Starting out east Gowen rd taking that road passing by the outlet malls then left on the I-84 to Nampa and taking exit 53 Vista passing the train depot the road then becomes Capital to Main where the Egyptian Theater going right left on 8th seeing the Freak Alley to Idaho and take a right on 9th and left on Capital passing by the Capital Building and a left on State st. right on 13th to Hyde Park

Sky, Micheal, Carl

Start at the outlet mall, a rather dilapidated area.  Throughout the rest of the tour, you will see all the grandeur of modern Boise and the rustic beauty of historic Boise.  Get on the highway to federal where you will see an up and coming area.  This also provides an overview of the city as a whole.  One point of interest is the train depot, a historic landmark.  Then get onto vista which becomes capital.  Here you will see  the historic Capitol building based off of its national counterpart.  You will pass the basque district.  Then turn onto an established road, state street.  Take A Right onto thirteenth street, one of the oldest school buildings in boise which will take you into Hyde park.   Then take a left on lemp Followed by a left on Harrison which will show  the grandeur of boises historic homes. Then take a right onto state street which solder some older building.  This is important because it runs along the river, a source of life for the town as a whole.  Here you can see the development of agriculture and industry along the river.  Take a right onto old state street to go through downtown, historic eagle.  Then take a left on eagle road where you can see the modern developing of Idaho after crossing the river.  This is the growing part of Boise.  Take a left onto fair view and take a right onto Milwaukee where you will see the mall, follow this to the Connector.  Here you can see table rock and some of the historic churches.

S. Corey Clyne

Digital History

The Normandy Breakout

The D-Day landings in France on June 6^th, 1944 provided the allies with several obstacles and had proven costly in human life. Once ashore in France the American soldier faced a larger challenge in the Bocage region in the France countryside. The ancient earthen mounds the French farmers had created around their fields were ready made fortresses for the German Army. The American Army only overcame this challenge by the development of new tactics that were developed by the men at the sharp end on the battle.

Primary Sources

1. The Challenge of the Bocage.

• 3^rd Armored Division History foundation, http://www.3ad.com/ (accessed October 2, 2012)

1. Spearhead in the West is a unit digitized history of the 3^rd U.S. Armored Division published after the war by the unit and provides general background into to the Bocage challenge via first person reports. This will illustrate the issues and methods to overcome the Bocage.

• The Indians School of Journalism, Ernie Pyle,  http://journalism.indiana.edu/resources/erniepyle/wartime-columns/a-slow-cautions-business/ (accessed October 3, 2012)

1.  Ernie Pyle was a journalist who spent time in the Bocage region as an imbedded reporter for the Washington Post. He describes the challenges and the tactics used by the Germans.
2. New Tactics and innovations.

• Lone Sentry Photographs, Documents, and Research on World War II. http://www.lonesentry.com/combatlessons/index.html(accessed, October, 2012)
  • This information packet was produced by the army and based on the experience of the Bocage. It will demonstrate the cooperation between infantry and tanks.
• Lone Sentry Photographs, Documents, and Research on World War II. http://www.lonesentry.com/normandy_lessons/index.html(accessed October 1, 2012)
  • This “Lessons Learned” is a digital copy of one measure of communication the army used to overcome the Bocage. Those information packets give tactical information to the soldiers bust the Bocage.

 

•  83^rd Infantry Division Documents.http://83rdinfdivdocs.org/accounts/Capt_Folsom-Hedgerow_fighting_near_Carentan.pdf(accessed October 3, 2012)
  •  This artifact is a prepared officer school briefing on how to fight in the Bocage. Illustrations show tactical changes that the infantry units adapted to fight a combined operations war in concert with tanks, artillery and Infantry.
• WWII in Color. http://www.ww2incolor.com/us-armor/USAAStLop56b-vi.html(accessed October 4, 2012)
  •   Picture of one style of hedgerow cutter.

