Question - How are electronic archive sites pressenting history? How has the use of hypertext changed the way of viewing the archive and archive material?
 

INTRODUCTION
 

Janet Murry conceptualises the computer as being the "most capacious medium ever invented, promising infinite resourses... we can store and retrive quantities of information far beyond what was possible before" ( Janet Murry, Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace, pg30). Because of this capacity for the dissemination of information the computer and the internet has provided an excellent environment for the electronic archive, allowing public access to material previously locked away in public and private libraries. Now that institutions have begun to digitialise there archives a question needs to be asked, how has the utilisation of the internet and hypertext changed the way we research, understand and do history? The use of hypertext, and espically the link does more than simply allow the public access to "quantities of information", the link is used by both the Library of Congress and the New Deal Network to connect context to its primary documents. By using the link in such a manner both sites are allows the public, if they want to, to read about a document or photo before actually viewing the material. Such use of the link opens up the archive to an entierly new audience that would never go in to an archive library, such as high school students or enthusiasts who want to learn more about American history. In other words, non-profesional historians can understand historical evidence. This leads to more questions about the use of hypertext and the archive, such as is this neccessarily a better way of doing history? Just because its faster does it make it better? Is the archive material being slowly drowned in a sea of context and interpretation? And is the electronic archive forcing the evidence to conform to a single historical argument ? By focusing on how the Library of Congress and the New Deal network disseminate information about the Federal Theater Project I hope to answer all these questions. By the end of my analysis I hope to show  what changes hypertext have made to the archive? If any?

HOW DO THE SITES PRESENT AN HISTORICAL ARGUMENT?
 

Both the Library of Congress and The New Deal Network have specific areas dealing with the Federal Theater Project and the Great Depression. The Library of Congress has a site entitled The New Deal Stage : Selections From The Federal Theater Project 1935- 1939, and the New Deal network has a feature entitled The Great Depression And The Arts.  Both are profesional sites with multiple authors which provide multiple arguments. An example of these multiple arguments can be seen in the New Deal Stage , which contains four illustrated articles by four different authors who each give a historical argument about a particular aspect of the Federal Theater Project and its impact on Depression America. The New Deal Network does relitively the  same thing, albeit less obvious.In the section the New Deal and the Arts the context on the Federal theater Project is a single narrative stream of information but this stream does not conform itself to a single historical argument. For example, the block of information that the network provides discusses how the popular culture during the thirties is a testament to their resiliance and faith in the New Deal, but there are also refrences to the revolutionary impulse that was present in the thirties and the weakness inheret in the New Deal itself. Hence, the information provided does not conform to a single grand narrative but explores the multiple facets of the New Deal and its impact on the Arts of the depression. This kind of multiple argument is a refreshing change to some other sites that deal with this topic.  Sites such as A New Deal For The Arts, which is an exhbition site dealing with the same topic as the Network , uses a monolithic argument in its interpretation of the New Deal and the Arts and ignores any other argument that may contradict the authors viewpoint. This gives a one sided and fragmented view of the impact government sponsored art had on the people of the depression. Both the Network and the library's use of multiple authors allows its audience a more complete view of the period and gives the audience a chance to make up their own mind on what the archive material is saying.

HOW IS THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS  STRUCTURED ?
 

In its mission statement the New Deal Stage claims that its aim is to "make resources avaliable to the American people". This they achive, but they go furthur and provide context which would not be present in an actual archive.  The structure of the site is intresting because it emphises the archive material over the context. The most prominate area in the home page is the Understanding the Collection section which contains the links to the archive material such as playscripts, administrative records and general material about the Federal Theater Project. Next to this is the section entitled working with the collection, which explores how to use the collection. On the top of these two sections is a link to four illustrated articles, which provide context for the archives but provide no links from the articles to the archive material. In this sence the archive seems to be closed off from its context. At the bottom of the home page there is a link to the learning pages which provide streams and streams of information which immediately contextualise some of the most important archival material. This area provieds links into the archives but what is strange is that there are no links from the archive to the learning pages. In this sence, links are being used by the Library of Congress as pathways to the archive but not from the archive to the context. This shows the emphisis the library places on its archive material for everything is structured around the primary documents.Because of this emphisis on the primary the library of Congress hasn't realy changed the way we study history its just given its audience more context. One thing the Library of Congress has achived with the New Deal Stage is that it has opened up its material to a wider audience. Because of the amount of interpretaion in the learning pages a non-professional historian can understand the significance of the archive material and how to situate it into its broarder historical context. Ofcourse the way the site is structured you could ignore the learning pages completely and just go into the archives if you wish. Hence, the New Deal Stage provides the public with access to its archives and then contextualises its archive back into its historical context but it dosent go far enough in utilising the properties of hypertext to actually change the way we view the archive because all the archive material is free from links to its context or any other relevant material.

HOW IS THE NEW DEAL NETWORK STRUCTURED ?
 

