Tag: Timeline

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Blog #3 contextual research

Tippett Timeline

Creating the timeline of the life of Samuel Tippett helped us understand the important aspects of his life and how the earlier part of his life impacted him later on. As Grafton mentioned, a timeline helps filter out facts and the important parts of history. And creating a timeline allowed us to see the most important parts of Tippett’s life, through a broader view. We were able to determine why he started becoming religious, what caused it. Although Tippett was not clear about the dates, we tried our best to estimate the dates.

Beginning of the timeline (click on the picture to view the timeline)

The process of doing the Timeline.js project was fairly easy. Although it is not extremely detailed, it does have a lot of information on Tippett’s life. For example, it allows us to see quickly when he started following Jesus and when he went to Kingswood, when did he travel. We include a map in our timeline as it shows the important places Tippett travelled throughout his life.

Just as printing allowed timelines to grow in the 1800s, this website allowed us to use the technology we have today to develop it even further. We were able to add pictures, add events between and much more. Our timeline was more than a line, it allowed us to tell the story of Tippett in a different mode of presentation.

Looking at a timeline, in complement to pure reading helps pick out the important dates, important years in history. There were details we wanted to include in the timeline but they were not important to Tippett’s story. There were some details that were not clear enough, so we could not include them. His father died when he was young but he does not say where or when. As Grafton said, the timeline let us pick precise facts and plot it in a line and observe how one influences the others. We can see Tippett’s early childhood, especially working at the coalpit has a huge impact in his future as he referred to it multiple times.

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Blog #3

Blog #3

The concept of the timeline is a new phenomenon. In fact, it was only created around 250 years ago. Ancient and medieval historians had their own methods of representing chronology: the chronological table. However, now “our idea of time is so wrapped up with the metaphor of the line that taking them apart seems virtually impossible” (Grafton, p. 13). Presently, lines are more common than often perceived. For example, even in an analog clock, the hour and minute hands trace lines through space. The fact that these lines are circular is irrelevant; they are lines regardless. So what are the advantages of using a timeline?

“History, indeed is the body, but chronologie the soul of historical knowledge; for history without chronologie, or a relation of things past, without mentioning the times in which they were acted, is like a lump or embryo without articulation, or a carcass without life” (Grafton, p. 19). In his book “Cartographies of Time”, Anthony Grafton discusses how history deals with stories but chronology deals with facts. These aspects of time work symbiotically; without one or the other, a time period is not described to its fullest potential. For this reason, a simple line can be much more efficient in representing information than initially anticipated. Especially considering the fact that “Graphic representation is among our most important tools for organizing information” (Grafton, p. 10).

Using a timeline was helpful in painting a larger picture in understanding the general themes of Esther Latrobe’s memoir. A recurring theme was the suffering through diseases. The picture below represents the time period of a cholera epidemic. From this portion of the timeline, we can see how the dates 1817-1824 (when the epidemic occurred) were relevant to Latrobe because she lived through this time period. In this manner, the timeline provides contextual evidence from a single glance.

The picture below describes how from 1820-1830 she was not only educated but also became a teacher at a ladies boarding school in Ireland. From this information, we can conclude that she came from at least middle class because education was more rare for a female in this time period

 

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Blog #3 Contextual Research

Chronology of events matters when we are representing history especially through a timeline. Chronology refers to the arrangement of events or dates in the order of their occurrence. It is a very efficient and effective way of organizing events, especially on a timeline. It matters because it shows how history changed over time and is an easy way to analyze past events, compare them with newer events, and infer what may happen in the future. We can represent history on a time line through small descriptions with the date describing an event as well as some sort of media to help the reader visualize the event. Chronology can mean something to different to everyone. For example, chronology for Christians was vital in celebrating many religious holidays such as when to celebrate Easter and knowing that the Apocalypse was nigh.

