Place names—their origins, changes over time, and reflections of identity—can provide a fascinating and revealing lens through which to explore history. Used with the interactive tools of digital history, the study of place names brings new, deeper, and broader connections to our understanding of patterns of historical change.
Ruth Mostern WHG Project Director
Most of us use the word place without thinking too much about what it means, but for historians, place can be a powerful concept. According to the geographer John Agnew, when we say that something is a place, we are invoking three ideas. First, we are talking about something that has a location. A place exists somewhere on the surface of the earth. Second, we mean that it has a locale. A place is a location that is a setting for social relations. Third, we are referring to a sense of place, which means that some people have had experiences that they associate with that location. In other words, a place is a location in which memorable events have transpired. more...
A Place Collection is a themed set of place records, each annotated to indicate the reason for its inclusion. Any WHG user can create one, and they are especially useful in teaching or workshop settings using the Collection Group feature.
Building Place Collections
After creating a new empty collection, place records can be added in one of two ways: a) from search and browse screens on the site, and/or b) by creating a new dataset and adding all of its records at once. Details can be found on the Create Collection screen.
Collection Groups for classes and workshops
The Collection Group feature in WHG brings together multiple users in the system who are each creating a Place Collection in a class or workshop setting.
Registered users with a "group leader" role are able to create a Collection Group, invite members, review submissions, and optionally display a group gallery.
If you would like to create a Collection Group, just let us know.
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