Congratulations! You managed to find the second half of the article, even though it wasn't on B2.
Update, 10:20am: The article is now online: Expanding his spheres of Influence. Intel reporter Rebecca Ritzel has done a nice job of describing the project. We had a fun discussion last night. And guess what? She's an alumnus of the World Journalism Institute! Very cool! A neat person, Rebecca seems to be a journalist with a strong religious and social conscience.
Addendum to the article
The article mentions the great amount of violence and angst that existed during the time period I write about. This is true. Often, underrepresented (and overrepresented) groups felt that violence was the only way to get heard. So they did what they thought was necessary to claim their democratic rights.
But the great story that can be found in this sculpture is not that violence was used, but that Americans learned to work together and rise above violence. Immigrant groups learned to cooperate with each other and gain power through more peaceful means. During this period, police and firemen were professionalized, giving the city more security and stability.
Quality of life was hit hard by the introduction of the industrial culture. But in the long run, quality of life was improved. For example, immigrant housing was often squalid, but they were still houses that ordinary people could own.
The mid-19th century was an inspiring time of great optimism, for good reason. It marked a flowering of humanitarian efforts and other activism. The great story in American history is not so much that we have been free of guilt or problems, but that we have learned to move forward together, beyond our divisions and our mistakes, progressing toward a better life for all.
Information about Philadelphia Fullerine
- The sculpture may be found at Elizabethtown College's High Library.
- The article noted that the audio is already complete. This is not quite the case. When I was at New Orleans, I performed the documentary script live, since the recording was not yet complete. If you want the full experience, I suggest you wait until the High Library reopens after the beginning of the new year.
- Professor Milt Frieldy advised me on building the sculpture. He is a fine sculptor and a great guy. Got Milt?
- Drs. Scott and Winpenny advised me on the project, but Dr. John McLarnon from Millersville gave me the initial idea to study 19th century Philadelphia.
- The sculpture website is at http://www.rubberpaw.com/philadelphia/.
- The Hershey Foods Honors Program is partly funding my research.
- I presented research at the WWW@10 conference at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology suggesting that hypertext is an ideal medium for good creative nonfiction. I analyzed a combination of museums, books, and films to find commonalities and suggest how hypertext can enhance the basic features of much creative nonfiction. This rather-too-long paper (Truth, Trust, and the Textual Camera) is itself a hypertext. It doesn't contain much new (and thus contributes little to the field), but it ties together some disparate disciplines and was incredibly influential to the sphere project. The conference was a great experience; I recount the WWW@10 conference elsewhere on this site.
- I used the hypertext software Tinderbox to plan the sculpture. I also use it to write this weblog. I use Tinderbox for all my writing, since it enables me to write more naturally than do word processors. The next edition of Tekka, a journal of new media and software aesthetics, will feature an article I wrote about how Tinderbox helps me keep track of sources, appointments, planning, and writing, all within the same software. It's a great tool for any research-based project and a real paradigm buster.
- For more information on hypertext, look at Eastgate's Hypertext Resource page. You may also want to read an article I wrote last year for Sitepoint, Caffeinate your Hypertext.
If this is your first time to my site, here's a quick enumeration of what you can find here:
- The Blog (you're reading it now). It's a rather eclectic collection of story and ideas. In the months since March, I have written over 70,000 words on this website. *faint*
- I am a co-chair of Elizabethtown College's Academic Integrity Committee. The Academic Integrity posters Hannah Scott and I designed are on this site.
- The Philadelphia Fullerine has its own site, with some photos (more to come this weekend).
- You may also be interested in an early hypertext experiment of mine. Before I started to use Tinderbox, I attempted to turn my website into the web equivalent of an old Adventure story. I got the idea from Andrew Plotkin. I'm still thinking about the idea. I think my next nonfiction work may actually be in the style of an "interactive fiction".
Today's soundtrack is "America the Beautiful", performed by the United States Air Force Band in their album, "Spirit of the Land."