Saturday, December 18, 2010

OMG! RT@Fort Sumter:taking cannon fire from harbor batteries, :-Z

It's Old History in New Media as the WaPo reports breaking news of the Civil War in messages of up to 140 characters:

The Post is tweeting the events leading to the secession of South Carolina 150 years ago, in the words of the people who lived it - from journals, letters, records and newspapers.


Follow it here.

I guess that sort of thing is too gimmicky for history purists, but I like it. I also like the growing trend of turning personal contemporary accounts into blogs, such as the Orwell Diaries.

The memoirs of General Ulysses S. Grant, which were written around an extensive collection of his letters and field orders, would be another great candidate for bloggerization.

2 comments:

Kris said...

Long-time reader, delurking for the first time.

While tweeting the Civil War is a nice idea, I personally really enjoy the Disunion series on the New York Times Website. I just stumbled across it today, and got totally absorbed in it. Every Monday, the events of the week 150 years ago are recounted in the fashion of a news report, while the rest are mostly scholarly pieces on various events and people connected with them, usually timed as well.

TSB said...

Kris,

Thanks! I could kick myself. I look at the NYT website everyday, but never noticed that series before. I'm catching up now.