Suffragists Speak: Comparative Analysis

Project Members:
Carol Anderson
Arti Kirch
Rosalie Lack
Sally Thomas

IS 290-2 Electronic Publishing
October 05, 1998


(Note: This comparative analysis is divided into Part A. Technical Review, and, Part B. Content Review.)
 

Objective

In order to create an effective interface, we have explored the access and organization methods of sites that have the apparent goal of educating the user about a collection of items or particular topic. We were especially interested in methods that were strong in the following areas:

As an overall goal for our resulting product, we want the technology that underpins the content to be attractive, unobtrusive, and offer choices in using the site.

Scope

It was decided that sites that might best demonstrate methods germane to the development of Suffragists Speak fell into several categories:

Business sites were also investigated. However, an initial review indicated that these sites had few of the methods mentioned above in "Objective" and thus were not useful candidates for study.

Part A. Technical Review

Overview

The majority of the sites did not offer any truly interactive tools. Some did have "virtual tours" but for the most part that consisted of pages of images with accompanying text that the user scrolled through.

Below is a sampling of interesting sites that, while not necessarily the best examples, each contain at least one or two elements that represent a functionality that we could consider using on our site.

Museums/Archives/Libraries
 
General Description Content Multi-
media
Navi-
gation
Inter-
action
Screen
Design
Context

http://odysseus.sjsu.edu/arth/byzantine/index.html
A San Jose State Library student’s site.  Rich     Many features    

http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/exhibits/brown/
An example of the use of forms for collecting user reactions & input (the "Hey kids" section)       Encourages 
thinking
   

http://www.moma.org/onlineprojects/internyet/f-stpete.html
This is an example of the use of orientation.           Timeline

http://www.sjmusart.org/AlternatingCurrents/
A guided audio tour. Audio is saved as .ram file   Real-
Player
       

http://www.diacenter.org/kos/dramaticreading.html
An artist’s work, with an audio + text section.   Not automated        

http://www.diacenter.org/rooftop/webproj/fprayer/fprayer.html
An artist's site.     Icons      

http://www.huntington.org/
The Huntington Museum "Votes for Women" illustrates what not to do; e.g., one section simply displays a page of approx. 20 thumbnail images which are too small to see well and have no metadata to guide users. Rich          

Reference works/Representations
 
General Description Content Multi-
media
Navi-
gation
Inter-
action
Screen
Design
Context
Microsoft Encarta 98 CD-ROM.      Related articles, virtual tours   Consistent layout  

http://emporium.turnpike.net/~walk/sandiego/gaslamp/5_i200.htm
A walking tour with map-related, directional navigation.     Physical places      

http://www.visdyn.com/jut/index.htm
Display of the interiors of houses for sale.   Panora-
micview
Physical places User controls    

http://www.starcitysearch.com/E/V/TORON/0020/47/80/11.html
Same technology as the preceding visdyn.com site, but map links and movement are also featured.     Physical places      

http://www.collegenet.com/vrml/logo.wrl.gz
Difficult to use player that takes a long time to load.   VRML        

http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/
A cyberversion of the PBS show about the West. Rich Slide show & sound Tours Search function   Timeline

University Collections and Projects
 
General Description Content Multi-
media
Navi-
gation
Inter-
action
Screen
Design
Context

http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/faculties/SS/ARKY/show/showintro.html
Photos related to archaeological research in the Canadian Arctic. Slow load on 56K modem.   Slide show & sound        

http://www.msnbc.com/onair/msnbc/TimeAndAgain/archive/wknee/cover.asp
Wounded Knee history. Requires Shockwave plug-in which sometimes killed Netscape; IE also problematic.   Page activated audio with pics        

Part B. Content Review

Overview

After conducting a thorough search for online materials related to woman suffrage in the United States, it is safe to say that our proposed publication is unique in several different ways:

What follows is a brief account of the many sites searched, including Microsoft’s Encarta Encyclopedia Deluxe 99; the Encarta Online Library; Yahoo’s subject directory; Alta Vista’s Search Engine (looking at the first 120 references); Project Guttenberg; and links provided from various sites encountered. This research was useful not only to confirm that our proposed publication is unique, but also to learn about primary sources (especially photographs and newsreel sources) that we may be able to obtain for our own publication.

