Grading Criteria for Stops

Text:

• Text is 250 to 500 words in length.
• Text is well-written, without awkward phrases or errors in spelling and grammar.
• Text is not superficial but reflects research on the topic, using all available sources.

Images:

• Each stop includes 4-6 relevant images
• Images are imaginatively drawn from a variety of available sources

Giving Credit

• All items in your stop have a descriptive title
• All images include a credit line, example: “Image from the personal collection of Larry Cebula,” or “Image courtesy the Northwest Room of the Spokane Public Library.”
• All stops include “Related Sources” (see the text box at the bottom of the screen below where you insert your text) with a bibliography for that stop.

Technical

• all text, audio, and video will conform to the guidelines on the Github Curatescape wiki.under formatting requirements.
• Things to watch out for:
• copying text from Word
• images too large or in wrong format
• images must be captioned, labeled, and credited in Omeka

Some Reminders for Spokane Historical Text

I mostly really liked what I saw tonight. I do have a few reminders though:

• Remember that the reader will, theoretically, be standing in front of your site. Be sure to connect the reader to the experience with a phrase or two. "This striking building is the Cebula mansion..." or "If you look on the east side of this building you will see a ghost sign for..."
• Limit your editorializing. Don't tell the reader what to think about historical events.
• Brief quotes from primary sources are great.
• Begin your paragraphs with short declarative sentences.
• Do not write in the first person.
• Balance your interpretation between people and architecture. "The Cebula Mansion was built in 1908 by Bushrod Ebenezer Cebula, who made his fortune teaching dogs to whistle." Then have a paragraph about Bushrod. The second paragraph might begin: "The Catalonian style of the Cebula mansion is exemplified in the elaborate corbels of the second story balcony..."
• Use all available sources! Research your location, its owners, and your architect.

Finally, be very careful not to plagiarize--accidentally or on purpose. When working from only one or two sources it is easy to fall into the trap of paraphrasing too closely or even copying word-for-word. Double check your writing and compare it to your sources and make sure what you are writing are your own words. If you are unsure, ask before you submit. 

Image Sources

Sources for Images of Spokane History

Digital history requires images, and this may be the most difficult challenge of creating your tour stops. The problem is complicated by copyright and the multiple possible sources for historical images of Spokane. Here are some tips to get you started:

The Washington State Archives, Digital Archives has 20,000 photos of Washington history, including quite a few of Spokane. Check out in particular the Expo ‘74 collection and the Spokane Bridges collection.

The Northwest Room of the Spokane Public Library has extensive photographs of early Spokane. Start with their online collections but keep in mind that only a fraction of their images have yet been digitized. Follow up with a visit in person, bring your digital camera and a flash drive and if the archivist is not too busy she will allow you to scan the images you need. The Spokane Public Library has a progressive policy of allowing the public to use their images, but they do ask to be credited, so make sure you do so.

Washington State University Digital Collections

Penny Postcards - USGenWeb Archive has thousands of historic postcards including some from early Spokane.

Sanborn Maps: These colorful, detailed, block-by-block maps of early Spokane are a great source of images. Sanborn maps are not available online but can be found at the Northwest Room of the Spokane Public Library and also at the MAC.

Birds-Eye View maps were popular from the 1880 to the 1910s were often colorful and richly illustrated. The Library of Congress has an online collection that includes an 1884 map of Cheney and a 1905 map of Spokane.

Metskers and Olgive Atlases: These detailed county atlases show every road, house, and building in county and who owned the property. There are useful for any site outside of the city limits. Available at the ERB, NW Room, EWU Archives, and the MAC.

Newspaper headlines from the Google News Archive can be an arresting source of images for dramatic events. Here is my how-to video on capturing them.

Property record cards from city or county assessors often include historic images. The PRCs for Spokane are available at the Eastern Region Branch of the State Archives in Cheney. They are not digitized, but you can get a sense of what they look like from those for King County.  

   

Online books: Google books has digitized volumes for early Spokane, as does Archive.org and a few other sources. Use the advanced search features to find images. The best digitized books websites are Google Book Search, the Internet Archive, the Washington State Library, and the  Hathi Trust. Here are a few to start off with--and please let me know if you find more:

• Beauties of Spokane is an 1895 picture book of Spokane landmarks, some of which are no longer in existence.
• The City Beautiful: Spokane Washington (1890) is similar to above but with more street scenes.
• A History of Spokane (1911) by Nelson Wayne Durham is the most comprehensive (if biased) history of early Spokane and contains some excellent images. Unfortunately the quality of the scans on Google Books (linked above) are poor, if you find an image you want to use you might be better off to find it online and then scan or photograph the same image from a physical copy of the volume, which is available at the EWU archives as well as the ERB and the Spokane Public Library. The book came with a a two volume “biographical and pictorial supplement” that is online in a very usable format at Archive.org (Vol. 1, Vol. 2). These two volumes are fawning biographies of the wealthy Spokanites who supported the publication of the book. They should not be considered definitive but do come with great portraits that may be used. (Someone needs to do a stop at the downtown statue of John Robert Monoghan!)

For a modern photograph of a site, take a look at Flickr. Use the advanced search for Creative Commons licensed images. If your site is a place that tourists tend to go, there probably will be images on Flickr, some of them really spectacular.

And don't forget to do a Google Image Search for your topic. Make sure though that what you find is free of copyright. If you are not sure, ask the owner of the website for permission to use the image.

