Download Images of 1812 - Web Sources for Military History

Richard Jensen
“The War of 1812@Wikipedia”
Wikimania Conference
Washington July 13, 2012
• This Powerpoint is online at
http://tinyurl.com/richardjensen2012a
• This youtube video is online at
http://tinyurl.com/richardjensen2012
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The War of 1812
@Wikipedia
Richard Jensen
[email protected]
Montana State University
Wikimania
Washington July 13, 2012
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What does Wikipedia cover?
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Most popular topics?
web searches by K-12 students in U.S.
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Games
Dogs
Animals
Civil War
George Washington
Holocaust
Abraham Lincoln
Multiplication
Math games
Weather
Frogs
Fractions
Planets
Sharks
source: "What Do 'Games, ' 'George
Washington' and 'Sharks' Have in Common?
They Can All Be Found on New Rankings of the
Most Frequently Searched Keywords by K-12
Students" T H E Journal Volume: 35. Issue: 6.
2008. p. 1
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Wikipedia usage
• Who uses it? (everybody, especially students)
• When: weekdays in school year
• Average time on Wikipedia (all articles)
– 4.5 minutes
• Users want summary
– Most just browse the opening lead
• Advanced users – they want main text,
graphics, footnotes & bibliography
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“History of Canada”: 33,000
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Audience for articles: 2008-2012
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“American Revolution: 138,000
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“American Civil War: 331,000
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“World War II: 670,000
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War of 1812: 390,000 hits in June 2012
versus 162,000 in June 2011
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Popularity of “War of 1812”
among all articles in military history
hits per month----per day
Major articles:
mostly written 2006-7
WWII edit history
War of 1812 edit history
1812 article
• 14,000 words
• 4 maps; 16 illustrations
• 169 notes
• short bibliography
• 619 links to Wiki articles
on people , units & battles
& other language Wikis
• 7000 articles linked to it
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Weak on maps N= only 4
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Contents
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Contents
[hide]
1 Reasons for the war
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1.1 Trade with France
1.2 Impressment
1.3 British support for Indian raids
1.4 American expansionism
1.5 US political conflict
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4.1 Atlantic theatre
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4.2.1 Invasions of Upper and Lower Canada, 1812
4.2.2 American Northwest, 1813
4.2.3 Niagara frontier, 1813
4.2.4 St. Lawrence and Lower Canada, 1813
4.2.5 Niagara and Plattsburgh Campaigns, 1814
4.2.6 American West, 1813–14
4.3 Southern theatre
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4.3.1 Creek War
4.3.2 New Orleans
4.3.3 Alabama
4.3.4 Postwar fighting
5.1 Factors leading to the peace negotiations
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5.2 Negotiations and peace
6 Losses and compensation
7 Memory and historiography
7.1 Popular views
7.2 Canadian
7.3 American
7.4 Historians' views
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7.4.1 Indians as losers
8 Long-term consequences
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4.2 Great Lakes and Western Territories
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4.1.1 Single-ship actions
4.1.2 Blockade
4.1.3 Atlantic coast
4.1.4 Maine
4.1.5 Chesapeake campaign and "The Star-Spangled Banner"
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2 Declaration of war
3 Course of the war
4 Theatres of war
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5 The Treaty of Ghent
8.1 United States
8.2 British North America (Canada)
8.3 Indigenous nations
8.4 Bermuda
8.5 Britain
9 See also
10 Notes
11 References
12 Further reading
13 External links
Start: Dec 200--with 2000 words
copied from Encyclopedia Britannica 1910
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Recent revisions
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Who edits Wikipedia?
40% are students; 37% have MA or PhD
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Who edited “War of 1812”?
