My final project, “Paws and Petticoats: A Digital Exploration of Victorian Pet Ownership in Britain,” investigates how pets became central figures within Victorian society, reflecting broader societal attitudes toward class, gender, domesticity, and the human-animal bond. The central argument of my project is that Victorian pet ownership was far more than a personal or aesthetic choice; it actively reflected and reinforced social values and distinctions, becoming a potent symbol of identity and class status. As the rest of the class and I finish our project, it is beneficial to reflect on the central questions that guided it.

Central questions guiding the project include: How did social classes view pet ownership? Did the type of pet or variety of pets differ between social classes? What constituted an aristocratic pet compared to a middle or working-class pet? How were these pets portrayed visually and textually in media?

Overall, I wanted to explore the impact and importance of pets in society during the Victorian period, the central era I study. Beyond this, I wanted to explore whether there were any deeper connections to the present, as pet ownership remains somewhat of a status symbol. Not to mention the pivotal role that pets still play in society today. This project is not a final assessment of Victorian pet ownership, and I envision it as a starting point for a much larger project that will facilitate connections between historians and everyday people alike. I am glad that I get to combine my passions of technology, pets, and history into another passion, sharing knowledge with the world.

The evaluation of this project will focus on user engagement metrics, including site visits, interaction levels, and audience feedback.  Additionally, assessing the project’s impact will involve analyzing audience comments and the depth of discussion generated, with a particular focus on how effectively the project conveys the interplay between pets and Victorian cultural and social values.  Not to mention, a rigorous social media campaign preceding the project’s release will assist in its promotion. Ultimately, the project’s success will hinge on its ability to illuminate historical trends in pet ownership and foster meaningful conversations about cultural continuity and change.

This week, I picked up my progress on my project. After receiving clarification about a few items, I continue building my exhibits with photographs and paintings. I had to make a few changes to my representations of pets in various classes, as I could not find many sources of lower-class individuals with their pets. After reflection, this makes sense of the time period that I am studying. I am still working on the various aspects of the project, such as the timeline, mapping, and data analysis. These are a bit more time-consuming parts, which have been my most significant challenge lately, finding the time to carve out to work on my project. I know that, moving forward, I will dedicate myself specifically to this project. Cohesively, another challenge that I see happening is further integrating my data into the website framework I have already created. The timeline process should be relatively easy, but the mapping will be a bit more complicated. Making the data for the visualization will also take some time, but not so much that I can not manage. As stated before, I will be diligent with dedicating all the small moments to work on my project.

I will continue to work on the various aspects I mentioned above. I plan on working more on the project this weekend and have a barebones idea of what the finished project will look like by next week, so that it can be peer reviewed. I am very optimistic and excited to continue working on my project. Moving forward, I need to be more intentional and thorough to progress and create a project that meets my standards.

So, since last week, I have been rather busy. I am presenting at my first conference on Saturday, April 5th, so I have been preparing for that. One of the most significant challenges I am facing currently is carving out the time to work on this project. I now know that I strategically need to carve out time each day to make progress on this project. I can even continue to find my sources before I go to sleep. I can see my primary sources, which will be one less step I need to accomplish. Finding as many lower-class sources as possible may be difficult compared to the other two classes, but I will try to see as many as possible. I can accomplish quite a bit if I dedicate more time and effort in the coming weeks.

That being said, I still have several things I need to do. First, I need to add all of my collected sources to my Omeka site and ensure they are placed in collections. Not to mention I need to compile the information that needs to go in each of the collections I have created. Beyond this, I need to figure out the coordinates that will be used to make my map and input them into Kepler.gl and integrate this into Omeka. I also need to choose the items I want in the timeline and place them there. Finally, I need to compile my data from the sources I will be using when I make my data visualization in Voyant to integrate these into my Omeka site as well. I have much to do in the coming days, but my passion for this project will see me through.

Living in a relatively rural community, I knew an organized app would not be an option. I decided to utilize Historypin to evaluate my community, Carbondale, Illinois. Starting out, I was already embraced by the number of photographs that had been entered. Beyond just photographs, there are also forms of media, specifically audio, that pertain. One of the most remarkable features I enjoyed was the virtual tour of different areas. I was very interested in the collection created by the university I attend, which acts as a virtual tour of the campus through photographs. I could see some of the oldest buildings still standing on campus and various buildings that have since disappeared. One in particular, Old Main, was a building at the center of campus that has long lived in infamy on campus as it was set on fire by an arsonist during anti-Vietnam protests in the 1970s. Another beneficial feature was the timeline feature that lets you choose a specific year and see what that year entails. Beyond this, using Google Street View, which enables you to drop yourself into the current landscape, is beneficial. Theme collections that anyone can create also add various levels of contributions from throughout the community. Finally, many photographs contain metadata that allows historians and others to understand the picture far better.

