The mission of Deep South DH is to provide a community of support and practice to people in Mississippi and nearby for digital humanities skills and projects. Borrowing from the Digital Humanities Research Institute, the guiding principles of Deep South DH are openness and accessible pedagogy, with the added emphasis on Southern storytelling. The richness of southern stories is meant to be shared, and digital landscapes – with sharing and support – can help us do that.
The beginning of Deep South DH started with a collection of letters (The Ellard-Murphree-Pilgreen-Smith Family Collection, or “the Smith Papers”) that was donated to the Beulah Culbertson Archives at Mississippi University for Women in 2018. This collection documents the lives of a modestly privileged Mississippi family from Pittsboro in the 20th century. Through reading, digitizing, and sharing the stories and history in the letters, we have realized there are great opportunities for sharing the stories in other southern collections.
With the additions of collections like the Smith Papers, the Beulah Culbertson Archives and Special Collections has made strides to become the state’s and the region’s center for Mississippi women’s history and leadership, through gathering records and metadata from other archives, through collection building, and through outreach to campus and local communities. The Smith Papers itself is an extensive collection of more than 6,000 letters and approximately 70 diaries and ledgers from three generations of women in MS, offering a uniquely comprehensive look at the events and cultural issues of 20th century women and their families in the state and abroad.
As of now, about 10 years (or ~100 letters) have been digitized and added to the MUW Institutional Repository, AthenaCommons. Additionally, a working group of library faculty and staff, plus students enrolled in LIB 201 have digitized more letters, created transcriptions and additional metadata, and supplemented the collection with materials for additional research and digital inquiry. Digital access to these items (the letters and the supplemental material) will allow students, researchers, and the general public to digitally and intellectually engage with primary sources that offer an intimate view of Mississippi politics, history, culture, and women’s everyday lives. This collection has the potential for several thematic and digital lines of inquiry - from maps, network analyses, and textual analyses that look at trends in the letters, to interactive digital exhibits and visualizations that contextualize these Mississippians’ lives. The project aims to create:
MUW Faculty and Staff - a working group of MUW Faculty and Staff meet regularly to discuss benchmarks, progress, priorities, and final decisions for the Smith Papers Project.
MS Humanities Council
We may be reached at deepsouthdh@gmail.com.