MCLA–Alisia True

Alisia True
Century America Contract
February 27th, 2014
Project Site: http://mcla.centuryamerica.org/

Mission Statement

  • The goal of this project is to capture aspects of the city of North Adams, the North Adams Normal School, and a number of key figures therein prior to and through the First World War in an accessible, user friendly site that will add to the resources available in relation to the history of North Adams. Because there are so few of these kinds of resources available on this particular subject I would like to make this website very publicly oriented. I want it to be something that can be used by anyone and everyone. That being said I would like to include some features and materials on the site that would be helpful and relevant to a researcher or historian.

  • So far the basic structure of my site is this: the homepage will offer a brief summary or snapshot of North Adams, the Normal School, and the content of the site. I’m also planning on including a timeline on this page. The links to each page will either run along the top of the page or down the left side-I haven’t decided. I will include pages for the Voices of the Great War section* (see next paragraph), The North Adams Normal School, The Mohawk Trail, The Great War and North Adams, and Influenza in North Adams. Each page will include text information as well as images. I am also working on putting together a links page that will contain more information relevant to the history of North Adams as well as a general bibliography of sources I have used for the project.

  • As for the common elements: I would likely include a Century America Logo at the bottom of the home page, my (very tentative) decision for the Voices of the Great War section is to have one page devoted to that material. If I find more materials to work with, however, I can see myself spreading that feature throughout the site, rather than having one page devoted to it. Right now I have a song and a couple humorous pieces from the yearbook, and a news paper article. I’m hoping I will find more from the Mary Curran Papers as she is looking to be a prominent figure on the site.  As for service in the war, I have decided that I would like a section of the website devoted to community war efforts, including military service etc. and I will include a list of community members who served and/or died in the war there. The most important event to take place in North Adams during this time was the opening of the Mohawk Trail as a scenic highway and I will definitely be including that on the broader timeline.

  •  I would love to include a section on women’s contributions to the war  and influenza efforts since MCLA was a Normal School. Unfortunately I can’t seem to find enough material or information in this area to warrant dedicating an entire section to it (I will be including what information I do have on this in the website, however).

  •  I am not certain I would be able to create a vlog but I am certainly willing to contribute to an effort to expound on my process for this project in a post with images and detailed descriptions of the process.

 

Tools you plan to use

  •  I have yet to find a WordPress theme that I am thoroughly impressed with and would like to use for my site. The theme I have on my current blog is adequate and it is possible to make it work for the site but I’m not overly fond of it. I am still looking for the right theme-this is something that is very important to me and I don’t want to choose something that I’m unhappy with because it will lessen the quality of the site as a whole. Until I find the right theme I’m not sure which plug-ins I will be using, if any.

  •  I will be using the JSTimeline tool for my site.

  •  As for other tools and software, I use GIMP to edit images and audacity to edit audio files. I don’t think I will be using any video materials for this site.

 

Schedule of milestones (when critical pieces are ready to present)

  •  By March 7th-Representative images sent to Jack for overarching site

  •  March 10th through 14th-Trip to Philadelphia to look at Mary Curran papers-TENTATIVE

  •  March 10th-Begin to assemble the information for each section of the website and plot out how each page will look in detail.

  •  March 12th-Begin to assemble North Adams Timeline

  •  By March 14th- Send list of key events and dates (& potentially images to go with those events/dates) to UMW group to include in the overarching timeline on the main site.

  •  March 18th-Reach mid-way point in planning details of each page and begin on actual construction.

  •  March 19th-Have North Adams Timeline completed.

  • March 21st -Have completed detailed planning of website and have most of the construction completed.

  •  March 25th-Personal ROUGH draft of site completed

  •  March 26th-April 2nd-Final touches

  •  April 3rd-First version of site

  •  April 24th-Revised version of site

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