Historypin utilizes many historical theories, but the most prominent is the bottom-up approach. Rather than having those on the upper levels of society contributing, Historypin allows everyday people and anyone to contribute to the project to help share their story. It also accounts for place-based storytelling that enables the user to see precisely the history as it was and how it looks now. Using a place to tell the story allows for deeper connections and experiences. Finally, the concept of public history that this project highlights allows personal memory and community collaboration to tell a story to everyone, and history that affects everyone.

The field of public history has expanded and been revolutionized by the introduction of new and innovative technologies and methods. What used to be provided in a physical exhibit can now be created as a virtual presence that reaches far more of the population. These new technologies and methods significantly contribute to various digital public history projects created today.

The digital exhibit’s prevalence and use are among the most popular and explicit representations of the technology and method that have recently influenced public history work.  Using Omeka Classic or Omeka S, many physical sites and universities have utilized the Omeka platform to create a digital collection of their holdings. This allows physical sites to provide resources to a larger audience, and even digitizing items that may not necessarily be in Omeka allows many to utilize them in their work. The digitization of artifacts, papers, and other sources not only shares the importance of the items to the broader world but also allows others to create their own projects. That makes sites like Omeka and WordPress crucial because of their relatively easy format and usability, allowing historians and those interested in history to share their work with everyone. Omeka emphasizes and reinforces the importance of metadata, which includes various essential details about the artifacts. This metadata provides the user with origin information, the original creator or contributor, and the year the item was created. This is extremely important in maintaining the integrity of the research and allowing the user to explore the items further. WordPress acts as a form of self-expression for historian to speak about their work and engage with others. Similarly, public history projects can utilize mapping software such as Kepler.gl or data visualization software such as Voyant to share their research, but present it in a way that allows the user a far better understanding than just reading the information. It creates broader connections that further highlight the importance of the material.

Another key method that has influenced the work of public history recently is the use of crowdsourcing and the greater emphasis on collaboration.  Many of the world’s largest museums, particularly in the United States, such as the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian, utilize crowdfunding projects to allow the general public to interact with their work directly. Still, it also solves some of the burden experienced by these institutions. Beyond crowdsourcing, the connected nature of the internet and most modern social media platforms allows for even more connection than ever before. You can contact someone on LinkedIn, X, or Facebook to share common interests and collaborate on a new and essential project.

Finally, one of the most popular and influential methods of public history is podcasts. Popular shows such as BackStory, Throughline, and Ben Franklin’s World have revolutionized how many engage with history. They can learn about historical people, events, and places while doing everyday tasks. This is key to engaging with the broader audience and allows anyone to see historical scholarship’s importance through a favored medium. I listen to many podcasts while commuting to work and find it a very influential way to share information.

The changes in methodologies and technology throughout recent years have dramatically changed the face of public history. But it has done so in a way that has expanded and transformed how people engage in history and public history. The future is bright for digital public history as technology continues to advance to the fields advantage.

So far, everything I have done for my final project has gone relatively smoothly. I first began by trying to identify and locate suitable sites for primary source materials that were not only easily accessible but also did not require a subscription that I did not have or that the school did not have.  This has been an ongoing project as the materials I need to find vary significantly regarding media and locations. I have had the most luck using the Victoria and Albert Museum located in London, as they have many digitized artifacts and photographs. In terms of the newspaper and other media, the British Newspaper Archive has been a valuable resource.

Last week, I took the time to create the exhibit for the last module and the whole website infrastructure. I even discovered how to integrate the mapping and timeline aspects into the exhibits I created. One of the challenges I am still facing is the ability to place easily accessible buttons for the user to go directly to the project pages without using the menu button on the side. But I will figure this out at some point. This process has been challenging but really fun as well.

As for what I need to continue working on, this is a rather extensive to-do list. The first thing I need to complete is to finish collecting all of my primary source materials from each site I mentioned above and locate others online. Once I have all of my sources, it is merely integrating them into the created exhibits and tabs by putting the items in a collection and entering there metadata. Once I complete the exhibits, I must make the datapoints and integrate them into Kepler.gl. This hopefully will not be too cumbersome. Finally, I need to evaluate the textual resources to develop the data I will integrate into Voyant to create the various data visualizations. It seems like quite a bit is left, but I am just trying to take it one aspect at a time.

Paws and Petticoats: A Digital Exploration of Victorian Pet Ownership in Britain

For this project, I propose to examine the evolving culture of pet ownership in Victorian-era Britain (1837-1901). Much like today, pets in the Victorian era became constant companions and societal markers of significance. For the first time, animals were seen as part of the family, not just animals on the periphery. Whether a small lapdog or an exotic canary, the Victorian era saw the rise of a “pet future” that reflected contemporary attitudes toward class, gender, domesticity, and the human-animal bond. By investigating various forms of media such as paintings, photographs, newspapers, and advertisements, this project seeks to answer several key questions. The first question is: How did social classes view pet ownership? Did the type of pet or variety of pets differ between social classes? What constituted an aristocratic pet as compared to a middle or lower-class pet? How were these pets portrayed in media? These essential questions will be the foundation for the following examples and examination.

