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Project Details

ArchivalGossip is the digital outlet of the ongoing American Studies research project “Economy and Epistemology of Gossip in Nineteenth-Century US American Culture” (2019-2022). The project explores the role of gossip’s tacit or collective knowledge in an era marked by shifting perceptions of privacy and publicity, increased economic volatility, and new notions of gender and sexuality. The database collects, digitizes, annotates, and transcribes archival documents and primary texts from the 19th and 20th century. The collection "Cushmania" is currently the fastest-growing subset of data within the database. It documents the public reception and private life writing of actress Charlotte Cushman (1816-1876). The new ArchivalGossip collection includes "gossip columns and columnists."

Subjects or Themes

LGBTQ+, Women, History / Modern (late 19th Century to 1945), Feminist studies, Gender and women studies, Sexuality studies, Epistemology, Queer studies, Archival sources, Database management--History, Archival materials--Digitization, Manuscripts, Metadata, OCR (Optical character recognition), Computer-aided transcription systems--Software, Privacy

Project Language(s)

English

Time Period

Geographic Location

Project Categories

Content Type

Archival Documents, Text, Mapping, Networks

Target Audience(s)

Creators

ArchivalGossip was developed and is maintained by project director Dr. Katrin Horn (queer and gender studies, cultural and media studies), research associate Selina Foltinek (gender and queer studies, history), and temporarily employed student assistants (see team). It is thus created exclusively by non-tenured scholars. It furthermore encourages students on the BA, MA, and PhD level to increase their digital skills and create independent scholarly input.

Year(s)

2019-

Host Institution / Affiliation / Project Location

DFG (German Research Foundation)

Software Employed

Labor and Support

Partnerships, funding sources, or grant-funding acknowledgement

DFG (German Research Council), The Recovery Hub for American Women Writers