Prisoners of memory : Camp Morton, Indiana, 1862-1865

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Authors
Ritchie, Sadie Jean
Advisor
Seefeldt, Douglas, 1964-
Issue Date
2015-05-02
Keyword
Degree
Thesis (M.A.)
Department
Department of History
Other Identifiers
Abstract

My project, Prisoners of Memory: Camp Morton, Indiana, 1862-1865, (http://sjritchie.iweb.bsu.edu/pom/prisonersofmemory/) is a project that examines the mostly forgotten Camp Morton, a Prisoner of War camp located in Indianapolis, Indiana during the American Civil War. For this project both primary and secondary sources on Camp Morton, as well as works on public memory, monuments, memory theory, and other areas of memory studies were examined in a variety of new and different ways. The primary sources coming from Camp Morton are few and far between in the twenty-first century, so the sources that are available and that were used in this project frequently speak volumes. All of the primary sources come directly from the men who were held as prisoners of war at Camp Morton during different periods of time. This allows for an in-depth examination of sources applying memory theory and public memory studies. These valuable primary sources, along with secondary sources from varying fields allowed me to interpret all primary sources through established theory and scholarship. Tools such as Voyant, Timeglider, Google Ngram Viewer, and Google Maps Engine Lite were used in order to better understand the sources used, as well as to make the information easier to understand for viewers. The use of the tools also allowed me to examine these sources in a new light – not only reading the words on the page, but comparing word usage, the context of different words, and gave me the ability to look at multiple sources at once, instead of individually. This project contributes to the field of memory studies by applying these theories in an exploration of mostly untouched areas of scholarship.