2403 different people made 9796 edits since 2001
24% minor; 37% anon
1380 people made 2 or more;
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#2 Dabbler
10,296 edits in 6.5 years
• Interests: Royal Navy 1775-1816,
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236 - Isle of Man
178 - War of 1812
145 - Rudyard Kipling
142 - Trampoline
122 - Oscar Wilde
115 - Battle of Trafalgar
114 - Mount St. Helens
112 - Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson
100 - Trampolining
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#3 Narson = 5282 edits esp 2007-8
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his major edits:
123 - War of 1812
70 - USS Liberty incident
59 - East India Company
58 - Lewis Hamilton
48 - Falklands War
44 - Fernando Alonso
35 - 2007 Iranian seizure of Royal
Navy personnel
33 - Kimi Räikkönen
30 - Max Mosley
30 - Falkland Islands
28 - United States Marine Corps
• “I retired from Wikipedia
…due to disenchantment with
the dispute Resolution
process ….It was more and
more difficult to deal with the
growing antipathy to expert
contributors, including
outright hostility from
administrators to cover up
their own errors. “ (7/2012)
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#4 Tirronan 4100 edits in 6 years
now retired
• Interests: Napoleonic wars
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169 - Battle of Borodino
148 - Battle of Waterloo
131 - War of 1812
86 - French invasion of Russia
71 - Battle of Jutland
62 - Zumwalt class destroyer
61 - Hundred Days
55 - Battle of New Orleans
40 - Battle of Leipzig
37 - T-34
31 - Christianity and violence
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Active contributors
#5 Driftwoodzebulin
2400 edits in 6 years
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199 - Superpower
110 - Space exploration
106 - War of 1812
91 - Timeline of space exploration
68 - Space Race
31 - North American Free Trade Agreement
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Debating the “War of 1812” article on its Talk Page
• N=627 people
made 3363
comments
– 15 people made
half of them
• total 208,000
words
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Edits ?
User
first edit last edit
347 Deathlibrarian 2006-05-19 2012-01-21
308 Tirronan 2007-11-04 2012-03-19
190 Rjensen
2006-11-24 2012-04-18
133 Driftwoodzebulin 2006-11-13 2009-11-19
119 Shakescene 2008-10-02 2012-06-30
102 Narson
2007-06-08 2012-04-16
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Who Won the War?
• Canadian historian
Desmond Morton:
“Who won and who lost are
always vague questions.
Both sides tell their kiddies
that they won it. And both
sides are probably telling
some of the truth, which is
unusual when you have
official history.”
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James Tagg, “And we Burned
Down the White House, Too’:
American History, Canadian
Undergraduates, and
Nationalism” The History
Teacher (May 2004)
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Who won? What Canadians say
• In a 2009 poll of Canadians:
– 37% said the war was a Canadian victory,
– 9% said the U.S. won
– 15% called it a draw
• 39%—mainly younger people , knew too little
to comment.
– Half the Ontarians said Canada won,
– and only 8% in Quebec said the U.S. won.
• Randy Boswell, "Who won War of 1812 baffles poll
respondents," Canwest News Service Dec 9, 2009
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War of 1812
Monument,
Toronto 2008
by Douglas Coupland of
Vancouver
Toy soldiers to suggest
governments used men like
disposable toys--war as child’s
game without heroism or
patriotism
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Wikipedians debate who won the war
Wikipedia:Mediation
Cabal/Cases/2009-11-11/War of 1812
reached compromise after 13 drafts in
two months; involved very active
military historians from US, Canada,
Australia
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Talk:War of 1812/Who Won?
• During the 19th century the popular image of the
war in the US was of an American victory, and in
Canada, of a Canadian victory. Each young
country saw her self-perceived victory as an
important foundation of her growing nationhood.
The British…paid little attention.
• By the 21st century it was a forgotten war in the
U.S., Britain and Quebec, although still
remembered in the rest of Canada, especially
Ontario.
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Wikipedia:
All historians agree
• Ending the war with neither side gaining or
losing territory allowed for the peaceful
settlement of boundary disputes and for the
opening of a permanent era of good will and
friendly relations between the U.S. and
Canada.
