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Technology and the Historian
By Davis
Bitton
For many centuries historians had
worked in basically the same manner. First, they would gather
material. Some didn’t gather very much, doing little more than
rewriting previous histories. Second, they would write their
own work in longhand.
Seldom do we know to what degree
these historians revised; adding or subtracting, before making
a fair copy. Finally, unless the resulting history simply
remained in the family for private use, it was “published” in
some form. Copyists transcribed the original work, and then
copies of copies were made.
The invention and expansion of the
printing press from the fifteenth century on greatly facilitated
the publication of works. But one still pictures the historian
laboriously gathering material and then, quill pen in hand, writing
out the new work.
Then, in the last quarter of the
nineteenth century, came the typewriter.
After several earlier attempts by
others proved too cumbersome, Remington and Sons, the gunsmiths,
began to produce and market a machine. In 1878, the first
shift-key typewriter appeared, with a lower-case and capital letter
on each key. We are told that Mark Twain was the first author
to submit a typewritten manuscript to a publisher.
Latter-day Saints were not slow in
taking advantage of this improvement. For ten or twenty
years official letters might be either handwritten or typed, with
carbon copies or “letter books” remaining in the originating office.
But gradually typewritten letters became standard.
I remember reading through Abraham
H. Cannon’s journals. At a certain point, he began to type
them. If everyone had his beautiful, legible handwriting,
we might be just as happy to forget the typewriter. But
Cannon’s eye for detail remained the same throughout, and his
meticulous care in recording activities continued through his
later typewritten volumes.
In delving through archives, in reading
old documents from the past, historians therefore have the experience
of reading handwriting and also, after a certain date, typewriting.
Working historians often used the
typewriter for taking notes. Trained by a crackerjack typing
teacher in high school, Dorothy Furstner, I subsequently typed
my own letters, many of my notes, and eventually my entire doctoral
dissertation. Those who lacked the ability to type fast
with accuracy were handicapped. For many reasons, it makes
good sense for a young person to master the keyboard at a young
age.
You may be interested to know that
Leonard J. Arrington, respected and highly prolific historian
of Mormonism and the West, had his own style of typing.
With my office next to his, I would see him, or hear him, at work,
typing at about half my speed, using the old hunt-and-peck method.
He may not have been fast, but he was relentless, churning out
page after page after page. Leonard resisted later improvements,
even the electric typewriter, preferring his trusted Olympia
manual.
Sound
The invention and marketing of the
phonograph included the ability to capture sound on recordings.
While working on the biography of George Q. Cannon, I came across
an entry in his journal that told of the entire First Presidency
attending a recording session so that their testimony could be
preserved and heard later in their own voices. At the Church
Museum of History and Art, in the permanent exhibit on presidents
of the Church, you can still hear some of these early recorded
utterances — really quite miraculous, when you stop to think about
it.
The invention of the tape recorder,
which became widely available after World War II led to the phenomenal
expansion of “oral history.” Allen Nevins, at Columbia University, is usually credited with establishing the first such program,
an organized effort to obtain the spoken testimony of important
participants in the New Deal.
Before long, other programs focusing
on other parts of the past were initiated. By now hundreds
of oral history programs exist throughout the country and elsewhere
in the world. On a more modest scale, for purposes of family
history, many people have had the experience of recording reminiscences
from parents or grandparents.
Without discussing oral history in
depth, let me mention two problems. First, oral history
interviews are not always done very competently. If the
interviewer has no experience and no instruction, he or she is
likely to interrupt or to ask questions that fail to encourage
full, reflective answers. Any recorded interview is better
than none, I suppose, but those using the interview in subsequent
years will mourn for what might have been.
Second, it is easier to record an
interview than to transcribe it, resubmit it to the interviewee,
make editorial corrections, and type a final copy. That
is the sequence recommended in the best programs. I have
seen many cassette or reel-to-reel tapes of interviews that were
never transcribed. I worry about those. If they are
not “played” every year or two, will they deteriorate and become
inaudible? In the absence of a typed transcription, how
many people will take the time and energy to listen to them?
