Digital History

Speia photograph of East Hall at the University of South Dakota

Digital Humanities Librarian at the University of South Dakota

I’m thrilled to announce that I will join the University of South Dakota’s library faculty in August 2023 as the Digital Humanities Librarian. In this capacity, I will continue to direct the Civil War & Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi project alongside Dr. Susannah J. Ural and bring this valuable work experience to USD students. Furthermore, my mission will be to facilitate DH training, education, and coursework at the university.

Civil War & Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi Project

Photograph of Peterson researching the Beauvoir Veterans' Home records

I have the pleasure to be the co-director of CWRGM, a NEH/NHPRC-funded digital history project that makes over 20,000 documents sent to the governors of Mississippi during the American Civil War and Reconstruction (late-1859–1878) freely available online. A partnership between Mississippi State University, the University of South Dakota, the University of Southern Mississippi, Mississippi Digital Library, and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, CWRGM offers archival quality image scans of original documents with metadata, keyword search-ability, transcriptions, and annotations at our website: cwrgm.org.

As co-director I transcribe and annotate documents, review project protocols, and manage project researchers. I co-authored CWRGM’s tagging and annotation protocols to enhance discoverability of Americans whose voices are often unheard in history — including people of color, women, and veterans — within the documents. Our enhanced tagging practices help researchers discover and draw connections between people, events, and ideas that appear in the documents. I am also currently leading our efforts to annotate thousands of subject tags in our collections.

Visit CWRGM
Color photograph of 2023 Sutton Leaders and Rural Power group in front of frozen Missouri River

Sutton Leader:

The Billie Sutton Leadership Institute selected me to join the 2023 class of Sutton Leaders, where I will use my time with the institute to further develop the South Dakota Queer & Two Spirit History Project, which I founded in the fall of 2022.

The South Dakota Queer & Two-Spirit History project seeks to preserve the histories of LGBTQ+ and 2S South Dakotans by collecting and digitizing materials including documents, material culture, and oral interviews pertaining to the region’s history and present and making them freely available online to activists, researchers, educators, and the public.

Digital History Projects

  • Photograph of Peterson reviewing archival finding aid

    Beauvoir Veteran Project

    Researcher and Data Collection (May 2016–August 2017), University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, MS

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  • Black and white photograph of Marion County, Mississippi courthouse

    Mississippi Digital Courthouse Project

    Digitizer and Researcher (June 2016–August 2016), University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, MS

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  • Scan of handwritten letter from Woman's Relief Corps member

    Mississippi Oral History Project

    Oral Interviewer and Transcriber (August 2017–December 2017), Mississippi United Daughters of the Confederacy Oral Interview Project, University of Southern Mississippi Center for Oral History and Cultural Heritage, Hattiesburg, MS

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  • Photograph of Peterson interviewing attendee at the Women's March in Jackson, Mississippi

    Women’s March on Washington Archives Project

    Oral Interviewer (January 2017–May 2017), Jackson, MS and Hattiesburg, MS

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  • Photograph of the rotunda in the Library of Congress Main Reading Room

    Veterans History Project

    Oral Interviewer (January 2011–December 2012), Library of Congress, Buena Vista University, Storm Lake, IA

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Presentations:

  • “Recovery & Discoverability of Women’s Voices: The Civil War & Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi Project” roundtable participant at the 2023 Association of Documentary Editing “Uncovering an Intersectional Women’s History through Digital Editions”

  • “Nineteenth-Century American Governors’ Papers: Insights into the Experience of Civil War, Emancipation, and Occupation” roundtable participant at the 2022 Society for Military History Annual Meeting

  • “Editing Black History with the Crowd” webinar hosted by From the Page

Photograph of participants at Association of Documentary Editing

Articles & Blog Posts:

  • Data Literacy & the Digital Humanities

    Thanks to NHPRC funding, I attended the 2023 Digital Humanities Summer Institute (DHSI) where I learned about Critical Pedagogy and Digital Praxis in the Humanities. In several blog posts and a lesson plan, I use the collections found at CWRGM's data page to help users think about equity and representation in digital editions. Check out my "How to Evaluate Online Resources using a Digital Edition” blog post, “Thinking Critically About Our Data” blog post featured in Looking Beyond the Letters, and “Exploring Data in Digital Editions,” a twelfth grade lesson plan, to learn more.

Service:

In July 2023, Peterson joined the Association for Documentary Editing’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, which is authoring new policies to help guide the ADE’s ongoing commitment to inclusion.