In Nothing but Freedom, Eric Foner compares slave societies, including Haiti, the British West Indies, and the American South, and their process of emancipation. Foner devotes the first chapter of his book to discuss Haiti and the British West Indies in order to juxtapose these slave societies with the American South. Foner notes that by analyzing emancipation in other settings in order to illuminate the American experience, certain patterns stand out. Foner describes these patterns as “the effort to create a dependent labor force, the ideological conflict over changing definitions of labor and property, the impact of metropolitan policies, the place of the society in the larger world economy, and the uses of state in bolstering the plantation regime” (38). In both the Caribbean and the American South, emancipation raised the interrelated question of labor control and access to economic resources (43). In both, whites, determined to maintain the plantation system post-emancipation, obsessed over labor and attempted to prevent freedmen from leaving the plantations. For example, throughout the Caribbean, taxation was employed to “limit the freedmen’s access to land, to restrict the economic progress of the peasantry, and to induce blacks to labor for wages” (25). Similarly, in the American South, the solution to the labor problem was the system of sharecropping, which “evolved out of an economic struggle in which planters were able to prevent blacks from gaining access to land” in order to force blacks to remain on plantations (45). Furthermore, the American South attempted to create a dependent labor force by encouraging immigration. As in the Caribbean, many planters “concluded that indentured servants would admirably meet this need” and the West Indies experimented with Indian, “coolie,” labor to meet this labor shortage (47). Thus, the state interfered in order to support the plantation system. In addition, Southern states passed the Black Codes in an attempt to create a labor system, which could be enforced by the state (49). With Redemption, the state again stepped forward as an instrument of labor control. The right to property and the terms of credit were redefined during Redemption in the interest of the planter class. Foner concludes, “As in the Caribbean, American freedman adopted an interpretation of the implications of emancipation rather different from that of their former masters” (44). For blacks, the desire for land “reflected the recognition that, whatever its limitations, land ownership ensured the freedmen a degree of control over the time and labor of themselves and their families” (44). For example, following emancipation in Haiti, the rise of a black peasantry occurred, centered on this idea of freedom from the plantations and autonomy. Furthermore, Foner notes “like their Caribbean counterparts, southern freedman did not believe the end of slavery should mean a diminution of either the privileges or level of income they had enjoyed as slaves” (57). This essentially amounted to the right of subsistence. Conflicts over the legal definition of contract rights and property relations are familiar legacies of emancipation in both the Caribbean and the American South. For example, the matter of fencing was an explosive political issue in parts of the South because it “directly involved the laborer’s access to economic resources and alternative means of subsistence” (62). Plantation owners attempted to prevent freedmen from grazing their livestock on privately owned lands. Similarly in the West Indies, customary property rights no longer applied; rather, “if blacks wanted access to the provision grounds, they must pay for the privilege” (19). Essentially, the ultimate similarity between the post-emancipation experiences of these slave societies was the legal code and government policies were modeled with one idea in mind: “to maintain the plantation economy” (24).

I’ve posted the draft that we made today for your group contract on Writeboard. Use the same password we’ve been using for the other Writeboards in the class. You can either edit the contract directly (being sure to enter your name at the bottom before saving changes), or add comments to discuss with other group members what you think should be changed. If you’d like to look at an example group project from another class at another University, look here for some ideas about how to draft your contract.

I’m very glad to see that you all have the ball rolling on your project and have started to do some spadework to identify what sorts of events you will put on your timeline.

Since it sounds like you all found the tutorial pretty straightforward and don’t foresee computer problems, the real challenge is going to be deciding what to put on the time line. All of you have already noted that this is the real work for your group, but so far there have been several different criteria proposed for deciding what gets on and what gets left off: (a) appealing to a young audience; (b) appealing to an audience that already knows a lot about the battle; (c) making sure small things that usually get forgotten are included; (d) connecting local events with national events. And perhaps even more might be mentioned. These may not be mutually exclusive criteria, but sometimes they may not fit together well. Above all, the problem with running with several different criteria of what gets on could result in a timeline that becomes a jumble of dates that appear arbitrarily selected to the viewer–the sort of timeline that critics of timelines love to denounce as just a bunch of facts.

