Michael's DCS204 Blog

Introduction 

Political affiliation by today’s standards is truly stirring discussion amongst people around the United States. My project is finding the relationship between the amount of money donated to the Maine State Seminary and the political affiliation of the person or people. Beyond discovering the correlation and graphing the many ways this information may be portrayed, it is crucial to understand the contextual factors of this discussion. Furthermore, when analyzing the relationship between affiliation and donations, it is crucial to recognize the qualities and values emphasized within each political group. The discussion of where income should be devoted towards, taxes being distributed, and social injustices is what genuinely fluctuates based on the political ideology of one’s self. Within the data I have, the votes consist of the political parties in the range of 1854 to 1857 from the Democrat vote, Republican, Whig, and Prohibition Party. 

Data Discussion

The data that I decided to collect ranges from the specific names of Maine State Seminary donors to recorded county votes within a .csv file with counties as rows, and columns as the number of votes for a particular party in a particular election. Due to the lack of knowledge we have on each specific person that donated (the direct political party each person represents) I made the executive decision to take the majority of votes per major city in the given counties and associate it with the person of that specific location. While this process will not give exact results for the year 1855, (the year of immediate donations to the Maine State Seminary)  it will provide a valid visualization of what is a very possible graph. 

This data was collected through a series of filtering accomplished with my classmates, reaching out for outside resources with the help of Dr. Shrout, our teacher, and also the journal article titled ‘Maine and The Elections of 1860’. I decided to only use the results of the year 1855 because it will shape and clean up the overall data that I would like to solely focus on. With this in mind, I merged the two data sets that I used to create a table that would include the county of the people that donated, the amount that was donated, and the presumed political affiliation of the provided cities. I looked at the major cities within each provided county on the .csv with voting results and converted those numbers into Democrat or Republican based on results. The other two political groups at the time were not as active and politics were beginning to narrow down between Democrat or Republican. What is extremely fascinating to see is the significant amount of Republican voters around the state of Maine when it is currently known as a “purple” state. 

What this information can help solve or explain is the historic transition of Republican voters to Democratic voters due to the immense amount of Republican donors to the Maine State Seminary. Although this fact is eye-opening at first, It is important to not immediately arrive at conclusions. There are a plethora of historic and social factors that have led to the shift in the theme of “generosity” but when looking at the data of 1855 alone, this is what we are looking for. 

The data that I configured into solving the general correlation and plotting multiple graphs shows the estimated value of the Democratic party compared to the Republican party donations to the Maine State Seminary. This data is relevant to not only Bates College but is more importantly a reference to understanding historic contributions and understanding that fluidity is something that will always be constant. Before taking on this project, I did not understand the political views in the late 19th Century and the role that it played within the specific location of Maine. The data that is below is a genuine estimation of how political affiliation is represented within the 1855 Maine State Seminary. 

Coding Processes

This is the new spreadsheet that includes the political affiliation of each person that resides in a major city within the given recorded counties from the .csv. By merging the data I was able to find two variables that are comparable instead of immediately comparing political affiliation and donation value. 

At first, my initial goal was to present the differences through a bar graph or scatter plot, but after analysis, I realized that this graph was not sufficient and that a heat map would portray my new data in a better way.  

Context and Conclusion

After understanding the time circumstances of accomplishing this project, I realized that answering a question of one’s political affiliation and donation amount is something that is extremely difficult to thoroughly accomplish. What is being presented here is a heat graph that solely estimates what the results may portray. It is crucial to understand that presenting a graph like this and claiming it as the full narrative of 1855’s Maine State Seminary political donation results is not ethical. I would one day love to accomplish this project and allow it to shape what is perceived about political affiliation and donations. 

