Visualizing the Red Summer was created in 2015 by Karen Sieber, a social justice historian and digital humanist. She curated and designed VRS after finding it difficult, as a curious historian, to find much on the topic. While material existed, much of it was split up across the country into smaller collections, not digitized, or inaccessible behind paywalls. She wanted to create a central location to enable further research on the riots. Constantly expanding, this site is now used in classrooms around the world, and has been a featured resource for National History Day, the National Archives, the American Historical Association, National Council on Public History, National Humanities Alliance and others. It has inspired numerous offshoot projects, including the wonderful Mapping the 1919 Chicago Riot at the University of Chicago by Dr. John Clegg and team. Visualizing the Red Summer is also included as part of the core curriculum of the controversial new AP African American Studies course.
Through travel to dozens of institutions across the country, Sieber and team have added over 700 items to the archive, with more planned once additional funding is secured. For more on Sieber’s other work, from documentaries and museum exhibits to digital visualizations and publications, visit www.ksieber.com.
TECHNOLOGY
The map and archive were created using DH Press, a digital humanities tool-kit and WordPress plugin designed by the Digital Innovation Lab and available for download on Github. The timeline was built using TimelineJS.
COPYRIGHT QUESTIONS
All of the items collected for these visualizations are either government documents, or were published before 1923, and therefore should be considered part of the pubic domain. If you retain the copyright for something on this site and wish for it to be removed, please contact us.
CONTACT
Researchers, students, teachers, and press requests are encouraged to contact us at info@visualizingtheredsummer.com. We love hearing how people are using the material, what connections they’re making, and what they’ve learned about the Red Summer (or perhaps current events) as a result. Please reach out!