Archives/Libraries/Museums

1. Library of Congress, American Memory: "By Popular Demand"—Votes for Women http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/vfwhtml/vfwhome.html

Interesting presentation of photographs, many from the 1910-1920 period. 2. Library of Congress, American Memory, National American Women’s Suffrage Association Collection
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/naw/nawshome.html Focuses on early period of suffrage movement. 3. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, George Grantham Bain Collection
http://lcweb.loc.gov/spcoll/022.html News photographs of New York City, early twentieth century, potential source of supplementary photographs. 4. Library of Congress, National Photo Company Collection
http://lcweb.loc.gov/spcoll/170.html News photographs, including items covering suffrage, of Washington, D.C., 1910s-1930s 5. Library of Congress, Variety Stage materials
HTTP://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/vshtml/vshome.html Playscripts from the late 19th and early 20th centuries that comment on gender roles and the campaign for women's rights. 6. Library of Congress, Panoramic Photographs.
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/pnhtml/pnhome.html Includes photograph of 1919 meeting of the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association in St. Louis. 7. National Archives and Records Association, Washington, D.C.
http://www.nara.gov Source of many relevant photographs and newsreels. 8. National Archives, Exhibit Hall, "The Featured Document: The 19th Amendment"
http://www.nara.gov/exhall/charters/constitution/19th/19th.html Good presentation of primary document for classroom education. 9. The Huntington Museum, "Votes for Women" online exhibit
http://www.huntington.org/vfw/index.html Visually beautiful, but difficult to access, collection of materials related to woman’s suffrage. 10. Women's Collections Roundtable 1997 Directory.
http://www.archivists.org/round/home.html The Society of American Archivists created this web site, which contains brief descriptions of some archival collections that contain primary material related to woman suffrage. 11. Smithsonian: National Museum of American History
"From Parlor to Politics: Women and Reform in America, 1890 - 1925"
http://www.si.edu/nmah/youmus/ex14parl.htm Provides only excerpts from this permanent exhibition. University Collections and Projects

12. Duke University
http://odyssey.lib.duke.edu/women/suffrage.html

A "pathfinder" lists resources that would be available in many libraries for the study of the women's suffrage movement, as well as Duke's own manuscript holdings relevant to this topic. 13. Schlesinger Library (Radcliffe University)
http://www.us.net/upa/guides/schles1a.htm Guide to the library's microfilmed holdings relating to women's suffrage (published by University Publications of America). 14. University of Rochester, Susan B. Anthony University Center, "Created Equal"—History of the Suffrage Movement
HTTP://www.rochester.edu/SBA/hisindx.html A time line and bibliography and some images relating to women's suffrage. 15. University of South Carolina, Newsfilm Library
http://www.sc.edu/newsfilm/ Offers a portion of the Fox Movietonews newsreel collection for the period 1919-1934 by the 20th Century Fox Film Corporation. A potential source of newsreels, but looks expensive to obtain even a listing of what’s available. 16. Todd Library, Middle Tennessee State University
http://www.mtsu.edu/~library/microtxt/wom-micro.html Includes among its resources a 179-reel microfilm of the National Woman's Party Papers, 1913-1974. This extensive collection includes correspondence; biographical sketches; plays; surveys; minutes; drafts and reports of federal and state legislation; legal digests and reports concerning labor laws and other legal matters affecting women; trial materials and court cases; government documents including House and Senate resolutions, hearings, and bills; United Nations documents; and pamphlets and publications of the NWP. Locate the printed publication, The National Woman's Party Papers, 1913-1974: A Guide to the Microform Collection, 1979, ed. by Thomas C. Pardo; see also Review: Microform Review 15 (Fall 1986)

Another source gave a contact for the National Woman’s Party, NWP President, Dorothy Ruth Ferrell, at 202-546-1210.)