This last week, my class had the opportunity to discuss the importance of understanding the way that data visualization serves as a medium to create and understand dialogue and narratives. Within the last week, we discussed the themes within the readings that resonate with data presentation, data sovereignty, and the ways in which emotion can play a role in data visualization. Indigenous data sovereignty is the emphasis on the idea of understanding the ways in which data often excludes perspectives of indigenous people around the world and creating opportunities and policies to allow for a more inclusive discussion with people who identify as indigenous. Data visualization and the way it is presented is critical to understanding because it is what stimulates the visual aspect of a consumer and can decipher whether someone is influenced by a data set or not. In connection to Yau’s article on data visualization, the “God Trick” as labeled within the Klein and D’Ignazio piece is the relationship developed between the data visualization and the way it can portray an entire image as if viewed from above (in the position of God) and making consumers believe that all information, data, and/or narratives are presented. 

Within Klein and D’Ignazio’s ‘The Numbers Don’t Speak for Themselves’, we learned about the ways in which data throughout history presents itself as if it is the full story or narrative for all people recorded, and the piece dissects the idea that context to having intriguing data is just as important. Klein and D’Ignazio state that “Big Dick Data” is “trying to trick funding organizations into giving the project massive amounts of research funding.” The gendered term “Big Dick Data” criticizes the typical justification that data has the ability to speak for itself when the context is what shapes it and allows for discussion of the received data. 

Within Katie Rawson and Trevor Muñoz’s ‘Against Cleaning’, we learned about the usage of the term “cleaning” and the importance of interpreting its meaning within the context of the programming realm. This is crucial to understanding because it will help create ways to organize recorded data and also help create more understanding with historical data. Finding voting results or patterns throughout history can be much easier if data was more organized. Rawson and Munoz state “Trying to more precisely say what we mean by “data cleaning” can be fruitful because this effort directs our attention to an unresolved conversation about data and reductiveness.” This closing statement truly encompasses the importance of being thorough about what data cleaning is and why we should feel morally obligated to understand it as programmers. 

Within Klein and D’Ignazio’s ‘On Rational, Scientific, Objective Viewpoints from Mythical, Imaginary, Impossible Standpoints’, we learn about how emotion can create an opportunity to reimagine statistics and data visualization. Klein and D’Ignazio state “Rebalancing emotion and reason opens up the data communication toolbox and allows us to focus on what truly matters in a design process: honoring context, architecting attention, and taking action to defy stereotypes and reimagine the world.” This piece has taught me the importance of generating data that not only encourages but inspires thought and emotion. The purpose of what we are doing is to cultivate change. The ways in which these theoretical processes influence my project is through shaping the overall goal and having it become a clear, cohesive, and inclusive project that allows for voices to be heard. 

Last week, my class had the opportunity to ponder on potential factors to explore in detail within the data that we uncovered within Bates College’s archives. After much class discussion, analyzing theories, and understanding the potential for multi-dimensional data, I decided to take on the idea of doing research on political affiliation of participants involved in the process of the creation of Bates College. I believe that uncovering this data can truly unravel hidden ideologies placed within many communities that believed in the idea of contributing to institutions. Furthermore understanding data in greater depth creates emphasis on the quality of data rather than the quantity. Context within numerical values is what shapes the way perspectives are influenced. 

The questions and comments raised within the revision primarily drove along the lines of the themes of accessibility and focus. While I had an understanding of what I wanted to achieve, the goal itself seems to be too time consuming, too difficult, and not as focused as it could be. Understanding political afficilition during this time is a subject on its own, and is extremely difficult to interpret even if the census were as clear as data recorded today. Another factor that can add to the difficulty of accomplishing this is the fact that the accessibility for legitimate cencuces is quite difficult for this time period. There is a high probability of understanding the locations alone cannot do enough justice to understand political beliefs. Therefore, while I would love to accomplish this mission, it genuinely is too broad and too difficult to complete within a short period of time. 

The results of the linear regression suggest the image of what the p-value stands for and how it connects to the context of the data analysis. Understanding p-value is critical due to understanding the relationships within dimensions and analyzing probability can help present narratives. When interpreting the given p-value, we can take into consideration the literal 0.4936 value and also connect it to the literal context of the data given.

