurred and what it means in reference to the tombstones.
Sources I am using for as of late:
- A Study of Duval County Grave Markers
by Lucy Ames Edwards
- Gone but not Forgotten: Wakulla County's Folk Graveyards
by Sherrie Stokes
- Graveyards and Social Structures
- Map and Database Construction for an Historic Cemetery: Methods and Applications
by: Johan Liebens
- Necrogeography in the United States
Published by: American Geographical Society
- Cemetery symbolism of prairie pioneers- gravestone art and social change in Story County
by: Coleen Lou Nutty
- Under Grave Conditions; African American Signs of Life and Death in North Florida
by: Robin Franklin Nigh
- Using Cemetery Data to Reconstruct Immigration and Migration Patterns: St. Michael's Cemetery, Pensacola, Florida
by: Sarah Elizabeth Patterson
- Gravestone Iconography and Mortuary Ideology
by: Frederick J.E. Gorman and Michael DiBlasi
- The Historical Archaeology of Mortuary Behavior: Coffin Hardware from Uxbridge, Massachusetts
by: Edward L. Bell
- A Study of Duval County Grave Markers
by Lucy Ames Edwards
- Gone but not Forgotten: Wakulla County's Folk Graveyards
by Sherrie Stokes
- Graveyards and Social Structures
- Map and Database Construction for an Historic Cemetery: Methods and Applications
by: Johan Liebens
- Necrogeography in the United States
Published by: American Geographical Society
- Cemetery symbolism of prairie pioneers- gravestone art and social change in Story County
by: Coleen Lou Nutty
- Under Grave Conditions; African American Signs of Life and Death in North Florida
by: Robin Franklin Nigh
- Using Cemetery Data to Reconstruct Immigration and Migration Patterns: St. Michael's Cemetery, Pensacola, Florida
by: Sarah Elizabeth Patterson
- Gravestone Iconography and Mortuary Ideology
by: Frederick J.E. Gorman and Michael DiBlasi
- The Historical Archaeology of Mortuary Behavior: Coffin Hardware from Uxbridge, Massachusetts
by: Edward L. Bell
- Death's Heads, Cherubs, and Willow Trees: Experimentral Archaeology in Colonial Cemeteries
by: Edwin Dethlefsen and James Deetz
Books:
- In Small Things Forgotten
by: James Deetz
Books:
- In Small Things Forgotten
by: James Deetz
- The New History of Florida
Edited by: Michael Gannon
Sears Catalog:
-Special catalogue of tombstones, monuments, tablets and markers. (1902) Sears Roebuck & Co. Chicago, Ill.
Sears Catalog:
-Special catalogue of tombstones, monuments, tablets and markers. (1902) Sears Roebuck & Co. Chicago, Ill.
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