When I attempt to explain digital humanities to my friends who ask about it, I simply say it is learning how to bring the humanities into the modern, digital world. I tell them it is a way to represent history, literature, and art, among other things, on digital platforms like websites. “The real face of white Australia” was a great example of a digital humanities project I might show my friends as an example because it was clearly presented and brought to light a part of history that is not commonly known.
Before exploring this website, I had always thought of a country that was home to Aborigines, much like our Native Americans, and then settled by white, British settlers. I had thought there must have been some cultural diversity in Australia of course, but it never occurred to me that there would be a large Asian population, despite knowing how close it is to Asia. One of the things that makes this presentation so interesting and compelling is that instead of presenting merely the statistics about what races were living in Australia, the images of the documents were presented. Being able to click on and see an actual document from so long ago is something really special about digital humanities projects.
Another website that I believe represents the field of digital humanities well is one of my favorite examples to give people when I explain the field of digital humanities. This well known website is Ancestry.com. Much like the historian researched the historical records in Australia to learn about the diversity, I have been able to research my own family history through records on Ancestry.com. I did a free trial of Ancestry.com today to test it out and was very impressed by all the information I could see after just entering my email. For example, I found my grandfather and his family’s record in a census pictured below. Having the image of the handwriting really brings the history to life. It would have been very cool if pictures were also included on Ancestry.com, because I am sure that is possible after seeing how they were able to use pictures on “The Real Face of White Australia”.
Projects like these are some of my favorite because I am so interested in history, but also appreciate how digital humanities can benefit the public when shared on the internet, and not just the people that study the specific topic. With digital humanities, anyone who is even slightly interested in the topic can benefit from the project.