The reading titled “6. The Numbers Don’t Speak for Themselves” by Klein and D’Ignazio discussed the importance of context involved within the methods of data analysis. The way that the methods involved within this reading comment on my final project is the fact that data recorded during this time period or frame was not sufficient enough to create much analysis and depth on communities or demographics that felt the urge to contribute. While the aspect of technology was nowhere as developed as it is now, criticizing the way the censuses were recorded or having a more overarching motive to record multiple narratives rather than simply the race of a person is a moral ideal that should be taken into consideration. I feel as though having insight into multiple groups of people can truly portray a more well rounded/physical representation of all people. There are a plethora of unanswered questions that many people have in regards to the way large institutions were developed. If humans make the effort to discover the answers to these many unanswered/ignored questions, history will no longer continue creating the same issues that have been dehumanizing in the past. Furthermore, context is critical to understanding data analysis and it genuinely shapes the greater understanding of data and connecting with an audience. 

Understanding data through multiple dimensions is a critical detail that is consistently overlooked when consuming knowledge for argumentative or explanatory purposes. In my experience before taking Data Cultures this semester, I never questioned the ways in which data can be dissected and further understood. Rather than asking the question of what the data is, it is arguably just as important to answer the question as to why the data is presented. The “why” factor is what leads to greater understanding and analysis. This last week, my class had the opportunity to learn about the ways in which we can present data through multiple mediums, the themes within Jessica Johnson’s “Markup Bodies: Black [Life] Studies and Slavery [Death] Studies at the Digital Crossroads” and Muñoz and Rawson’s “Against Cleaning”. Throughout the last few weeks in class, through a culminating weekly worksheet, we also were able to work with more data to practice using for loops. With our new knowledge, our goal is to be able to present more detail that is not as evident and connect dots that are not in range of our span. 

A question that I would like to answer for my final project is figuring out what the political status of contributors is and how the variety of beliefs influence contribution values. I strongly believe in understanding the truth behind this question is essential because it can provide a great deal of information in regards to the way that political beliefs transform into social beliefs. While religious affiliation is just as important, my drive to understand political affiliation primarily stems from the evident divide in current-day politics. Understanding history through a cumulative and data recorded lens can help provide answers to solve the social issues that we see on a day to day basis right now. 

The ways in which I would structure the data in a relational database is through providing a scatter plot that clearly presents all of the possible political affiliations present at that time and also seeing the trend over time that expresses the number of contributions made. Although listing out data or political affiliation next to the location of donation on a spreadsheet can present the message I am trying to portray, it is more important to connect with your audience and make sure that the multiple narratives can be even more dissembled from there. 

The methods that I plan on using to answer my question are doing an immense amount of research on political affiliations during the time frame that my data was recorded in and also doing greater historical research on the general state of the United States politics. I am currently not sure of what the census fully recorded, but understanding the geographical location of contributors can be enough help in understanding what a typical person in a specific zip code would likely believe in. What is critical to recognize is that without officially recorded data, it is nearly impossible to come to conclusions about what political parties people belonged to. But what is attainable is attempting to find a decent correlation to how the voting was accomplished, who voted for who in specific locations, and how we can connect it back to plotting the data. 

To conclude, my mission for answering this question is to analyze the characteristics of political affiliation then and also comparing it to studies completed now. Due to more accessibility to information especially in the social sciences, I think it would be fascinating to see whether or not there are similarities between now and then in regards to contributions. 

Within this last week, my classmates and I had the opportunity to learn about a series of essential theories that helps guide us with our project in analyzing the history of Bates. Discussing the themes ranging from racial capitalism, archival power, and also converting qualatative expereince into data is critical to breaking down the historic actions of major institutions. Creating a more inclusive environment consists of decsontructing the archival power and also being able to use our privilege to create graphs that portray multiplate narratives. The major issue within most archives is the amount of value placed upon certain things that are within the archives and praising the wrong subjects. Praising the successes of someone rathjer than the faults of an institution leads to the repetition of historic issues and leads to further repercussions. Analyzing what is valuable to institutions presents the values that are there and does not allow for narratives such as constructive criticism or change to be present in a discussion. An environment that restricts discussion is one that is close minded and fixed upon unethical ideologies. 

