University of Virginia’s College at Wise
Century America Website contract
Victoria Carter and Dakota Stanley
Mission:
Our Mission is to research and create a digital archive that will highlight the homefront experience and the experiences of soldiers in the Great War from Wise and its surrounding counties. The website will be more valuable in the form of an archive as it will expand access to historical resources in a digital setting. The intended audience for this website would be anyone interested in knowing general information or doing in depth research about individual communities during the first World War. Other segments of the intended audience would be amateur historians from the local Southwest Virginia and historians researching Appalachia and the coal-producing regions. A final part of the audience would be members of the community outside of the realm of academia who are interested in their local history.
Elements:
When the site is first entered, the audience will encounter a homepage which will include an “About” Section with a link to the main Century America website. The about page will have a brief description about what the researchers goals for the website are and a paragraph on how counties in Appalachia rely on coal to make a living, even during World War One. The homepage will be appealing because it will use a clean and professional layout with the COPLAC logo featured. Also Featured on the homepage and throughout the website would be local pictures from the time period. A color scheme has not been picked out yet.
One the top part of the homepage there will be a toolbar that features six tabs. This toolbar would continue to be there as the readers scrolls through as a guide.The tabs will be as follows- In the News, Honor Roll, Local Memorials, Local Reflections, The Flu, and Women in the War, and a Acknowledgments/Bibliography page.
“In the News” (Victoria)
The “In the News” tab will include scanned Newspaper articles from multiple local newspapers within the years 1914-1919. Each of these local newspapers have been found within microfilm in the Special Collections of the local University of Virginia’s College at Wise library and the Library of Virginia. Along with the pictures of multiple articles from each year. There will be a paragraph explaining what showed up most frequently throughout a viewing of all of the articles. In the Wise County case that would be baseball and fear of gaining diseases from other cities. There will then be a brief summarization on how these themes evolved and changed during the war.
There may be a timeline, unless we find an easier way to show the articles.
Honor Roll (Dakota)
This “Honor Roll” tab will include a list of the soldiers’ names from Dickenson and Wise County in WWI and pictures of Dickenson County soldiers. The list of soldier names have came from secondary sources that will be acknowledged. As a subsection (Either as a tab or below a clear line) there will be the pictures and stories of Dickenson County soldiers that was obtained from the Dickenson Historical Society, all permission has been gained from the society to allow public access to these stories.
Local Memorials (Dakota)
The “Local Memorials” tab will have a map of local memorial sites from the region including Haysi, Clintwood, Pound, and Wise. There will be pictures of how the sites look now in modern day along with a sentence of what is featured. For example- the Haysi site is a stone walk with the names of the soldiers who fought in multiple wars. There will also be a paragraph above the map that explains the importance of the Dickenson County Memorial High School, a school that was opened in 1921. Members of the local community lobbied to have a school built in the town of Clintwood as a memorial to the bravery of soldiers that fought in the Great War. There is a plaque hanging within the school that honors those soldiers that was also made in 1921 when the school first opened. This is a particularly opportune time to include the old school in a historical website because it will no longer house students after the 2015 school year. This will be the first time the school has been out of use since its construction 96 years ago.
Local Reflections (Victoria and Dakota)
This tab of “Local Reflections” will include scanned copies of three booklets- Wise County, Dickenson County, and Scott County. They were all written by local historians a few years after the war, but include a very patriotic view of the war common to that time period. Things discussed are how the soldiers acted, what clubs and organizations were formed to support the soldiers, what was taught at the schools, and how the economy fared during wartime.
The Flu (Victoria and Dakota)
“The Flu” tab will have to be very brief as there has been no record of the local counties catching the Spanish Flu. The mountains tended to isolate the local counties from such things. Though this did not stop their fear of catching diseases. There will be some paragraphes as to why along with a line stating that the audience should go to the “In the News” tab to learn more.
Women in the War (Victoria)
The “Local Women” tab will include a list of the organizations that women were included in and a link back to the “In the News” tab. There will also be a description on how the organizations went about aiding the war effort.
Tools
Two possible themes for the website would be “Adamos” or “Displace” theme. Both look clean and professional. Both would also be able to incorporate the photos and text we want without making the site seem cluttered.
Construction tools
The Google map would be embedded on to the “Local Memorials” tab. The reason being that it would show where the memorials are located along with pictures of what they look like. Its purpose would be to better show where things are located in an interactive way.
The Timeline JS tool would be used on the newspaper tab unless there can be found an easier way (a way to just click through them quickly). The tool would be used to quickly scroll through the articles, with there being milestones at each new year. Its purpose would be to better organize the articles and keep them from becoming overwhelming.
Possible Plug-ins
Social Media Feather would be used to connect the site to places such as Twitter, Facebook and instagram. This would allow the website outreach to be expanded to places beyond and within the community.
Other plug-ins have not been decided on as of yet.
Milestones
—March
9-15
Victoria– Scan newspaper articles and obtain permission from Library of Virginia
Dakota— Talking to Dickenson Historical Society and scanning booklets
16-22
Victoria- Scan more newspaper articles and working on website.
(In the News tab and Local Reflections tabs.)
Dakota– Taking pictures of memorials and working on website.
(Local Memorials tab and Honor Roll tabs.)
23-27
Victoria and Dakota– finalizing website.
Victoria (23-24) the tabs on Women and the flu.
—-April
1 Turn in first draft of website
2-22 Victoria and Dakota revising website.
22 Final drafts due.
—May
2 Blog post/paper due about website.
