Archive Pay Dirt: Americans in Albany

Eureka! I found it! I am in New York City this week conducting research at the New York Public Library. I also have a ticket to see Hamilton the Musical.

My research goal for the trip: find information about the role the people of Albany played during Sullivan's Campaign of 1779 and the Native American and Loyalist raids between 1780-1782.

If you read my dissertation, you would be surprised to learn that the War for Independence in Albany ended with the Battle of Saratoga in 1777. (Don't always believe what you read.)

Yesterday, I went through the Henry Glen Papers. Henry Glen lived in Schenectady and served as a Deputy Quarter Master General throughout the war. As I went through this small collection and read over supply requests, orders, and personal correspondence, I stumbled upon a letter to Glen from Jeremiah Lansingh of Albany.

Dated 6 July 1778, the letter conveys intelligence from the Battle of Monmouth.  Some of the intelligence is wrong, but Lansingh discusses how "our troops" caused the enemy to retreat. Moreover, he ended his letter with the following sentence:

"I don't doubt but our Troops will keep up the old Maxim (Work well begun is half ended) And may they make an End of them All [British soldiers], is the sincere Wish & one who glories in the Name of an American and is your humble Servt.

Jerh Lansingh"

For more than 10 years I have searched for a statement by someone from Albany that explicitly stated they viewed themselves as an American. I never thought I would find one, but I held hope. Unlike my dissertation, my book won't have to deal in abstractions. I made a convincing case before, but now I have a real statement.

Twitter Strategies for Historians

Do you have a Twitter strategy?

In this post, you will discover easy tactics you can use to increase awareness about history and your research and build your historian’s platform with Twitter.

Twitter Strategies

The are three strategies when it comes to Twitter: Conversation, Content Curation, and Spam Marketing.

I employ conversation and content curation as part of my Twitter strategy.

Conversation

The conversation strategy involves tweeting when you want to have a conversation.

Users who follow this strategy log onto Twitter when they have time. They scan their timeline (the feed of everyone you follow), curated lists (lists you create with like users; I created a list of “historians”), or favorite hashtags (conversation topics) to see what conversations people are having and whether they want to contribute their thoughts. Sometimes conversational users start a conversation by tweeting a message or question.

Participating in conversations makes Twitter fun. However, conversations represent only half the power of Twitter.

Content Curation

Do you like discovering interesting blog posts, news stories, or information about new exhibits, events, or places to visit or eat?

Many Twitter users do, which is why becoming a content curator can help you build a following on Twitter.

A content curator finds interesting information to share and shares it.

I am a content curator.

Every morning I log into Feedly, an app that allows you to find, subscribe to, view, organize, and share blog content, news articles, and YouTube videos. The app displays the headlines for all of the internet content I subscribe to within categorized lists. As I eat breakfast, I scan article headlines. When I find an interesting title, I click on it so Feedly opens the full article in a new internet browser tab. I skim the full article and decide if I want to read and/or share it. If I want to share it, I create and schedule a tweet for the article (more on scheduling tweets below).

Spam Marketing

I do not recommend this strategy, but it exists. Some Twitter users create accounts for the sole purpose of tweeting ads for their product or service.

How to Tweet When You Aren’t On Twitter

If you follow me on Twitter (@lizcovart), you have likely noticed that I tweet a lot and if you really pay attention to my feed you know that I tweet the same articles 2, and sometimes 3, times per day.

In fact, I tweet at least once per hour; I tweet 2 or 3 times per hour when my followers are most active.

With all of this tweeting you may be surprised to learn that most days I check Twitter 2 or 3 times per day for a total of 10-15 minutes.

Would you like to know the secret of how you can use Twitter all the time and yet only spend 10-15 minutes actively using the platform?

My secret: I use a scheduling service to schedule my tweets.

There are many services you can use either for free or for a monthly or annual fee. They include Buffer, Edgar, SproutSocial, HootSuite, and Social Oomph. I have used two of these services.

Buffer

Buffer allows you to schedule up to 10 tweets for free at times you choose. You must join Buffer's "Awesome Plan" to schedule more than 10 tweets. The Awesome plan costs $102 per year, or $10 per month, and it allows you to schedule an unlimited number of tweets.

At first, 10 tweets per day proved enough. As I followed more blogs and befriended more bloggers, 10 tweets became inadequate. I upgraded to the unlimited tweet plan within 4 months.

Buffer's Awesome plan enabled me to schedule tweets on a 24-hour schedule, which allowed me to reach new audiences. It also permitted me to schedule tweets multiple times per day.