Punch Cards
I remember one exciting innovation
in note-taking and manipulation of data. At least so I and
some others thought. I refer to punched cards. You
had taken a note from a primary source, copied a document or a
portion of it. How would you file it? What about a
document that had relevance for several different topics? For
this eventuality, those who first used punched cards thought they
had the answer.
Little holes all around the edge
of the note card were assigned meanings. I am interested
in Joseph Smith. I insert the long needle, like a knitting needle,
in the appropriate aperture. Result: hundreds of cards,
far too many to be useful. But let us say I am interested
in Joseph Smith and Zion’s Camp. I insert two needles and bring
out a manageable number of note cards. Many examples come
to mind.
It seemed like an improvement.
The content note itself had to be recorded only once, not recopied
for different topics within the file system and not cross-referenced.
I tried this system for a few years,
but, truth to tell, it was cumbersome. When I now come across
some of my earlier notes with those little holes around the edge,
I smile. We’ve come a long way, baby.
Computers
It is hard for some of us to realize
that young people under a certain age do not remember the pre-computer
world. I refer, of course, to the personal computer, the
PC, that has become widely available. As we all know, computer
technology has affected almost everything. Retail and wholesale
business, banking, policing, investment strategies, farming, the
military, tax accounting, medicine — these are but a few of the
areas of life now strongly affected by computers.
Thinking of university departments,
we are not surprised to find computers used extensively in accounting,
economics, engineering, the physical sciences, the social sciences.
But what of the humanities? Philosophers and English
professors, one might think, still read books, reflect on them,
and help their students to appreciate and understand. But
even such traditional disciplines have not remained immune. Computers
are used for ordering books, keeping up with bibliography, content
analysis, and on and on.
As for historians, we too have moved
beyond the quill pen, the fountain pen, the manual typewriter,
and the electric typewriter. No historian practicing today,
I think, practices the craft without the computer.
Computers are incredibly helpful
in the gathering of data. Using a PC, one can survey the
contents of libraries throughout the country. Getting actual
content on the screen is another matter, but to a degree that
too is possible. If I have a worry about this, it is the
uncertainty about accuracy of transcription.
And those who write about Mormon
history, or any history, purely on the basis of what they find
on the Internet seem to lack grounding. Will they miss the
exquisite pleasure of actually handling and smelling old documents?
But let’s face it, it would show little intelligence in today’s
world to ignore the many advantages the computer offers in the
gathering of secondary and primary historical sources.
The second usage of the computer
for historians is in keeping and organizing material. How
primitive now seem those punched cards of a past generation!
My late friend and colleague Dean L. May produced a marvelous
book on three western towns entitled Three Frontiers.
Behind it, as I happen to know, was a huge quantity of material
Dean had organized on his preferred Mackintosh computer.
Email
Which brings us, finally, to the
use of email. In a previous column entitled “Where Have
All the Letters Gone?” I registered some disappointment at the
decline of actual letters going through the mail in the traditional
manner. Admitting that I use email myself, relishing its
rapidity, I imagined email missives being read and then being
deleted and lost forever.
Several readers encouraged me to
think more positively. Here is what Pene Beavan Horton had
to say:
May I express an optimistic viewpoint?
I love instant communication. All people need to do is to make
sure they have a secure system and then spend a little extra
time making their e-mails interesting. As a creative writer,
I find that e-mailing is a delightfully fast way to communicate
with family and friends around the world. If I say so myself,
our e-mails are worth reading! and many of them worth keeping.
. . .
My children and grandchildren and
I keep up a constant flow of emails full of funny, interesting
details and concerns and news of whatever we are all doing.
I love letters, all types, and agree that they make wonderful
treasures for future generations, especially if we put them
in a time capsule to hand down to our children and grandchildren.
We can keep the emails and burn them
to a disk for future family to enjoy, or print them out if we
have enough ink.
She is right, of course. For
close connection to family and friends in the here and now, email
is hard to beat. It is entirely up to us whether we preserve all
or some of these communications for the next generation.
But then, as we all realize, that has always been true.
Even if they were so disposed, historians,
including family historians, cannot afford to ignore advances
in technology.
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