Ideally, your timeline will interpret and communicate something about the events on it simply by virtue of what sorts of events you select. The inclusion of a single date can sometimes dramatically change the way people look at another date. Consider, for example, a timeline that only has dates about the Battle of Sabine Pass on it, and then compare that in your mind with a timeline that includes the effective date of the Emancipation Proclamation and shows that this was before the battle. How different would the impression left by the second timeline be? That’s just an example–but the point is that as you have your discussions about what to include, it’s good to consider who your audience is and, even more importantly, what you want to tell them. It sounds like you’re already doing this somewhat, and once you get some rough answers fixed in your mind, it will be easier to decide what to leave off–not because it’s uninteresting, but because it doesn’t contribute to your primary objectives for the timeline.

My “next steps” for this week were to learn more about the timeline program by watching the tutorial and to look up newspaper articles contemporary to Dick Dowling for potential significant dates relating to him.  Although most of the articles that I found while searching the America’s Historical Newspapers database were already mentioned in Muir’s article, a few presented new, interesting information.  Hopefully at least some of these new dates can be incorporated into our timeline.

Some of the more amusing articles that I found thanked Dowling for giving someone an alcoholic beverage like eggnog for the New Year in 1859 or “kiss me quick and go” in 1860.  I also found an article describing Dowling adding gas lighting to the Shades.  Another article that I found- dated March 16, 1860– describes the fire that forced Dowling to temporarily shut down the Bank & Bacchus.  It apparently cost him an estimated $5,000 in damages, which must have been a huge amount at the time.  Following that fire, however, Dowling placed many ads in the Telegraph proudly stating the opening date of the Bank & Bacchus as January 30, 1860.  Perhaps of more historical significance were his involvement in the start of the Irish Military Company, also in 1860, and his being called to a “Public Meeting” that would “consult on the measure that should be adopted by the State of Texas in view of the election of Abraham Lincoln” in November of that same year.  While that last article may just list any and all citizens of Harris County, our own William Marsh Rice was also invited to the same meeting, leading me to believe that it was only significant figures specifically invited in the newspaper.  I also found several articles praising the Battle of Sabine Pass in 1863, but they may have already been found for the first library assignment.  Neither the database nor Fondren Library have any copies of the Houston Telegraph for late 1867, so the records of his catching yellow fever and his obituary remain elusive as ever.

Moving forward, I would like to look into whether or not we can use the articles from America’s Historical Newspapers in any way since they are copyrighted.  Additionally, I would very much like to find Dowling’s elusive obituary.  That article should not be as difficult to find as it seems to be at the moment, and it would be a good addition to the timeline.  The articles that I did manage to find should help us pin down significant dates for Dowling as well as what was significant about Dowling during his pre-Civil War lifetime.

During class on March 29, my group, the Timeline Group, met to discuss how we were going to approach the project and assign different tasks to each member. We concluded that for our first step, it would be vital to check for which events we have primary sources for. Thus, instead of deciding which events are significant to the Dowling story and his memory first, we believe it is more important to find which dates we actually have sources for. My group believes this way we can eliminate any extraneous information and events. Furthermore with this knowledge, we can proceed more easily into deciding which events and dates will actually go onto the timeline. We agreed that for this blog post, as part of our next action, each of us would watch the video on how to build a timeline using Google Docs and the SIMILE software. In addition, Clarissa agreed to do additional research on Dowling’s personal life, Victor would read through library assignments #1, and I would look through the blog posts related to the Houston public library archives. These steps are instrumental in deciding which events and dates we have primary sources for, and thus should go on the timeline.

The timeline tutorial written by Brian Croxall is extremely helpful in demonstrating how simple the software is to use. The tutorial illustrates how we can separate the timeline into different categories, including possibly biography, memorial services, and Civil War related events. However, we could also categorize the events into those that discuss his life, his Irish heritage, his role as a Houstonian, and the notion of Dowling as a Civil War hero. This decision is one our group must make in order to enhance the effectiveness of our timeline.

As part of my next action, I was assigned to peruse the blog posts discussing the articles located in the Houston public library archives. Many of the posts acknowledge that by the 1990s, press focus on the statue had shifted almost entirely to focus on Dowling’s Irish heritage. Craig confirms this conclusion, stating, “The documents of the archive, especially news clippings post-1905 show a gradual shift in public opinion away from the triumphant image of Dick Dowling as ‘The Hero of Sabine Pass’ to Dick Dowling as ‘the model Irish citizen’ and downplaying his Confederate past”. Furthermore, during the rededication of the Dowling statue in 1997, the focus was on Dowling’s Irish history and civic contributions to Houston. Hence, there appears to be a lot of information pertaining to the erection of the statue in 1905 as well as the rededication statue in 1997 in the archives. Adam notes that the statue was moved from City Hall in 1940 after City Hall burned down to Sam Houston Park where it stood until 1957 when it was moved to storage. One year later, the Dowling statue was placed in its current location in Hermann Park. In addition, Kat in her blog post, commented on several articles within the archives that addressed the Davis Guards, including the names of the members and those who deserted. Also, there is information available on the planning process for the Dowling statue courtesy of the secretary’s notes in the archives. Thus, most of the blog posts pertain to the original planning and erection of the statue in 1905, the rededication ceremony in 1997, and Dowling’s legacy.

