Methodology

My methodology for this project changed as the project grew, shrank, evolved, hit walls, and then rebounded. Throughout the project I have been refining, rethinking, and rewriting my intentions, while ultimately remaining fairly close to the original plan. Here is an overview of meathods used for various components of the project:

1. Research

The research for this project included some archival materials (though I had expected to use more), some secondary source material (such as books about gilded age mansions), and some online sources (such as wikipedia for Astor family biographical information).

The online sources should probably be double-checked at some point, though the precise nature of the information is not necessarily imperative for what I'm using it for. The archival sources are always useful, but they're such small blips on a spectrum, and there is still so much missing! Most of the fashion sources I'm finding are French or British, and I have yet to find any examples of how American men (or their tailors) were getting (or passing on) information about fashion.

2. Software

For the collection and organization of data, I primarily used Excel and FileMaker Pro. Excel feels very familiar to me, and is the easiest to use. File Maker was much less intuitive, and I needed a lot of coaching to figure out how to make it work, but I can see how it would be useful in the long run.

For the visualization of data, I used Timeline and Tableau. Neither were particularly easy to use, and neither gave me the results I was hoping for, so I need to experiment with them more and try other programs.

For the mapping project, I used MapWarper to geo-locate historical maps and Neatline to present the overall project. I need to practice more in Neatline, and I wish it was both more user-friendly and adaptable, but overall it was a good fit for this project. I wish there was a version that didn't require Omeka.