The things that changed my perspective on something that I already knew consist of the idea of archival power and the potential for change in the world based upon the ability to derive narratives from documents. By analyzing what is treasured within the Bates College archive, we gain perspective on the false narratives that transform into factual information. The portrayal of founding a school solely through a small group of people is not ethical due to the enslaved lives that contributed and the significant portion of unpaid labor. The residue of slavery is the lack of recognition towards mistakes, and also the lack of reparations made to those of decent. The narratives provided by Bates College completely disregards the work done by a plethora of people (especially women, people of color, and those with a fluid gender/and or sexuality) and only embraces the work typically done by the white man. Our mission is to dismantle the historic habits that only embrace this demographic. Our mission is to understand the narratives that are within large narratives and that is how our data can portray this. Furthermore, understanding the potential of using data to create innovation for equality is paramount to understanding the potential narratives. With the data that has been collected through historic surveys and writings, we can truly deconstruct what motives were made and why so much history is “hidden” within large institutions. Being able to analyze one dimensional is not sufficient enough to provide a narrative for all people. 

Scatter Plot

Looking at the data above, I provided two scatter plots and also providing a revised one with a renamed vec1 and vec2 axis as the two sets of data of analysis What the scatterplot and calculation of correlation portray are the specific days of the month that typically invited more people to contribute and donate. What we notice according to the scatter plot is not only the wide variety of days in the month that encouraged people to donate, but also the potential that this strategy can have to solve other issues regarding the donations. With this strategy, we are able to use the code to discover the race of people that were involved, the gender (in which we are not fully able to encorporate due to people in the mid 1800s not being able to truly express themselves) but also other aspects of the time such as political affiliation. 

Calculation of correlation of the relationship between the money donated and the day of the month

Using the code “cor(vec1, vec2) we can have access to finding the direct correlation and correlation value. Regarding the topic of correlation, since we know the correlation does not immediately conclude as causation, it is difficult to come to a complete conclusion due to the fact that the data provides a wide range of plots on the graph. Other numerical attributes that would be interesting in plotting with regards to the Maine State Seminary is plotting the race of people that have contributed. Discussing race within this topic is essential because only analyzing age or dates does not tell the entire story of an era. By finding segments within a large piece of data allows another large narrative to be portrayed. Being able to present data beyond one dimension is essential to present the possible narratives within one specific portion of data. By presenting the data on a scatter plot, we can determine other segmenrts of history that is typically not brought to light.

To conclude, we should think about the Main State Seminary data in light of the Fuentes reading by discussing the implications of understanding the potential that archives have in providing ethical narratives that represent all people rather than specific demographics. After having group discussions this week, we’ve come to the conclusion that many institutions that are proud of their history and archives are hiding the majority of information that contain a more clear representation of all groups of people that are part of the community. It is critical to think of data that we record in multiple dimensions rather than one because we have the potential to reflect upon the multiple messages that we may derive from them all. 

Throughout this week, we had the pleasure of reading texts, watching talks, and experiencing first hand the results of racial capitalism. Discussing racial capitalism as a whole before taking the reins to a large project such as the Bates cotton invoices is essential to accomplish because it allows consumers to recognize where and how capitalism relies on racism and injustices in general. It is critical to dismantle this factor and recognize the faults to social/economical construction due to it being the sole issue in order to find a diagnosis for the problems that we continue seeing today. When analyzing the topics discussed in class, an essential overarching theme is the idea that institutions rely on injustice to thrive and Bates College is an example of a capitalist mindset being racist. Our mission for this week is to break down vocabulary/rhetoric, define racial capitalism, and also see how it correlates with the past and present of Bates College. With this in mind, our purpose as students or members of this community is to document the injustices that this institution took part in and have is as clear and accessible information for the public to be aware of. 

This week, we had the opportunity to learn about not only racial capitalism as a whole but the factors within it to allow the reconstruction of how social implications affect economic development such as popular vocabulary that should be readjusted. The piece titled “Writing About ‘Slavery’” by P. Gabrielle Foreman discusses the significance of adapting language to transform the incorrect terminology labeled when discussing slavery historically. 