My assigned “next action” for our Timeline group was to revisit the class’s first Library Assignments in order to determine whether or not it would be feasible to include any of data in our timeline and, if so, which articles to use. It seems that most of the articles the class found either discussed the Dowling statue directly, recapped the Battle of Sabine Pass, or described some small event related to Dowling’s memory. For example, one such small event was the presentation of a diamond medal to Dowling’s daughter on in 1889 in honor of her father’s heroism. This is something that could certainly be included in our timeline, but might be a bit too frivolous depending on what we decide to focus on. Of course, it would fit right in to a timeline dedicated to events related to Dowling’s memory in general, but otherwise it may be best to leave it out.

It does seem to me that our group is best suited to deal with these smaller events; otherwise, they might be left out. The first Library Assignment gives us a lot of events to choose from, but it might be hard to justify some of them. These are the kind of events we might want to include along side other, more significant events from the same time period in US history, if only to show what was going on while Dowling was being remembered.

Some of the other articles are less explicit in the events they describe; for example, one article in 1929 complains about the lack of a monument honoring Dowling at St. Vincent’s Cemetery, where his unmarked grave was at the time. Although I don’t think we should include an item in the timeline for this specific article, it might be helpful to link to articles like this one when discussing relevant events (i.e. the dedication of a monument at the cemetery a few years later).

I think it might be best to include smaller events in our timeline because it will allow us to present a fuller version of Dowling’s history; after all, if someone outside of our class is viewing our timeline, it’s more likely that the less significant events would be new to them than the same old details about the Battle of Sabine Pass or the Dowling statue’s unveiling. The real challenge is in presenting these events so that they are relevant, which could probably be done by providing enough context in the form of other historical events.

I also took a look at the tutorial for using the timeline software. It seems relatively easy to use, and definitely customizable enough for our needs. I have no doubts about our ability to master the technical aspect of the timeline’s creation, but we certainly have a bit to think about in the way of the information we want to represent.

Bruce Levine constructs an argument in his book Confederate Emancipation that focuses on the reasons why Confederate officials did or did not consider emancipation through military participation for blacks in the South.  He clearly describes when, how and why these decisions were made and how they changed over the course of the war.  However, at the same time he creates different causal arguments about the outcome of the war not directly related to his main argument.  These additional arguments and discussions somewhat hamper the clarity of the realization of his thesis.

His main argument revolves around the thought that there was a limited time frame during which the idea of “emancipation” was considered.  His landmarks of time are primarily a countdown the passing of “a black troops law between the end of 1864 down through March and April of 1865” (14).  To Levine, this was in part created because of the desperation of the Confederates after the fall of Atlanta (39).  Even so, he cites a realization “that the Confederacy was outnumbered and outgunned from the start” in early 1861 as a reason for the beginning of a dialogue about arming slaves (38).  This somewhat startling and important causal answer  to the outcome of the Civil War colors the rest of his argument, and since he places no footnotes on the paragraph, perhaps feeling it is an accepted fact, it brings to question the way in which he portrays the motivations of Confederate officers.  

The rest of his argument of allowing blacks to fight for the Confederacy is certainly well-reasoned and researched.  Prior to the fall of Atlanta, however, it is somewhat dubious to state that the Confederacy was constantly in fear of losing and felt themselves to be the underdog.  The eleventh hour of the war certainly brought about changes to what Confederate officers were willing to do in order to win the war, yet the reasons for what occurred before that “desperate” phase would have been better served if they were somehow removed from different, fundamental questions of causality in the Civil War.