I used Buffer for 18 months and the service worked great until I started podcasting and needed a more robust service to share my episodes evenly.

Edgar

I love Edgar. Edgar uses a calendar and category queues to share your content evenly. Unlike Buffer, Edgar stores all of the content you put into your queues for continued use.

When you sign-up for Edgar, the platform invites you to create content queues or categories. Categories represent the topics of the content you like to share.

After you create your category queues, you fill them with content. I used a feature called “bulk upload” to upload blog and podcast tweets from a spreadsheet into the appropriate categories; I add content to my “history” queue every morning.

Before you can put Edgar to work, you have to create a content calendar. A content calendar is a schedule of when you want content from each queue to tweet.

With calendar and content in place, Edgar will tweet what you want, when you want.

What I love about Edgar is that once the software tweets a preloaded tweet, it moves that tweet to the bottom of the queue. Edgar will tweet your content again once it shares all of your other preloaded tweets.

Edgar saves me time and ensures that all my podcast episodes share evenly. Additionally, Edgar has made it easy for me to share and call attention to old blog content, much of which is "evergreen" or information that is always good.

Final Thoughts

I love Twitter and have found it to be a powerful tool to practice digital public history. Admittedly, not everyone needs a $49 per month scheduling service to build their historian’s platform with Twitter. I use the service to promote my podcast and history. I am also willing to make this investment because Twitter is a large component of how I work as digital public historian.

Although I use a scheduling service, I do not abuse it like many internet marketers do. I limit my scheduled tweets to 1-3 time per hour, I tweet two articles that other people wrote before I tweet a Ben Franklin’s World episode or a blog post I wrote. I also pause my scheduling service when I go on vacation or live-tweet conferences.

More on how to tweet a conference in my next post.

Why I Tweet & Why You Should Too

Do you use Twitter? Would you like to know more about how you can use Twitter to build your historian’s platform?

This post is the first in a 3-part series on how I use Twitter and how you can use it to build your historian’s platform. In this post, I will reveal why I love Twitter and why I use it.

The second post will discuss Twitter strategies you can use to draw attention to history and your research. The series will conclude with tactics for tweeting conference panels.

Why I Tweet

Twitter is my social media network of choice. I dabble on Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and Goodreads, but Twitter is where I prefer to spend my time on social media.

I love Twitter for three reasons:

1. Conversations and Networking

Twitter serves as my virtual watercooler. I am an unaffiliated scholar who often works from home or in cafes and libraries. This work-life offers great flexibility, but it can often be lonely. Twitter helps me cut the loneliness by allowing me to interact with colleagues when I want and need to.

When I need a break from my work, I visit Twitter to see who else is hanging out online. I often start with the people on my friends and family feed, but I also check in with my favorite hashtags to see if anyone is talking about topics that interest me. You can find all sorts of different conversations if you know which hashtags to follow.

Note on Hashtags: Hashtags are the words with # in front of them. They let users know that a tweet is part of a larger conversation by defining either the audience or topic the tweet addresses. For example, #Twitterstorians is a tweet for historians on twitter. #RedSox lets fellow fans know you want to talk about the team.

Chatting on Twitter has helped me expand and maintain my social and professional networks. I have met many fantastic colleagues on Twitter by sharing information about history, asking questions, and by answering the questions of others.

I frequently meet fellow historians on Twitter before I meet them in person. Our virtual relationship gives us an advantage. When we meet in person at a conference, or during a research trip, we often fall into an easy conversation because we already know what we like to talk about. Moreover, since we already know each other we are keen to introduce each other to our friends, which expands both of our professional and social networks.

Twitter Tip: If you would like to meet other historians on Twitter checkout the hashtags #Twitterstorians, #Historians, and #PublicHistory.

2. News Source

Twitter provides me with a quick and easy way to check the news. Between the news sources and people I follow, I almost always know when something big, tragic, or important has happened. The people I follow almost always share links to interesting history, news, and sports articles too.

3. Digital Public History

Twitter not only connects historians with colleagues, it also connects people who love history with history and historians.

Twitter allows users to share information quickly and unlike Facebook and other platforms that use algorithms to curate feeds, anyone who follows you or the hashtags you use will see the information you share.

Historians can, and do, use Twitter to increase awareness about history-related exhibits, tours, books, events, blog posts, conferences, and news. Sharing and promoting this information helps non-historians stay up-to-date with history-related news. It also helps them feel more comfortable about asking historians questions about history, what historic sites they should visit, and what history books they should read. This type of tweeting and interaction qualifies as public history.

