This week I was assigned to read over this project entitled The Differences Slavery Made: A Close Analysis of Two American Communities by William G. Thomas III and Edward L. Ayers. While the article provides fascinating insight into a variety of aspects causing the division of North and South in the American Civil War, what I find perhaps the most fascinating is the section on how the pair decided to present their data. Though I was pleasantly surprised to see the familiar name of Vannevar Bush (which you may remember from this post), I was even more overjoyed to have the chance to look into the thought process of digital historians when it comes to the actual digitization process. As a student delving deeper and deeper into the realm of hands on digitization every week, this sort of a “behind the scenes” look into such an interesting project is absolutely invaluable.