In Confederate Emancipation, Bruce Levine argues that the South’s last-minute push to enlist slaves as soldiers was not quite a move for emancipation in the Confederacy. He points out that Confederate leaders planned to use the South’s slave population to win independence from the North, then use their newfound control to oppress the African-Americans they had “freed” in new ways, ensuring that the old South’s social order would remain. Although this seems like common sense, Levine presents the argument in a most interesting way, by constantly providing information from primary sources of the time. Through the use of quotations from Confederate leaders, he reveals the political and social structures of the South during and immediately after the war, especially in relation to the period near the end of the war where the South considered freeing and arming its slaves. And even as the idea of Confederate emancipation seems to be legitimate, given what some Confederate leaders were saying at the time, Levine presents more than enough reasoning to explain how this “emancipation” was more of a way to ensure the return of the Southern hierarchy after the war than anything else.

Levine is certainly not afraid to bring up the argument for Confederate emancipation, as he features many quotes from Confederate leaders and citizens that suggest it was a possibility. In fact, the structure of Levine’s argument is based around countering each of these quotes, providing factual evidence to show what was really going on in the South and therefore proving that Confederate emancipation was not all it was cracked up to be. For example, Levine quotes Walter W. Fleming as claiming that slaves “were as devoted Confederates as the whites, all in all, perhaps more so,” as evidence of Southern historians’ tendency to favor the “Lost Cause” version of the Confederacy’s brief history. (p. 149) Levine later goes on to describe how slaves “ultimately became indispensable instruments of [the Confederacy’s] destruction,” pointing out that “nearly 200,000 were already wearing Union blue” by the time some slaves began fighting for the South in 1865. (p. 151) It is through these comparisons that Levine reveals the propaganda that Confederates and some historians based the idea of Confederate emancipation on; by portraying the slaves as loyal to their masters and the South, Confederate emancipation becomes much more reasonable.

Perhaps Levine’s strongest argument for why Confederate emancipation was even considered is that, given the true nature of this “emancipation”, Southern slaves would never be made truly free at all. Of course, Levine’s first argument is that the Confederacy’s need for soldiers prompted the consideration of Confederate emancipation, citing Confederate leaders like General Patrick R. Cleburne at the beginning of the book. But these leaders knew full well that the South needed to win the war in order to “preserve as much of the Old South as they could,” in Levine’s words, and they knew that “slavery was swiftly becoming a dead letter” (p. 153). Without independent control of the South, Confederate leaders could not hope to maintain the same social hierarchy they had had before the war, so they had to do the unthinkable and offer freedom to slaves in order to gain a boost in their war effort. But Confederates who proposed emancipation never intended to give slaves true freedom in the first place; rather, “the freedom they expected actually to grant would be severely circumscribed” (p. 154), preventing freed slaves from owning land so that they would have to look to their old masters for work and giving Confederate states the power to enact labor regulations to further impede their freedom. Thus, Levine argues that Confederate leaders only began to consider emancipation when it became evident that it was the only way they could maintain a society anywhere near that of the South before the war, and so it was a concept that was much easier for Confederates to swallow.

I found Levine’s explanation to be persuasive enough. His evidence is sound and from varied sources, from primary documents to the arguments of historians long after the war. He certainly does not avoid considering the opposing argument, and frequently brings it up only to expose its flaws, a basic strategy we have had to employ in our own causal arguments. Levine approaches his argument from multiple angles, first suggesting the South’s military needs as a primary reason for considering the enlistment of slaves as soldiers, but later pointing out that Southern leaders never intended to provide slaves with true freedom in the first place. In the end, Levine provides us with a better idea of what was going on in the South at the time of “Confederate emancipation”, by showing the true political and social motives behind the idea and how, by giving the South a chance to win the war, the enlistment of slaves was actually providing Confederates with an opportunity to maintain their way of life beyond the abolishment of slavery.

Hello Timeline Group! We’ve reached that part of the course where it’s time to start working on your small group projects for the Dick Dowling archive. In this post I’m going to talk a little bit about the project you’ve been assigned–making a timeline related to Dowling’s statue and memory. Please take time to read this post carefully so that you can begin to talk amongst yourselves about what you plan to do.

As you’ve already discovered from your research on Dowling, there are numerous significant dates in the story of Dowling and his memory. There are the dates associated with the Battle of Sabine Pass itself. There are also the dates when various statues honoring Dowling were unveiled, moved, rededicated, and so on. By browsing through the items that you and other students have compiled for the Dick Dowling Archive, you can quickly come up with a variety of dates related to Dowling. But you should not think of your task for this project as a simple listing of all the dates that have come up related to Dowling–that would be a straightforward “copy” and “paste” task that would hardly be worth a group effort! Instead, think of your assignment as a more complex project involving both a technical dimension and an interpretive dimension.