Conclusion

Twitter allows historians to connect with colleagues, get news, and practice digital public history. This is why I love it.

In my next post, I will reveal strategies you can use to better enjoy Twitter and for how you can use it to build your historian’s platform.

Commemorating the Stamp Act Sestercentennial

The sestercentennial (250th anniversary) of the first Boston Stamp Act riot took place on August 14, 2015.  I commemorated the event by releasing a bonus episode of Ben Franklin's World about the Stamp Act and the Boston riots and by hosting the first ever Ben Franklin's World Listener Meet-up. The meet-up consisted of a two-hour walking tour of Boston that focused on the Stamp Act riots and the role Boston played in the American Revolution.

I wrote the tour and offered it through Boston By Foot, an organization of volunteers who lead history and architecture walking tours of Boston.

Thirty-eight people took the tour, about twenty people heard about it through the podcast.

The tour began in front of the Massachusetts State House and from there stopped by the Granary Burying Ground (we had to stop and say "hello" to John Hancock, Samuel Adams, James Otis, Paul Revere, and Robert Treat Paine), King's Chapel, Old South Meeting House, the building that marks the birthplace of Benjamin Franklin, the Old State House and Boston Massacre Site, Faneuil Hall, the Blackstone Block (the only street in Boston that resembles a colonial Boston street), Paul Revere House, the Thomas Hutchinson house site, Old North Church, and Copp's Hill Burying Ground (where we looked at and discussed Bunker Hill).

We had hot, muggy weather, but we enjoyed the day. After the tour six of us repaired to a pizzeria in the North End and had lunch.

Most of the listeners who came for the meet-up hailed from New England or New York. One listener dove up from Baltimore and used the meet-up as an excuse to visit Boston, the We Are One exhibit at the Boston Public Library, Boston's Haymarket, and Longfellow's Wayside Inn in Sudbury, Massachusetts--all locations I have featured on Ben Franklin's World.

One of the most rewarding experiences of podcasting has been connecting with history lovers like the ones who came on my tour. This past spring and summer I have received tweets and e-mails from listeners telling me that they have visited the Library Company of Philadelphia, Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site, the Wayside Inn, and Boston as a result of hearing about these places on Ben Franklin's World. My listeners are also buying books and attending lectures given by guest historians.

Combining history and new media technology like podcasts, blogs, Twitter, and Facebook work. They help historians reach new audiences and help new audiences connect with us and our work.

Share Your Story

What are you doing that is helping you connect new audiences to your historical work?

Edupreneur or Institutional Historian? Questions Raised by SHEAR & Podcast Movement

This past weekend, I attended Podcast Movement, the world’s largest podcast conference. In this post, I reveal the ideas Podcast Movement 2015 gave me and helped me to articulate, including the idea of whether I want to be an edupreneur or an institutional historian.

Culture Shock

Podcast Movement marked my first non-academic conference and it left me with a feeling of culture shock for two reasons: First, the conference took place in Fort Worth, Texas.

Second, I attended the conference as an historian in a world that appears dominated by marketers.

A New England Yankee in Fort Worth, Texas

My trip to Podcast Movement marked my first visit to the Dallas/Fort Worth area. I have visited Houston twice and find it to be a cosmopolitan city that sprawls like no other city I have ever visited (even Los Angeles). Although I have enjoyed my visits to Houston, I will admit that I left disappointed that it didn’t feel like the Texas I had imagined.

I am disappointed no longer.

Not long after I deplaned in Fort Worth, I asked for directions to the shared van stand. The man who assisted me called me “darlin’” and pointed the way. I had expected a slightly southern accent, but the term caught me off guard. I couldn’t help but think that my helpful guide was being a bit fresh.

It turns out, he wasn’t being brazen. When I reached the shared van stand the male attendant also used “darlin’” to address me. In Texas, “darlin” is used in place of “ma’am.”

Other cultural experiences included country music (not the pop kind), cowboy boots (Texans really wear them), choices regarding the pork and beef you put in your Tex-Mex tacos (choices?), and a few other linguistic variations.

My visit to Fort Worth reminded me why I love, and am so fascinated by, the United States. The U.S. stands as a huge country, with many regional identities, and yet every citizen who lives within its borders proclaims to be “an American.” We portray ourselves as one people and yet Americans in Fort Worth, Texas are different from Americans in Boston, Massachusetts.

An Historian Attends a Non-Academic Conference

What happens when you attend a non-academic conference? You get a hefty conference badge and a swag bag!