17. University of Georgia Libraries, Women in History and the Law: Suffrage for Women in Great Britain and the United States, 1848-1920
http://www.libs.uga.edu/hargrett/pexhibit/suffrag.html This 1997 exhibit features pieces from the newly donated Lucy Hargrett Draper Collection: British and American Women in History and Law. Highlights of the collection and exhibit include a signed photograph of Alice Paul. 18. State University of New York at Binghamton
Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1830-1930
http://womhist.binghamton.edu/ This is a very interesting, very new website intended to introduce students to a rich collection of primary documents related to women and social movements in the United States between 1830 and 1930. The material on this website begins a larger project, co-directed by Kathryn Kish Sklar and Thomas Dublin, and funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (a potential source of funding for our publication). Two editorial projects related to our publication are:

a) "The National Woman's Party and the Enfranchisement of Black Women, 1919-1924."
http://womhist.binghamton.edu/nwp/introduc.htm

  b) "Workers, Allies and the Threat of Socialism: The New York City Shirtwaist Strike, 1909-1910"
http://womhist.binghamton.edu/shirt/socialistsrebuffsuffragists.html
19. University of Maryland, Women's Studies On-Line Archive.
http://www.inform.umd.edu/EdRes/Topic/WomensStudies/ This is an extensive site that contains a keyword search; bibliographies; links; reference documents; and syllabi. Video Documentaries

20. Public Broadcasting Service, "One Woman, One Vote," 1995
http://www.pbs.org/onewoman/suffrage.html

Includes information about this superb documentary (which presents a rich source of newsreels and photographs from the World War I era of suffrage), along with historical background on the suffrage movement. Commercial Sources of Photographs and News Reel Related to Woman’s Suffrage

21. The Stock, Archival & News Footage Network
www.footage.net

An umbrella organization. 22. Archive Films/Archive Photos (An Image Bank Company), New York City
(http://www.archivefilms.com) Source of several relevant suffrage news reels. 23. Producers Library Service, North Hollywood
Email: stockftg@primenet.com

Potential source of newsreels.

24. John E. Allen, Inc.
116 North Ave Park Ridge NJ 07656
201-391-3299
Commercial source of newsreels, could not locate web site.

Other Resources

25. "History of Woman Suffrage in the United States": timeline
http://www.city-net.com/~lmann/women/history/timeline.html

26. A History of the American Suffragist Movement, by Doris Weatherford, ABC-CLIO, 1995 (book advertisement)
http://www.suffragist.com/

Index shows that this book offers little information about the World War I era of the woman’s suffrage movement. Includes timeline. 27. "75 Suffragists"
http://www.inform.umd.edu/EdRes/Topic/WomensStudies/ReadingRoom/History/Vote/75-suffragists.html
Includes biographies of 15 women who were active in the National Woman’s Party.
28. History of Women's Suffrage in America
http://historychannel.com/community/woman/index.html Introductory site to history of woman’s suffrage; nice navigation, nice design. Includes some photographs. 29. American Political Items Collectors (APIC)
Woman's Suffrage and Political Issues Chapter
http://www.collectors.org/apic/news.htm#AN-00021 An interesting resource, worth contacting this APIC chapter to tell them about our publication, a potential audience. Also mentions "a new suffrage Public Television documentary project by Ken Burns that is in the works," which is certainly worth finding out more about. 30. Official Project Guttenberg Site
http://www.promo.net/pg/ None of the books we are considering including in our publication (including Jailed for Freedom by Doris Stevens, 1920; and Story of the Woman’s Party by Inez Haynes Irwin, 1921) are available via the Project Guttenberg.