The things that changed my perspective on things I already knew are that the idea of capitalism being reliant on racism and also the potential ways that people are able to dismantle the effects of it. It is deeply saddening to realize that whoever is in a privileged position in life, that you or they are or have been taking advantage of a system that deliberately steps on others based on differences based on race, gender, or anything that complies with the idea of intersectionality. Most people do not question the idea of where or how a school was founded when completing the college search process. Many people do not question the idea of whose land they are “buying” when the land was never purchased from Native Americans in the first place. By understanding what racial capitalism is, you genuinely lose your social/economic innocence and allows you to think deeply about how things are the way they are right now. 

What the histogram’s information presents to us is the significant portion of weight and money that enslaved people contributed towards the funding of the institution Bates students and faculty are a part of. 

When describing this histogram, we can see that it is fairly evenly distributed yet there is a weight value that is below 300 lbs. To find the mean of the recorded values, within the workspace, you simply state 

mean(bale_weight)

By implementing this into R, we discovered that the mean of our data is 518.43 lbs. By following the keywords to find the median or mean, I was able to discover the values that are difficult to dictate without using a workspace. 

median(bale_weight)

524 lbs

min(bale_weight)

230 lbs

max(bale_weight)

644 lbs

The saddening factor of this information as a whole is that the majority of campus and community members within Lewiston, Maine are thoroughly unaware of this matter. Hiding drastic information such as this is unethical and is worthy of reconstruction. If you are a part of a community that has benefited from the institutionalized enslavement of humans, you have a moral obligation to provide reparations for the future to allow a more inclusive and equitable society. 

This last week in DCS 204, my classmates and I had the opportunity to work together using the workspaces on the Ed Platform and learn how to begin writing codes on the code-writing worksheet. This consisted of organizing mathematical problems, solving real-life situations, and also recognizing the importance of understanding key terms to shape our programming future. Throughout this process, I learned the importance of not only understanding how to write codes, but also the potential things people can accomplish through coding. Before this class, intertwining the themes of social/political change and coding/programming, are two things that haven’t crossed my mind. What this course has taught me this week is the potential that these two realms have in order to build bridges between different groups. Throughout this first week, we broke down and analyzed the importance of Rapid Response Research and the hidden history of Bates College. This is especially critical to bring light to due to it being a prime example of an institution that has its foundations built upon injustices. We also had the opportunity to work alongside a partner for coding our first worksheet. 

Working with a partner last week was an excellent experience. What I learned from this experience and previous coding experience is having a clear understanding of what to do and having someone by your side along the way helps the process a lot more. We were able to refer back to previous videos provided by Dr. Shrout and it also allowed us to work productively. Working together allowed us to learn from each other and made things extremely efficient. I would love to continue training in this environment and continue developing our skills. 

The readings provided last week were essential to understanding the significance of using different mediums to create social connections and also change within the world. Specifically within the United States and even within Bates College, presenting clear information and having greater accessibility to it adjusts the authenticity of institutions. After learning about the history of Bates College and the misleading information/hidden information of cotton farms being included in the founding documents is quite jarring and is something worth considering due to the little reinforcements/reparations made.

One reading that was quite interesting was the reading on Rapid Response Research and their efforts on presenting a clear guideline on creating exposure to certain issues around the United States. Within class meetings, we discussed the strengths and weaknesses of endeavors like this and how we can take advantage of the given information to present issues and solutions for Bates College. Making the decision of what information to share and how to share the information is essential to highlight in order for it to be as effective as possible. 

In conclusion, this past week has taught me a critical lesson on the importance of making reparations, using my privilege and platform to spread knowledge, and also finding ways to build bridges between different groups of people that may be opposed to one another. While I did not know about the specific injustices that Bates College has done in the past, it is known that wealthy institutions have stepped on others in order to be where they are today. 

Hello! This is Michael’s first post! I am from New Jersey and I am majoring in Anthropology!

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