abbey's post for dec. 3rd

I have still been doing some research for what Parliament was before and after the fire. I will begin to start putting it all together.

Chris' Post for December 3

I am continuing to gather information and highlight the important aspects that would be helpful for our work. I finally figured out how to get Zotero working with Microsoft Word. Now it's much easier to put together a bibliography. I am still writing about the events that happened during the night of the fire and shorty after.

Janice's Post (Dec. 3rd)

This week I ordered a book from the Ottawa Public Library that should help me find more photos and general information about the fire. I have also been looking at photos that I have found and have been trying to find the information dealing with the copyright issues of whether or not we can use the photos. I have found many pictures on Wikimedia Commons, for which the copyright has expired, that we will be able to use. For all the pictures that I find, it would be good to go over them as a group to ensure that we do not break any copyright laws.

Jacob's Post (December 3rd)

I'm continuing to read and make notes on the formal commission report. It seems the content is mostly procedural and legalistic; only occasionally does it provide relevant information on the fire. So I will continue to look for other primary sources with a focus on witness interviews. I have emailed Public Works Canada to (hopefully) get an interview with somebody who can inform me in person about the fire. If I end up getting an interview, I figure I could transcribe what they say and put it on our website (with the interviewee's permission of course) to add more depth to our research. Other than that, as my "official" task is editing, I am always willing to proofread/go over written content that anyone else is working on.

Nadine's Blog Post (December 3rd)

Since the last post, I have been working on finding source material, mostly through old newspapers (using Google News Archive Search) ranging from directly after the fire, to twenty five years later. Though an extensive number of newspapers discuss the fire, unfortunately there seems to be a very small amount of information regarding the subject of arson, and the cause of the fire. The papers tend to agree that it was likely a German spy who started the fire, but give no evidence to back up these claims – therefore, throughout my spare time in December I plan to locate better primary sources that relate to the possibility of arson as the cause (possibly checking the National Archives and for Museums within the Ottawa area that discuss this). Secondly, the map of Parliament Hill is close to completion, and therefore almost ready to be embedded into the templates when the time comes.

2nd Update

I have been continuing on with research, I will post the websites on our zotero group! Also I went to the library to find some information on the fire, I couldn't find any. I may not have been looking hard enough, so I will go back and look again soon.

Chris' Post for November 19

This week I made a group in Zotero so each of us can upload our research findings. Now if we find a website we like we do not have to write it down we can just put it in our library and click on it again and also others can see the websites and different resources each of us have found. I also have been looking for information of the events that had happened the night of the fire and shortly after the fire has been put out. There is a lot of information on this, so I'm trying to put it all together into a shorter summary and getting more of the important facts out of it. I also am still trying to figure out how to make Zotero work with Microsoft Word. Once I have that done it will be much easier to print off a bibliography.

Jacob's Post, November 19th

Other than familiarizing myself with the sequence of events that took place, I've been parsing the inquiry report published by the Canadian government in 1916. It basically explains the events that took place, some possible explanations for the fire (including arson), and witness interviews. I'm going to record my "findings" (i.e. the parts that I found were important; it's a huge document) and write blurbs about them in a word document, then post them to the blog. I put the report in our Zotero library if anybody wants to look at it. I plan to take a trip to the National Archives/Library of Parliament this weekend, and hopefully get more primary research. I'm also looking into getting an interview with someone who has sound knowledge about the fire and is connected to it in some way (not necessarily first-hand, but someone who works at the Parliament Buildings or Victoria Memorial Museum where the temporary legislature resided). If anyone has any suggestions as to who I could interview, let me know.

Janice's Post for Nov. 19th

So this week I have mostly worked on adding the items I found to Zotero. I added all of the sites I found and tagged them so it will be easier to sort through as we get more information. I found tons of pictures with different angles of the fire and a detailed list of events that occurred. Also, I found a great radio clip from the CBC Archives. It describes the events of the night and best of all, it has witnesses who give their account of the night. I believe this will be a great piece of information since it is primary source. I was also thinking that it would be neat to go to the Parliament Buildings on the night a February 3rd and take pictures so that we could contrast the difference between pictures from the night of the fire and the buildings present state.

Post # 2: A Map of Parliament

In the past couple of weeks, I have begun working on an informational and historically relevant map of the parliamentary grounds using My Google Maps. So far, I have used the shape tool to create boundaries for each “block” of parliament, and have given a brief history of each. In addition to the blocks, I have added in a short history of the library and the Peace Tower and their significance (touching on the renovations and the re-construction of the Canadian Parliament buildings). I have gotten the majority of my information thus far from a site called “parliamenthill.gc.ca”, and I have included the specific pages in the Zotero library set up for our project.  After the completion of this, I will begin to look for information regarding the fear that the fire could have been arson, initiated by spies, as it was during the war.

Nadine

What I've done up until now

For this project I will take pictures of Parliament, find pictures for before the fire and from various times of the fire. I also would like to go see a tour of centre block to see if there is any information given in the tour about the fire.

So I have started by looking for pictures from the fire. I found various pictures, from different angles of the buildings, as to get a better view of what happened. I found a video from the cbc archives that talks about the fire. I have also gone to the Parliament website and have found some information on the past parliament buildings, the fire, the reconstruction and the buildings today. I have also found a sort of list of events on the night that the fire occurred. It would be good to turn it into an interactive timeline.

Where will we start?

We have now decided on a specific topic - the Parliament fire of 1916, and divided up the work evenly. For the project, I will be working on a flash animation for the home page to use as a "hook," a map made with the Google map tool with descriptions of each of the buildings (along with which did or did not survive the fire), as well as researching the arson theories at the time (that the buildings were set on fire by a spy, as the fire took place during the first world war). In the end, we hope this information, along with the research of everyone else in the group will make a good digital history project.

Nadine

Project topic

Ok, so we have decided that our project will be called Panic on the Home Front: The Fire of 1916. We will research the fire that occurred on Parliament Hill in 1916. Our main focuses will be: Parliament – before the fire, events leading up to the fire (discuss the potential causes) and the aftermath, and parliament now.

Group Project

Hey guys,
For the topic I thought the Watson Mill in Manotick look really cool. Supposedly in 1861 The owners wife was working at the mill and her dress got caught and some how got thrown into a pilar and died instantly. Since then people have heard weird noices and at night have seen a girl in the windows from the attick. They believe she is a ghost haunting the mill. If you want to see more about this the link is:
www.watsonmill.com

Also on October 30th there is a paranormal investigation of the mill at 8pm. Its like 25 bucks or something and if could be really cool for research on this topic if we decide to use this.

Chris