Gettysburg College awarded its annual e-Lincoln Prize to two University electronic archives of the Civil War era.
"The Valley of the Shadow: The Eve of the War," a CD-ROM and Web site, won the competition's $40,000 first place prize. History Prof. Edward L. Ayers, University of Maryland Prof. Anne S. Rubin and William C. Thomas, director of the Virginia Center for Digital History, created the database.
English Prof. Steven Railton won a $10,000 second place prize for his Web site, Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture: A Multi-Media Archive, which he designed in conjunction with the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center in Hartford, Conn.
Gettysburg College awards the Lincoln Prizes each year to recognize top research projects on the Civil War era.
This is the first time the Lincoln Prizes went to work produced in digital form. The college presents a separate award for written projects.
The selection committee, which reviewed 24 applications, looks for substance, scholarship and originality in winning entries, said Gabor Boritt, chairman of the Civil War Institute in Gettysburg.
"We believe that the Web is a wonderful underappreciated tool for the study of history," Boritt said.
He said he uses both award-winning sites as part of the curriculum in his classes at Gettysburg College.
Ayers' Valley of the Shadow Project focuses on two communities, one in the North, Franklin County, Pa., and one in the South, Augusta County, Va.
The site features maps, over 1,000 letters, military and church records, photographs, diaries, and newspapers to give the reader a view of the ways in which the Civil War affected people's daily lives.
The site, which has been in development for the past eight years, allows people to explore the past on their own, Ayers said.
"This goes to show how a project can take advantage of the skills, energy and expertise of as broad of group of people as possible," he said.
The site continues to grow, with over 3 million users so far.
The 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' site features various texts and copies of the story, as well information related to its historical importance in the slavery era.
Railton got the idea for the site while working on a similiar site devoted to Mark Twain. He decided to use technology to make a text more interesting to today's students, he said.
"My goal was to see how technology is used as a kind of time machine, in order to bring modern users as close as they can get to 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' as a living culture phenomena," Railton said.
He received help from his students in designing the site.
"I have used this in my undergraduate classes and have used student feedback on ideas on how to organize the material tosss be presented visually," Railton said.
The project began in summer 1998 and is only halfway done.
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