Working with the project Death by Numbers has been interesting. First, I get to work with rare materials and go down rabbit holes of research based on what we find. Second, I have a chance to understand what subjects appeal to me and question what I would like to do with my degree for a career. The challenge is fun but very personal. For this internship specifically, I have had fun in both ways I expected and ways I definitely did not.
The Expected Fun
I began to put data into a spreadsheets. I wouldn’t say this is exactly “fun” but more on the expected side. I set up the spreadsheet to include the year I am starting with (1702) and then killed deaths, description, accident deaths, those descriptions, and the parishes involved in these events. Even though I want to look at a five year span of bills, 1701-1705 or so, I decided from the start to only play with one year worth of bills because it felt more manageable. Having only 52 rows is much easier to look at than four times that! Then there was just the fact that I am able to challenge myself by learning a large process, more than just the software. Mapping and digital history is really an art ANDÂ science that I am just starting to learn so I am allowing it to take me where it leads.
The Surprises
It was interesting to see how much information I thought I would need in the sheets versus what I actually did need. However, I did not think about the fact that since I am using premade shp. files of London from Dr. Otis, my titles in the spreadsheet need to match so that the application could understand where connections between two spreadsheets are. Then as the project progresses, I now understand that I may need to refine what will be in this map. My main goal is to see how different classes interacted with areas with the murders versus accidents. Would there be more accidents or murders in poor areas? Either way, is that evidence shocking?
I have had to contain my workflow as well. I forgot that projects like this can be all absorbing and I can spend hours on just spreadsheeting, adding layers in QGIS, labeling those layers, and more. Finding a spot to save it and walk away becomes quite difficult. I recognized quickly that having a time limit instead of progress markers was a better workflow for the rest of this project.