1. The Breakout! The attack on ST. Lo, Operation Cobra.

• General Corlett Foundation. http://www.xixcorps.nl/Battle_of_St._Lo.htm(Accessed October 2, 2012)
  •  U.S. Army study of the breakout. Compiled shortly after the battle. It is full of first person accounts of the events and must be used as a primary source. Historical interpretation is regulated to a secondary source.
•  83^rd Infantry Division Documents. http://83rdinfdivdocs.org/documents/329th/AAR/AAR_329_JUL1944.pdf(accessed October 1, 2012)
  •  This is an after action reports of the 83^rd Infantry Division in July attack. It explains improvised tactics and weaknesses and strengths of soldiers in the hedgerows.
  • http://83rdinfdivdocs.org/documents/331st/AAR/AAR_331_JUL1944.pdf  331st Regiment 83^rd Division after action report of breakout phase. Expresses difficulty in hedgerows and overcoming them.

 

 

Conclusion

Examining the events in First Army sector before the Operation Cobra breakout illustrates an army in transition. It was an Army made mostly of green soldiers thrust into the hell of combat in the worst possible of environment. Through leadership, innovation and adaptation it overcame the enemy and the environment. The leadership reacted to the crisis, sought-out resolutions from their subordinates that included members of the entire army. The resolutions were implemented with hedgerow cutters, combined arms operations and tactics using the resources at hand and from the available inventory. The army adapted to the changes in the conditions of war and with the capture of St. Lo the Bocage of France was left in the rear view mirror.

 

 

 

Secondary Sources

 

Doubler, Captain Michael D. Closing with the Enemy How GIS Fought the War in            Europe. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1994.

1. Mr. Doubler details combined arms combat developments of WWII and his work will be used to explain how changes came to the army to fight in the Bocage region.

 

Perret, Geoffrey. There’s A War to Be Won, The United States Army IN World War II.        New York, NY: Random House, 1991.

1. Mr. Perret is a well know historian educated at Yale University. This work is an overview of the American war effort. It details equipment, Tactics and events in the Bocage of France.

 

Reflections

Researching for primary Sources on the internet can be rewarding, disappointing and frustrating. As the world embraces the digital age and it’s limitless information the researcher is deluged with results from his or her search requests. The surplus of information has to be filtered by the researcher and then re-filtered to find the useful information. How to know what is a useful primary source will remain the responsibility of the researcher.

For the class project to build a digital research plan I chose a topic that I was very familiar with. I chose to digitally research the American Breakout from Normandy in World War Two. I conducted a few searches and was pleased with the amount of information that was available. I have been a World War Two hobbits literally all my life and in my search I was offered hobby sites for scale modeling, war gaming and topical blogs or chat groups on my subject. After searching or filtering out these sites I came up with a few promising artifacts.

The primary documents I found that enhanced my research were the after action reports of the 83^rd Infantry Division. I found these documents on the 83rds historical association’s site under documents. As digitizing documents becomes easier for the common person to post the historian will be able to access records that have been long forgotten. These documents will need to be scrutinized to guard against forgeries and errors.  This is not new to historians who have had to interrogate their evidence to be considered professional in their methodology as a common task. Government archives will always be the more reliable source however, the process is slow for their collections to be fully digitized. Smaller historical organizations or even collectors are posting documents on the web for consideration and with caution these documents can be beneficial.

The search for primary sources on the web can yield good information but I did find it very limited. Until the larger archives, The U.S. Army Research Center at the Army War College for example becomes fully digitized the researcher will still need to physically visit the archive to complete their research for primary sources. Another negative element of digital research is the need for better filters to find what you are looking for. I went to several of the larger archive sites and ran their search engines and was amazed at what came up. Items that really had no connection to my subject filled the screen.

