Greenwich Village History Blog
Biographical blog post
The Colored Orphan Asylum in Greenwich Village
(The) Google is Not Enough: A Finding Aid Tutorial
Scrivener
Shared Greenwich Village research folder
Link to your blog post on Scrivener [http://addlink]
Digital Archive
My twenty digital objects originate from the records of three nineteenth-century orphan asylums: the Society for the Relief of Half-Orphans and Destitute Children, the Orphan Asylum Society, and the Colored Orphan Asylum. Each institution was established in the early 1800's in Greenwich Village before moving uptown later in the century.
Web Exhibit
My web exhibit will focus on the early 19th-century orphan asylums of Greenwich Village, and their founders' attitudes toward the surrounding urban environment. In particular, I will examine how sanitary concerns — overcrowding, disease and pollution — steadily pushed the asylums uptown and out of Greenwich Village.
My research question: orphan asylums, public health, and urban growth
Add a link to the exhibit. [http://addlink]
Awesome job on the exhibit! I like how well your intro page sets up the theme and layout of the rest of your exhibition.
On the intro page, I would recommend moving the sentence "This web exhibit explores…" to after the section about sanitation. When I read it, I thought you gave an interesting observation about how all asylums moved out of GV, posed the purpose of the exhibit in an intriguing way, but then immediately told me why they moved. Perhaps rephrase the sentence to be "this exhibition explores the relationship between health and the relocation…"
It took me a while to figure out what the paths on the bottom of the page were and how to use them, but I really like the different narratives readers can take. Maybe write an explanatory sentence?
Another aesthetic point, I would suggest changing the blue font color in the header to a color used in your exhibition, perhaps the dark red? The blue shows up really bright on my computer.
Finally, on the Cause of Death at the Colored Orphan Asylum, I would maybe change the image of the book cover to one of the written pages. I know people won't be able to read it, but I only know what the picture is because I clicked on it.
Great writing, it is easy to follow, not too long, and interesting to read.