The Technical Dimension

To build your timeline for this project, you must use the SIMILE Timeline software created at MIT. As you can see from the Timeline homepage, this software has powerful functions that will enable viewers to interact with your timeline, and also gives you an array of choices about how to make your timeline (e.g., what time scale to use, how much description to include, how to distinguish between types of events, and so on).

Fortunately for you, Brian Croxall has written a very useful tutorial about how to build a timeline using Google Docs and the SIMILE software. You should start by watching his video tutorial to get a sense of how, technically, you will build the timeline and what sorts of things you can do on your timeline. For example, you can include information, media, and hyperlinks in pop-ups for each event that you place on the timeline.

As you begin to work together as a group, you may find there are other technical dimensions to this project, like learning some simple HTML tags to “style” text on your timeline. You may also want to consider using web-based tools like Google Docs or Writeboard to make a working list of events you want to include on your timeline so that each of you can update the list and keep track of your project.

You may also discover other tasks depending on the kind of information you decide to associate with the timeline. For example, if you want to associate images with events, and we don’t have the images you want already in our Dowling database, you may decide it’s worth it to obtain those images. If you decided that photographs of particular sites would help you improve the timeline, you might talk to staff in the Digital Media Center about renting camera.

The Interpretive Dimension

While it may seem like the technical side of this project requires the biggest learning curve initially, the harder choices that you will have to make concern the selection and contextualization of events. One could simply make a long list of every conceivable date associated with Dowling, but such a list would be minimal value–and probably of minimal interest–to a viewer of our digital archive. What do you think is most important to include on the timeline? What will make your timeline meaningful and give it value? Those are the questions you need to keep in the forefront of your discussions for this project.

These questions become more challenging when you consider that any timeline is only a small selection of all the possible events that could be included. You’ll have to make decisions about what most needs to be included–for example, should the date of Dowling’s birth be included on a timeline that includes the unveiling of his statue? Why or why not? Moreover, you have the option of including any number of events not specifically related to Dowling that nonetheless add context to those vents. For example, would it make a difference for viewers of your timeline to see that the Battle of Sabine Pass took place after the Emancipation Proclamation? Why or why not? Should viewers know about other events taking place in the 1950s and 1960s in the South around the time that Dowling’s statue was being moved or new markers were being unveiled? Should your timeline be limited to events in Houston, or deal more broadly with events in the state or nation? Should this be a timeline confined to events in the actual life of Dowling or his statue, or should you indicate when articles and books written about Dowling and his statue were published?

In addition to deciding what to put on the timeline, you’ll also have to decide how “data rich” to make each particular event. How much information about the event should you include? Links to items in our Dowling archive about the events? Images or other media associated with the events? YouTube videos, say, of events related to the Civil Rights movement alongside dates associated with the Dowling statue in the same era? What would including such media say to the viewer? Is it relevant, or should it be on another timeline?

As you can see, the decisions before you quickly multiply, and more such questions could be posed. Ultimately, you’ll only be able to make those decisions as a group by deciding what point or points you want the viewer to take away from the timeline. Only be having a clear point in mind will you be able to make your timeline meaningful and keep it from just being a jumble of dates. As blogger Jeremy Boggs has explained, ultimately making a point and providing context is what makes the hard work of building and reading a timeline defensible.

What Next?

It could be that not everything you would like to do with your timeline will be feasible within the time frame you have to work on this project. That introduces another level of choices you will have to make about what to prioritize, what your main objectives are, and how you will pool your collective skills and divide the labor among you. For now, think broadly about what–in an ideal world–your timeline would do. And investigate what’s technically possible by reading about SIMILE Timeline.

By the time that Blog Post #9 is due next Thursday, you should have done at least enough groundwork and discussion on this project to be able to give a progress report and share ideas you have for the timeline. The following week, you will meet with me to draft a contract for your project. That meeting won’t be useful to you, however, if you’ve done no thinking or learning about the project before then.

So you should think of these as your next two steps and strive to complete them sometime in the next two weeks: (a) watch the tutorials about SIMILE Timeline; (b) talk with each other about the project, paying special attention to sharing information about particular skills and interests you have; (c) begin to discuss with each other what the objective of your timeline will be, since so many of your decisions will hinge on that.

And as always, if you have questions, let me know!