Finally, remember to think outside the box about images. They do not all have to be of the building you are talking about. If for example you are talking about a hotel created to house workers from the mines, you could also have images of mining, workers, street scenes from Spokane in that time period, newspaper headlines (from the Google News archive) of related stories, pictures of the architect or owner of the hotel, images from the city directories listing the hotel, and pictures of the building that you took yourself--full images of the building, close-ups of details, a peek into the lobby (if open to the public), ghost signs on the walls (if present), etc.

Sources for Spokane Historical Research

Your final project is to create four interpretive stops--text and images only--for Spokane Historical. I want to make this as easy a project as possible, while creating high-quality stops. The pedagogical goal is to have you learn how to contribute to a digital history project and also to have something out there with your name on it to show to future employers.

It is strongly recommended that you choose four buildings on the National Register for Historic Preservation. Working from the register will make your life easier! You will know when you begin that the building is historically significant, there will be nomination form with the basic history of the building already provided, and additional research will be relatively easy.

Here are some good sources for researching your buildings:

1. First stop, the National Register of Historic Places database. What you are looking for is the Register Nomination form for the building (here for example is the form for the Davenport Hotel). If the form is not available on the database, check with the Spokane Historic Preservation Office, particularly the Spokane Register of Historic Places. If your building appears on one of the Historic Spokane Heritage Tours, you are in luck. If your property is listed on the National Register but you cannot find the form at either of the above databases, you should be able to find a paper copy of the form at the Spokane Historic Preservation Office, or the Northwest Room of the Spokane Public Library, or perhaps in government documents at the JFK library.
2. An excellent book for researching the history of downtown Spokane is Spokane's Building Blocks by Robert B. Hyslop,  available here.
3. The above sources are excellent, but somewhat dry. Once you have done the basic research, see what you can find in online newspapers. Start with Google News Archive, and don't forget Chronicling America. Search for the name of the building, the name of the owner(s) and architect, the street address (note that some buildings will have multiple addresses, and that a few Spokane street names have changed over the years), and for the names of businesses or prominent individuals who one resided there. 
4. Another good source of local color is the original history of Spokane, A History of Spokane (1911) by Nelson Wayne Durham is the most comprehensive (if biased) history of early Spokane and contains some excellent images. It might also be available at Archive.org.
5. Spokane City Directories (1880s-present): Before there were telephone books there were city directories, which came out yearly and listed by name every person living in Spokane, their address, their profession, and other vital information. business were also listed and the pages are crammed with advertising for those businesses. Collections of Spokane City Directories are available at the Eastern Region Branch of the State Archives, at the Northwest Room of the Spokane Public Library, and at the Northwest Museum of Arts & Cultures.
6. Sanborn Maps: These colorful, detailed, block-by-block maps of early Spokane are a great source of images. Sanborn maps are not available online (actually there is a commercial database, but those maps are black-and-white only and I don't think EWU subscribes) but can be found at the Northwest Room of the Spokane Public Library and also at the MAC.
7. There are many other books that might yield information. See this page for lots and lots of additional research suggestions, including where to find historic images.

This will be a fun project!

Getting Good with Google Reader

This looks like a useful blog post.

Volunteer for Historic Preservation

I do hope some of you will lend a hand at the National Trust for Historic Preservation Conference in Spokane in a few weeks. Here are the details:

Be a part of the excitement as we go “Beyond Boundaries” at the National Trust for Historic Preservation Conference taking place October 31st – November 3rd. 

Your participation as a volunteer will help connect attendees to a great Spokane experience!

Volunteer roles range from greeting conference attendees as they arrive at the airport to directing attendees to their specific events being held at The Convention Center, the Davenport Hotel, The Fox Theatre, The Bing and The Masonic Center.   You’ll be Ambasadors to Spokane!!

The public is invited to participate in some events during the conference:  The Opening Plenary at The Fox Theatre featuring Annie Leonard, creator of “The Story of Stuff Project, the first National Preservation Conference Pow Wow, Design Awards Program and the Closing Plenary Luncheon for a cost of $15.    To find out more, go to www.PreservationNation.org/conference <http://www.PreservationNation.org/conference> 

We’ll have a Volunteer Training Session on October 9th at 1:30PM at the Convention Theatre at The Convention Center.

You can help us by volunteering for several shifts.   Attached is the Sign Up Sheet with the various opportunities.  To serve as a volunteer, please respond to me by October 2nd via email at kgendron@sisna.com or by phone at (509) 327-0452 and let me know what positions you’d like to volunteer.

Thanks for helping showcase Spokane as a city that goes Beyond Boundaries!!

Sincerely,

Karen Gendron
NTHP Volunteer Coordinator Chair

Count Votes, Earn Cash

Here are the details on how to get hired by Associated Press to tally the votes:

Hello and welcome back to the 2012 school year – As you may know the Associated Press is working with the Associated Students of Eastern, Eastern’s Journalism Program and Eastern’s administration in setting up a national General Election call-in center in EWU's PUB Multipurpose Room for the November General Election.  Eastern's students will be handling election returns for the Presidential election, Congress and many state-wide races in 22 states from across the U.S.  Eastern is the only college or university in the United States to have this distinction.  For this exciting event the AP is hiring up to 210 Eastern students to work in the Center, at $12/hour for both training and the day of the election.  Training will take place the morning of Nov. 3 (a Saturday) and the election this year is Tuesday Nov. 6. 

I am responsible for recruiting the student workers and it would be a tremendous help if you would please share this information with students in your classes and program.  It will be a great civic involvement experience for them as well as providing them with some well-deserved extra cash. 

Thank you so much. 

Steve Blewett, Emeritus Professor of Journalism and currently adjunct professor in the Journalism Program.  Students can contact me at:  sblewett@ewu.edu or call me at 534-1455 if they have any questions or would like to sign up for a position.