This project will utilize several varying technologies. The first aspect of the project will be an Omeka exhibit highlighting various representations of pets between classes and times. These photographs and artworks will also give the viewer a deeper connection to the history of pet ownership and the continued trend today. Each of these items will be sorted into easily accessible collections that will include the categories of artwork, photographs, and mass media. This allows the user to see a variety of popular culture representations of pet ownership between the classes. Moreover, having a variety of sources throughout the Victorian era will highlight how the culture shifted throughout time. This will also be aided by a historical timeline of the images mapped out. The timeline will highlight the trends that persisted and the changes that occurred. This will also allow the viewer to better understand the time frame of the Victorian era with significant events throughout to reinforce the age’s significance further.

Beyond the exhibit created in Omeka and the timeline, Kepler.gl will be used to map the various places each media originated and show the distribution of the images and artwork. This also shows how culturally diverse and the distance that pets were represented. Add some form of data visualization, whether a graph or word cloud, to highlight keywords throughout the text-based artifacts, such as newspaper articles and magazines. Advertisements will also be used for coverage and a better understanding of the societal implications pets had during the period in question.

The intended audience of this project is multifaceted and complex. The first group this project seeks to appeal to is pet owners interested in learning more about the history of pets. Particularly those who have a persistent curiosity about things new. This will usually be in the early twenties to late sixties. Pets are the project’s central theme; thus, pet owners are a targeted audience. Another intended audience is those who enjoy museums and are just general British history enthusiasts or citizens. Naturally, if they have a remote interest in British history or have travelled to Britain, this project would connect with them on some level. Pets are still a vibrant part of British culture, so some may be curious to learn more about their history. Finally, historians of modern British history would be interested in researching the connectivity and potential connection to their projects.

Through these various platforms and tools, this project seeks to bring the unique and remarkable history of pet ownership in Great Britain to life by exemplifying the cultural and social currents of the Victorian Era and those that persist to this day.

If anything can be more precise, audience and public history are two intertwined topics. Not only does public history seek to begin engaging its audience, but it seeks to make them a crucial part of the research process. Robert J. Grele, in “Whose Public? Whose History? What is the Goal of a Public Historian?” states, “By its name, public history implies a major redefinition of the
role of the historian. It promises us a society in which a broad public participates in constructing its own history. The name
conjures up images of a new group of historical workers interpreting the past of heretofore ignored classes of people. It seems to
answer the question of whose public? whose history? with a democratic declaration of a faith in members of the public at large to
become their own historians and to advance their knowledge of
themselves.” (Grele 48).

Public history allows the audience to interact directly with the researcher, and with this, they can share their experiences, points of view, and essential elements that will enable the viewer to have the best experience. The project created by Sheila Brennan and Sharon Leon, which examined the history of the National Mall, highlights this experience with their ideas to create an accessible mobile walking path project. This factors in the users’ needs and includes the technology that would reach the most people.

This is also directly seen in projects involving museums, such as the project undertaken by Katharine Corbett in the article “A Shared Inquiry into Shared Inquiry.” When she first her project on the 1904 Worlds Fair, her vision as a historian completely differed from what the public wanted from the exhibit. She states, “The stories public historians want to tell are sometimes not the stories
the public wants to hear.” (Corbett and Miller 22). Historians often create projects that engage their research and other scholars in the field. However, with public historians and engagement with the public, these projects can reach new heights in research and connection. Empathy, understanding, and extensibility are keys to including a wider audience and allowing your content as a public historian to be viewed.

Personas and user interviews changed how I thought I would structure my project. After completing this module’s reading and activities, it becomes clear how crucial user research is. It allows the creator to target their audience better, which is the mission of public history and allows for deeper connections. Without the users, what is the project’s point, and would it just be another project done for other scholars? Working specifically and intimately with an actual user of your work assists in better understanding their needs and what they seek from the project. I began my interview with the blanket audience of pet owners, but I understood that this was too broad. I needed to narrow the audience to those interested in pets and those who know and understand the significance of the history of pets, especially in Great Britain. My first interview was with a pet lover with a moderate knowledge of history; she provided me with an understanding of what gaps in her knowledge I needed to fill. The second interview was with a British historian and pet lover, and she showed me that she knew almost too much as an academic and that I needed to reorient my project to those with not as extensive historical knowledge. It would also be interesting to see the project from a different gender perspective. However, without user research, my project would have been a greater struggle as the semester progressed.

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