The goal of the New Deal Network, is simmilar to that of the New Deal Stage . The introduction to the site tells the public that the site should be used as an educational guide to the Great Depression. The word Educational reveals the audience this site is catering its information for, namely High school history school and their teachers. Although the site claims to cater for both the professional and non-professional historian it is clear by the structure of the site that it favours those with less historical knowledge about the period. The home page of the Network is cut into two main areas, Research and Study, which contains the archive material, and features, which  are collections of context and little essays about a specific topic on the Depression. The sheer amount of features as compared to the archive area shows an emphisis on context over archive. There are 22 feature sits which deal with topics as diverse as electricty, letters and the Great Depression and the Arts, which deals with literature, movies and more importantly the Federal Theater Project. The information about the FTP is structered as a study guide and lesson plan for grades 8-12.  Although the audience is very specific this site offers excellent background and context to the peorid and focuses on every aspect of the FTP and the resonance it had on the America of the Great Depression. This site is cut into two main areas a lesson plan and a teachers guide. The infomation about the FTP is in the teachers giude and offers intresting interpretations of the Federal Theater project, but its weakness stems from the choice of links to archive material. In the Introduction to the site it is said that the aim of this section is to reveal the fears and uncertainties that were bred by the Depression, hence its emphisis was on the people and their response to the Depression rather than the policies of the Depression era. In the teachers guide there are only links to political speaches, some extracts of plays and testimonies from the House Un American activity trials which led to the FTP's ultimate demise. This mixture of poltical and cultural documents almost disregards the human element of the depression. There is no attempt to explain how this material will give a better understanding of the people of the period and therefore does not achive its aim to show how the FTP reflects the fears and uncertainties of the people, which is sad because when you study the theater of the Depression it is amazing to see how many of the problems of the American people were discussed in the plays of the time.

Another problem with the New Deal network is that once in the Great Depression and the Arts feature it is impossible to be connected with the archives in the Research and Study area. What is also intresting is that when you go into the archive area there are only four documents which deal with the FTP exclusively. These sources are very useful in gaining a better picture of the FTP and the problems it faced during the last years of the Depression but more documents are needed to give a full view of the Theater in the thirties. More refrences to actual plays would have been useful. How can you attempt to understand the theater if there is no refrence to the work it produced. There is ofcourse act 1 scene 15 of Power, writtin by Arthur Arent, but this is just 1 in a number of plays produced by the FTP. The Library of Congress has a whole section devoted to playscripts in the New Deal Stage and the Network seems to disregard all of them. This may stem from the fact that the Network does not want to just expose there archives to a wider audience as the Library of Congress does, but wants to create an educational tool for the non-professional historian which leds to its emphisis on context over archive material. In spite of this, the photo archive is an excillent resourse and provides hundreds of photos of the productions of the FTP. The only problem with this site is the lack of links to other material. What could have been useful is linking the photos to the documents or to the features to show a depiction of what working in the FTP was actually like. The best feature of the Network is the search function at the top right hand of the home page. When you type in the Federal Theater Project the search function searches both the archive and feature areas . This function is useful but is placed in such a strange area and leaves one wondering how many people would see or use the search link in the top right hand corner of the home page.

CONCLUSION : DO THE ELECTRONIC ARCHIVE CHANGE THE WAY WE RESEARCH AND DO HISTORY ?

Now that we have a better understanding of how both sites structures there information, we have to ask the question  has the utilisation of hypertext changed the archive and the way we do history? The simple answer is no. Both sites do not go far enough in using the many properties of hypertext to change the way we veiw archive material. Both sites use links, but only as pathways from the context to the archive . There is no attempt to hypertextualise the archives themselves, so the only thing that is different is that the public has access to archive material and that we can access it faster than if a person actually went into an archive and searched themselves. This doesn't change the way we do history it just makes it a faster process. The mixture of primary and secondary material, in both archive sites, is different to an actual archive library which provide little to no contextualisation of there sources. However, both sites structure their archives in such a way that there is no need to view the context if you don't want to. In The New Deal Stage, the archive material is seprate from its context, except for the WPA Federal Theater Project section which provides some background material but not enough to take the emphisis away from the archive material, so there is no real reson to view it if you don't want to . The New Deal network does relatively the same thing by spliting its home page in two and making it very difficult to connect the archive material to the feature area. Both the Library and the Network priviliage there archive material over the context, although the Network has more context about the FTP than documents, there is no attempt to change the body of the primary documents by providing links to the context or other primary material such as photos or other documents. Hypertext is used by the archive sites, but not to change the way we view an archive because all they do is just put the archive material on the internet then construct context around it leaving the archive material virtually untouched. The reson for this could be that the people who built these archive sites do not want to change the way we do history. The Library of Congress just wanted to expose their archive to a wider audience and the New Deal Network wanted the site to be an educational tool. Both sites achived the aims that they set for themselves, the Library of Congress has exposed there archive to a wider audience and the New Deal Network is an educational tool,  but are there sites really offering a new way of doing history, or just a faster way to view there archive material? For an archive site to truly change the way we do history it would have to utilise hypertext to its full potenital, using the link in the body of the archive to link the material to other primary and secondary material. Untill an archive can truly utilise the properties of hypertext, the electronic archive will not change the way we research or do history.