According to “Cartographies of Time”, timelines have not always been a part of studying history. In fact, there is a history itself in studying timelines. Many people forget that we have not always had timelines as a tool to represent history. In the process of compiling media for my entry (Samuel Tippet) for the Moravian Lives Timeline, I have come to terms with the complex relationship between ideas and modes of representation. Both through words and media such as photographs, it has represented and “clarified” historical events. The description describing what has happened while the photograph can give more insight to where it happened, what it looked like, the time period and much more. “Traditional chronographic forms performed both rote historical work and heavy conceptual lifting. They assembled, selected, and organized diverse bits of historical information in the form of dated list. And the chronologies of a given period may tell us as much about its visions of past and future as do its historical narratives.” (Grafton  11) In the first timelines assembled, there were a list of dates. However, many of these dates were missing the events that coincided with them.

A line or timeline tells more than chronology. It tells a story. Since the first timelines were created, a lot of pieces were missing.  Transcribing artifacts as we have been doing in class can help add more information and piece together certain events in history. A ‘line’ has appeared everywhere. Its presence is everywhere. It is used to describe so many different aspects and subjects. For example, in history textbooks or even an analog clock. Mark Johnson and George Lakoff have argued that the linear metaphor is even at work in a digital clock, though no line is actually present.

Focusing on my group’s timeline (Samuel Tippet), he was a very dark soul and pretty religious later in life. Samuel Tippet’s life is in England during the early to mid 18th century. He was born in the parish of Britton. Throughout his life, he turned to God and religion after self-reflecting on his naughty childhood.  To highlight one event, in 1754, the Disciple came to Bristol. This is when Tippet pledged his allegiance to God and used this time period to emphasize and explain why religion was so important to him. The Disciple later moved back to London. Another example following 1754 is the next year where it is a defining moment in Tippet’s life. He feels as if he was in the presence of the Lord himself. Throughout our timeline, we include both photographs that help the reader depict what his life was like and the geography of England as well as what the parishes looked like. Our timeline gives background to his occupation, birth, and other additional facts. The two modes have clarified historical events by visual and conceptual analysis. Looking at media as well as reading the description in a time like order gives the best sense to Samuel Tippet’s life.

Attached is my group’s timeline preview link.

https://timeline.knightlab.com/#preview-embed

 

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Blog #3 contextual research

Blog #3: Timelines

The two modes of representation discussed in Grafton’s, Time in Print, are chronology and geography. By using these two modes of representation, it makes it easier for historians and researchers to piece or link together different pieces of information throughout history. Chronology allows one to determine the order of events while the geography allows one to determine where all of these events took place. The geography could help researchers determine common illnesses at that time in history or match together different groups that were in the same location at the same time. If researchers are able to determine the exact place something happened and the time it happened at, they can use this information and compare it to other information to clarify historical events.

Many times researchers have ideas about different events in history and how they are related. Researchers are able to use the two modes of representation, chronology and geography, to link together these events. Suppose there was a crime committed and there are two people in question. The detectives could use information about the place of the crime scene and the time the crime was committed at. They could then do research into the actions of these two people around the time of the crime and determine how close they were to the scene. These two modes allow researchers to relate events and arrive at conclusions that were otherwise be difficult to come to. Chronology can also be used in other ways. Grafton states, “For Christians, getting chronology right was the key to any practical matters such as knowing when to celebrate Easter and weighty ones such as knowing when the Apocalypse was nigh,” (Grafton 11). This mode of representation can be used to remember when specific calendar events occur or even predict when events in the future would occur.

On the other hand, knowing the time and place of a specific event could lead to incorrect assumptions about what happened at that event. One person may have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time and not been involved in the event but been mistaken as partaking in it. Chronology and geography cannot always verify events and link together some, but it can provide useful information that will aid in arriving at a conclusion even if it is not the correct one. Although at first glance, one may not think much of a timeline, I do believe it has the ability to tell a story. Grafton writes “Our claim is that the line is a much more complex and colorful figure than it is usually thought,” (Grafton 10). As one moves down the line, they pick up more and more useful information that they can then piece together to create a story. The line is of great importance, “In the graphic arts, the same holds true: from the most ancient images to the most modern, the line serves as a central figure in the representation of time,” (Grafton 14). As one can see, the line resembles much more than just something drawn on a paper.

 

a photo of how the events line up on the timeline


 

 

 

an example of one of the events on our timeline

 

https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/timeline3/latest/embed/index.html?source=1MByvlaJQuG8LKCAz5jRj6eiHdwoiN4Iyr1o9VjHIl04&font=Default&lang=en&initial_zoom=2&height=650