Not sure if we were suppose to post our final research contract but figured may as well seeing our other students did.
Shane Voci and Anthony Corbett
Research Proposal – COPLAC Conflict in America
Professor Wallace and Professor Welch
September 28, 2017
Title:
The Rebellion to End all Rebellions: How Shay’s Rebellion changed the U.S. Government’s Response to Armed Rebellions
Mission/Goal of Project:
Shays’ Rebellion may be one of the most famous, or infamous, rebellions in the history of the United States. Taking place in central and western Massachusetts and lasting only several months from 1787 until 1788, it claimed no more than a few dozen lives on both sides. However, it changed the way the U.S. government would function. It brought up questions of rebellion and how the U.S. government would, or could, handle them especially when they turned violent. The resolution to the rebellion was violence, despite a few legislative actions trying in vain to end the rebellion in peace. Putting down the rebels seemed to be the only solution many leaders came to and this solution brings up questions of how to deal with rebellions, and even protests. It begs the question of how should the U.S. government deal with these problems in present day America? Should we use violence or can they be settled in a more peaceful manner? Did the changes to the US government brought on by Shays’ Rebellion truly benefit in ending future rebellions peacefully?
For starters, many people today are not sure what Shays’ Rebellion even is so the opening page for our site should have its own “who, what, when, where, why and how.” This gives the reader/viewer a background before they delve into the real substance of the event. Off of the main page are several tabs which describe different stages in the event; the forming of the rebellion, Shays’ assault on the Springfield Armory, The Battle of Sheffield, just to name a few. Off of these pages there is a general description of what happened at the specific instance, will be more in-depth information about people, places, and what sort of effects the events had.
We would like to present this information as a narrative and not a website where the facts are just spewed back out and a conclusion is drawn. We would like to keep the attention of the reader by keeping the website in a narrative form that drops in primary resources we think would help immerse the read fully in our topic.
The front and center of the website should be the “narrative” of history on what happened with the Rebellion. That is history presented in an almost story like telling. But not without proper sources, citations and in context photographs. This will help draw people in to the site and help inform most people who do not know anything about the rebellion. The other tabs on the information will include in-depth look at primary sources and finally what could be a thesis of a paper an entire page of how the rebellion itself effected our early nation’s government, including the constitution and the forming the executive branch of the government. This ties the entire website together and brings in the conflict resolution, displaying the logical but ultimate failings of the new American government to prevent and more violent uprisings.
The overlook of the website we’d like to reflect the area of Massachusetts and the period of the rebellion. Background images that invoke the feeling of a forested area and old parchment. But also among other pictures of places and people from the event, such as Daniel
Shays and Luke Day but also period information such as pictures of newspapers printing the news of the rebellion, such as the New Hampshire Gazette.
The overall goal of the project is to be inviting but professional looking. With an easy to intake narrative with finally a conclusion on how Shays’ Rebellion starts as one of our new governments failed attempts on peacefully preventing future conflict in America.
Technical Details:
A lot of pictures and words, but in a more digestive manner than a twenty-page history paper. That is the general technical theme of any historian when trying to figure out this grand world of websites and how they should look. We plan on making use of photos of places with historical meaning. All of these important places are within driving distance for the two of us. Unless you know central and western Massachusetts, you’ll most likely have no idea where any of this is taking place so we intend to use the google maps to make it easy to follow where the events take place. Timelines are a perfect way to show off pictures and tidbits of information for those of us who are not used to reading long paragraphs about people who died a couple hundred years ago. Inserting news articles, if possible, into the website, that are properly cited, so viewers can read primary sources. The technical parts of the website, the meat and potatoes of it, will develop more as the website begins to take shape. To see how everything flows and moves, to see what else can be added and taken away, is much easier when there is a physical object to work on.
Milestone #1 – October 12
September 30 to October 1 –
· Shane Plans to Visit the Springfield Armory
· Tony Plans to visit Sheffield, MA
October 2 to 6 –
· Spend time together to work on pooling information
o Using online databases, information gathered from Springfield and Sheffield, books, articles, etc.
o Remember to use the North Adams Library at this time
October 9 to 11 –
· Get all useful information together and hit the goal for Milestone #1
Have all information on Shay’s Rebellion gathered and have sorted through it all. At this point we should have no need to go to the Springfield Armory or anywhere else. We should have all of our information, secondary and primary. We should know what we have, what goes together, and begin thinking about the layout of the website. After this point it should be more technical and aesthetic based work on the project.
Milestone #2 – October 26
October 13 to 18 –
· Begin write-ups for website
· Plan to have write-ups done before fine tuning them into easy to access timelines and maps for those who find reading to be shallow and pedantic
October 19 to 25 –
· Use write-ups to build timelines and maps
· Take turns building each to get a good feel for the programs
Have a basic layout of the website constructed. Have all if not most of the aspects; timelines, images and write-ups all done. By this date we should not be sitting down to write anything or be building any timelines, or looking for images. Being history majors, we are pretty good at writing things and pretty alright at doing timelines so this is where we put our noses to the grindstone in order finish a blueprint of the website to work off of. What goes where, how many pages/tabs, what the pages/tabs are, where do the images go, etc.
Milestone #3 – November 9
October 26 to 1 –
· Begin building the website
· Lots of hands on, working together
· Building the pages, tabs, background images. Make it appealing for people to look at
· Put in all of our hard work!
November 2 to 8 –
· Spend these last few days spell-checking one last time, making sure everything looks good, all the meshes mesh properly.
o Make sure all aspects work properly, page loads properly, etc.
Have the website designed and begin inserting the aspects. This point should see no more write-ups being done, especially no more information gathering. This is where we begin to “copy and paste” (for lack of a better term) the parts of the website together. Putting in the write-ups, timelines, images, etc. Making final changes to the project. We should have a pretty finished website by this point so then the following weeks we can be very nitpicky about it.
Final Project Due – November 30
November 10 to 29 –
· Get really nitpicky about the website. Make it absolutely perfect. Make it something you definitely want to bring home to momma
· Get feedback from peers and teachers
· Get feedback from friends and relatives
· Throw out most of this feedback, what do they know?
· Really polish it up and get ready to…