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Wikipedia:
All historians agree
• The native Indians were
the war's clear losers,
losing land, power and
any hope of keeping
their semi-autonomous
status.
• Versus the popular
Canadian view that
totally excludes the First
Nations of 1812—and
thus rejects
multiculturalism
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Wikipedia: Majority
of historians
• the war ended in stalemate…militarily
inconclusive. Neither side wanted to continue
fighting since the main causes had disappeared
and since there were no large lost territories for
one side or the other to reclaim.
• With two centuries of peaceful and mutuallybeneficial intercourse between the U.S., Britain
and Canada, these historians often conclude that
all three nations were the "real winners"
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Wikipedia: Minority
#1
• British victory and an American defeat. …
British achieved their military objectives in
1812 (by stopping the repeated American
invasions of Canada) and that Canada retained
her independence of the United States.
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Wikipedia: Minority
#2
• The British won by losing no territories and achieving
their great war goal, the total defeat of Napoleon.
• The U.S. won by
– (1) securing her honour and successfully resisting a
powerful empire once again, thus winning a "second war
of independence"
– (2) ending the threat of Indian raids and the British plan for
a semi-independent Indian sanctuary—thereby opening an
unimpeded path for the United States' westward
expansion
– (3) stopping the Royal Navy from restricting American
trade and impressing American sailors.
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Strengths & weaknesses
War of 1812 &
Wikipedia military history in general
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Strengths and weaknesses
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Origins
Blockade
Naval action
Battles: contributors
are military historians,
including many Brits
• Historiography
• Memory
• Little “new” military
history
Little social, economic or
cultural history
• Few women (Laura
Secord, Dolly Madison)
• Thin on Indians
• British policies
• Jumps around
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Problems: illustrations and maps
• Copyright issues:
– All Wiki content must be completely free of
restrictions to all users – including commercial
– Limits fair use rights
– Can use pre 1923 illustrations
• No budget
– All work by unpaid volunteers
– No $$ to commission artwork
• Totally “free” text = limited info to readers
Soldiers: weak coverage
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Uniforms (because no illustrations)
Food, logistics
Medical care
Recruitment; links to home
– Few letters home are used
• Morale
• Desertion
Good coverage
• Links to articles on battles, people
• Names, short biographies
– Weak on using American DAB, ANB; Canadian
Dict. Of Bio; British DNB
• Ranks, promotions
• Ships
• Weapons
– But poor on illustrations
Scholarship
• Historiography:
– ok after intense debate on talk page
• Bibliography
– Scholarly books – OK coverage; few annotations
– Scholarly journals; N =1400 articles ignored;
• No access? Unaware of JSTOR??
• Popular journals also missing
– Few first person accounts
• Wiki discourages use of Primary Sources
– Too much use of online 2012 newspapers
All military history articles weak on
• Social history
– Women, race Indians, demography
• Cultural history
– Symbolic meanings and goals
Weakness: Home front
• Ignore society
• Economy
– Eg rise of factories in response to blockade
– National finance
• Politics, elections
• Popular mood; demand to annex Canada?
• Resistance to war, esp Northeast
credibility
• Anyone can edit
– Vandalism, Kilroy
– NPOV “neutral point of view”
– Errors & correction
– 600+ editors on lookout for dubious changes
• No author voice; credibility?
– Repetition with puzzling variation
– RS rule: “reliable source” only
– OR rule: no original research
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Wikiproject: “Military history”
• 700 active editors
• Need limited improvement 12,810 articles in
total
• Need significant improvement 51,192 articles
in total
• WikiProject History largely inactive since
2008
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Conclusions
• Wikipedia is VERY popular
– 13,000 people a day look at “War of 1812”
• 2,400 people edited since 2001
• Now 14,000 words main text
– 169 footnotes
– Accuracy is good; errors quickly fixed
– Checked daily by 651 people
• Old fashioned, amateur, military
• Disputes handled well
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Questions?
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