Digital History Projects and Websites

Battle of Adwa

BattleofAdwa.org supplements and extends The Battle of Adwa: African Victory in the Age of Empire, a book published by Professor Raymond Jonas in 2011. The website includes an illustrated discussion of the historic Adwa campaign undertaken by Emperor Menelik and Empress Taytu as well as a timeline and a full bibliography (archival and print) related to the Adwa story. It showcases "born-digital" material designed to enhance understandings of this historic event.

Kazan 19th c. | Казань XIX в.

The 19th c. Kazan Project offers a deep interactive view of the Russian provincial capital of Kazan in the middle of the nineteenth century. Its intention is to enable anyone to chart their own their own visual, spatial, statistical, and textual journey through this rich case-study of urban Russian history. Here you are invited to examine Kazan's built spaces, explore its demographic dynamics, pore over its maps, and take a virtual tour of scenes from around town.

Ancient Iran: A Digital Platform

Ancient Iran: A Digital Platform offers a thematic introduction to the history and archaeology of Ancient Iran from ca. 3000 BC to the early Islamic era. The project foregrounds Iran's cultural complexity, exploring how the major civilizations of Ancient Iran, from the Elamites to the Sasanians, drew upon and integrated diverse cultural traditions. Key features include educational resources, such as downloadable posters that integrate art and textual sources, an extensive photo gallery of artifacts and archaeological sites, and classroom activities that make the material dimensions of Ancient Iran tangible. Topics range from the Achaemenid army to Zoroastrian views of the afterlife, providing ample room to explore. This project was sponsored by the UW Department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilization's Persian & Iranian Studies Program and was directed by History Professor Joel Walker and History PhD student Jeffrey Haines as well as Ryan Robinson (Anthropology) and Stephanie Selover (Near Eastern Languages and Civilization). 

Silk Road Seattle

Silk Road Seattle is an ongoing public education project using the "Silk Road" theme to explore cultural interaction across Eurasia from the beginning of the Common Era to the Seventeenth Century. The website, a project of Professor Dan Waugh, includes historical texts, illustrations of historic cities and architecture, extensive annotated bibliographies of resources, an electronic atlas, and a stunning virtual art exhibit drawing on museum collections from around the world. 

Sephardic Studies Initiative

As home to one of the largest and most vibrant Sephardic communities in the United States, Seattle offers an ideal environment in which to preserve the legacy of the Sephardic Jewish experience. Partnering with community leaders, the Sephardic Studies Initiative of the Stroum Jewish Studies Program at the University of Washington aims to establish a world-renowned program for the study, teaching, and perpetuation of Sephardic culture and the Ladino language. A key aspect of the initiative is Sephardic Treasures, which seeks to uncover, collect, preserve, digitize and make accessible the rich heritage of the Sephardic Jews. Learn more.

Yesler Way, Block by Block

This site presents a digital history of one of Seattle’s earliest, most diverse, and most historically significant thoroughfares, Yesler Way. It was researched and written by undergraduates in Winter 2018 as their final project in HSTAA 208 "The City" taught by Professor Margaret O'Mara. Drawing on rich local archives and urban history scholarship, these block-by-block urban histories connect the local to the national and global by showing how the story of one block reflects broader transformations in demographics, politics, economics, environment, and culture.

University District Stories

University District Stories is a new digital history project organized by Professor Margaret O'Mara. Based on original, primary-source based research completed by undergraduate students in the department's urban history survey course, the website features visually rich micro-histories on almost every block in Seattle's University District neighborhood. 

 

Share