Inside my swag bag I found a glossy, color program, ads for corporate sponsors, a book, sunglasses, and a portable power stick to charge my smartphone or tablet.

Aside from the swag bag, I experienced business card overload.

A friend told me that I should bring at least 100 business cards to the conference and develop a system for dealing with the business cards I received. I laughed at these suggestions.

Earlier this month I attended SHEAR. I handed out more business cards at SHEAR than I have ever handed out at one conference; I probably gave out between 15-20. At SHEAR and other academic conferences I follow the tried and true etiquette of giving a card only when asked or when I want someone to remember me after a conversation.

At Podcast Movement, attendees handed out business cards to everyone they saw, regardless of whether they engaged you in conversation.

I must have given out between 75 and 80 business cards and between 100-200 Ben Franklin’s World bookmarks. I think I came home with more than 100 business cards.

Finally, I have never been to a conference where so many of speakers presented without being aware of the composition of their audience.

Podcast Movement attracted an audience of hobbyists, business owners, marketers, and public radio professionals. I enjoyed many conference sessions and panel discussions, but the public radio professionals spoke to everyone as if their audience worked in public radio and had NPR’s budget. As small as NPR’s budget may be, it is much bigger than that of an indy podcaster.

Additionally, many of the presenters at “How-To Monetize Your Podcast” sessions spent more time selling themselves than they did conveying useful information about how a podcaster could court advertisers or develop salable products. They were marketers, not educators.

When you attend a history conference, nearly every presenter knows their audience. I found the change of pace at this quasi-business conference a bit jarring at times.

Standing at a Crossroads

As different as Podcast Movement was from the academic conferences I normally attend, I had a really good time. I met many amazing podcasters and made several new friends. I heard fantastic talks given by Roman Mars (I met him too!), Marc Maron, and Sarah Koenig. I also came home with several ideas about how I can tweak Ben Franklin’s World and grow its audience.

I plan to start with developing an app and by seeking crowdfunding.

Attending both SHEAR and Podcast Movement also helped me articulate that I feel like I am standing at a crossroads with Ben Franklin’s World.

The podcast started as an experiment. Now that it has and continues to succeed, I need to decide whether I am an “edupreneur” starting a history-based business or whether I am a podcaster looking for an institutional job.

If I am honest with myself, I want to be the latter.

I am an historian and educator. I know little about starting a business and the thought of "monetizing" history makes me uneasy.

At SHEAR some of my colleagues seemed surprised I wasn’t on the job market. They told me I have an impressive work portfolio. I appreciate their recognition, but no institutions place job ads for the type of work I do so I have stopped looking.

Creating public digital history projects is important work, it is the type of work that will return history to the forefront of the public mind, which will in turn help us get funding and increase our enrollment rates.

But public digital history projects do not contribute to our culture’s corporate model of university education. Nor is it the type of work that earns tenure or garners an alternative academic position. I am a digital historian, but I don’t work on databases that lead to a better understanding of historic sources.

There is also the not-so-insignificant price tag that comes with creating and operating a public digital history project. Technology allows us to convey history in incredible and meaningful ways to large public audiences. But technology isn’t always free.

Ben Franklin’s World costs approximately $90 per episode to produce (sometimes more) and this cost does not include my time.

If I fulfill my goal of completely outsourcing my audio editing, each episode will cost $165, again not including my time. This cost is far less than NPR spends on each of its podcast and radio episodes, but it still means that a project such as mine requires a minimum operating budget of $360-$450 per month to keep it going.

Ideally, I would have a budget of $660-$825 per month so I can create more time for my scholarship.

In a perfect world, my monthly budget would be closer to $1,000 per month so I could hire graduate students to find and attach primary source documents, and suggestions for how educators can use them in their classrooms, to each episode.

I am not sure an institutional digital history job is in my future.

Conclusion

I suppose in the end I will be an edupreneur who holds hope that some day there will be institutional jobs for historians like me. Then we can help institutions build new projects and train others who want to engage in public digital history.

Until that day comes, I will persist in my work. I keep going because I believe that the historical profession has to take history to the public. We need to help our fellow citizens remember why the past and what we do is important. I believe that technology and new media can help us bring history back into the forefront of the public mind.

I am not sure how long the podcast will continue, but I do know that I want to build a career that includes both traditional archival research and writing and experimentation with public digital history projects. I am not alone in this desire. However, ours is a tricky road.

When we bootstrap and succeed in our work the beancounters at institutions will at some point take note. I think they will appreciate our work, but they will question why they should hire us. We are, after all, doing this important and beneficial work for free. This thought has me staring down the road of edupreneur.