The search for digital primary sources on the web can yield amazing treasures but should not be considered the end all too historical research. The process will change and develop over time an as more archives become fully digitized. As with any primary document whether digitized or not it will be the Historians responsibility to apply methodology and scrutiny to verify its authenticity and usefulness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Five Card Story: You dang wood chucks, stop chucking my wood!

a Five Card Flickr story created by Dan , Carl, Sky

flickr photo by bionicteaching

flickr photo by cogdogblog

flickr photo by hummingcrow

flickr photo by Serenae

flickr photo by Danny Nicholson

Not having opposable thumbs, they were all left staring at the pot of stew on the stove, wondering how to turn it off. The vegan tiger, the sacred Hindu cow and the dang woodchuck had a human friend who took care of them. She suffered from multiple personality disorder, believing she was a Disney princess who watched ” We Bought a Zoo” one too many times. Her lifelong desire was to prepare some tasty bass for her captive friends. On the way to the market, she decided to take some sweet jumps on her scooter, wrecking miserably. Unknowing that she is the only true beast in the clan, it is a wonder that she was able to unlock the fence, keeping her under control. As punishment for stealing the scooter, she was tortured by the local fruit stand owner, eventually marinating in secret unicorn sauce. After the requisite 30 day waiting period in the magical fruit stand unicorn sauce, her severe head trauma was noticed fully. The only cure was to humanely put her down. Upon dispatching the offending scooter thief with An overdose of Botox, the traumatized and dead unicorn was consumed by the vegan tiger, sacred Hindu cow and dang woodchuck. The remnants of which were converted to the ubiquitous left over stew.

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Five Card Story: A spy named Pony

a Five Card Flickr story created by Bahnu, Caitlin, Adam

flickr photo by bionicteaching

flickr photo by bionicteaching

flickr photo by Serenae

flickr photo by Serenae

flickr photo by bionicteaching

The FBI had long been in the search for the elusive spy only know as Pony. After numerous tips they narrowed the search after a once in a life time case breaking dragonscale cup was discovered in the Blue room. Known for its seedy underworld clientel the blue room is the secret meeting place for Benjamin Franklin and his top secret rave friends. The one and only person ever to be seen drinking from such a rare cup was none other than GERTRUDE….the janitor….and she was definitely not part of the top secret rave friends meetings. Ben Franklin gathered all his employees in the interrogation room and announced that they had discovered the identity of Pony, and with the awesome power of his radioactive boombox he incinerated Gertrude.

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We researched Civil War Soldier Databases and looked at the different information easily accessible data.  Looking at what information was available, we ended up having a lot of questions.  How does recruitment age change compared to desertion age?  Can you ask the similar questions of confederates as you do to the questions of the union?  After looking at a relational database, what are the common factors, solely the soldier’s names?  How are they building the soldier’s stories?  Can this information about the individual’s be used to reconstruct trends and patterns among the cities, states, counties… While looking through corresponding data throughout the website, we realize there is a great need to incorporate data on to the same graph in order to quantitatively and qualatatively compare the information.  The axes must be rethought, as five month increments can be deceiving.  The other axis reads “experience value” which brings a lot into question.  What happened at the peaks and lows in the historical sense? We would like to compare these trends to historically significant events.  In essence, we want to qualify the quantitative data given us on the site in order to make sense of it all.    Some other ideas we had involved graphically representing the information on a map of distribution and cities versus the country, as well creating bar graphs that explain human input into the war and human output out of the war (in terms of how they entered and exited the war).

Courtney G., Nicole B., Corey C.

 

1. http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/hlthins/data/incpovhlth/2011/Table7.pdf

2. Some questions an historian might ask about this data:

How might this data compare to similar data from past presidential terms (i.e., H.W. Bush, Clinton, Bush II, Obama)?

Are previous data sets, of similar content, organized into different categories than this one? Why?

Can this data be broken down geographically to show uninsured populations by national region, individual states, cities, rural areas, etc.? If so, what are the histories of those regions/neighborhoods?

3. Taking the hard numbers, an historian can create several different visualizations according to how they want the data interpreted (i.e., bar graph, pie chart, geographical map with references, etc.).

4. In order to understand the demographics of healthcare, especially those directly preceding the Affordable Care Act, an historian may correlate the uninsured with other factors, such as: disease/outbreak demographics, income, race/ethnicity, occupation, etc.