Visualizing the Archive
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How to Search the Collections
Connecticut’s Veterans History Project boasts hundreds of interviews, publications, and personal papers of Connecticut veterans from the First Great War from 1914-1918 to the current Middle Eastern conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. With such a large and growing collection, searching and exploring the Veterans History project can seem daunting. This post will provide a tutorial on how to search and maneuver the collection. The Veterans Database uses 9 selections to narrow down the search; Last Name, First Name, Gender, Battles, Unit/Ship, Served in, Branch, War, and Commodation. The first three selections mentioned above; Last Name, First Name, and Gender pertain to the veteran(s). The legal first and last name, and…
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Visualizing: What We Don’t Know (Pt. II)
If you haven’t already, take a look at Pt. 1 of “What We Don’t Know” to learn about other obstacles in the Veterans History Project archive. The Incredible Transcribing Robot! The CCSU Veterans History Project features over 700 oral histories, which are all viewable on YouTube. And one of the many benefits of that platform is YouTube’s capacity to auto-generate transcripts. Transcripts are immensely useful, not just because they offer subtitles for viewers who may have a hard time hearing or understanding the interview. Referencing the time-coded transcript of an interview allows a viewer to quickly identify and navigate to relevant sections. Without it, the only way through is the…
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Visualizing: What We Don’t Know (Pt. I)
The Written Record When oral histories are collected for the Veterans History Project, a few written questions are also answered. Once compiled, these written answers form a useful index to the archive. The Veterans History Project’s search function works by referring to this index. It quickly sorts the archive by gender, by conflict, by branch, and so forth. As you’ve seen in previous posts, this same information can also lend itself to deeper analysis of the archive. A Question of Structures Unfortunately, some aspects of the index are less usable than others. Almost every veteran recorded the unit or ships of their service. However, the formatting of their answers was…
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Visualizing: Women and the Veterans History Project
The United States military has never fought a war without women. From the American Revolution to the conflicts of our lifetime, women have served in recognized and unrecognized roles. With time, the work performed by American military women has expanded from support roles and medical work to direct combat. The Veterans History Project includes oral histories from some 52 women. As participants in conflicts ranging from WWII to Iraq and Afghanistan, these veterans offer a valuable perspective on women in the US military. Most veterans interviewed for the Veterans History Project participated in WWII, and the same is true for the subset of female vets. Many served specifically in the Nurse Corps, which predates WWI. Our archive also features two WASPs: Women Airforce…
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Visualizing: Comparisons
How representative is the Veterans History Project? The 20th century saw the US military engaged in conflicts around the world. According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs nearly 42 million American men and women served their country in these conflicts. From those millions of veterans, the Connecticut Veterans History Project has nearly 800 different entries. And while that may seem a small snapshot, the oral histories alone add up to nearly 1000 hours. Comparing historic statistics from the nation-wide V.A. to the Connecticut-wide Veterans History Project helps us better understand how this collection relates to the American military experience in the 20th century: By making this comparison, it’s easier to see how the Project does –…
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Visualizing: Age at War Start
CHOOSING QUESTIONS The Veterans History Project archive contains nearly 800 oral histories from Connecticut veterans. These interviews are accompanied by written answers to some basic questions about each veteran. The transcribed answers to these questions now form a large database that we can use to quickly learn about these veterans as a group. But one crucial question was missing: How old were you when you enlisted? This question almost always came up over the course of each interview, but the answer wasn’t written down. As a result, a systematic answering of this question would involve viewing hundreds of hours of oral histories and recording the answer when (and if) it was provided. Luckily, two crucial answers were systematically recorded for each interview: What is your date of birth? What wars did you…
