The main purpose of my digital public history project “Syracuse Treason!” is to provide a counter narrative to the one that holds in current historical memory that ante-bellum Syracuse was a city dominated by abolitionists. While it is true that many abolitionists lived in and visited the city and its surroundings, most Syracusans were at best ambivalent towards the abolitionists at worse they were downright hostile to them. This story of the Syracusans who spoke up against the abolitionists as dangerous is often ignored, but by looking at the actions of city residents in the wake of what is known as the “Jerry Rescue” allows for the full picture to be revealed. Many prominent citizens and even more common ones rose in defense of the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 and saw those who rescued Jerry from being sent back to slavery as required by the law to be guilty of treason. They viewed the abolitionists as trouble makers that stained the reputation of the city of Syracuse from a law abiding community to one ruled by mob violence.

This is not necessarily the story many in Syracuse would like to hear. By focusing on the rescue of Jerry the fugitive slave from the clutches of over reaching federal forces, the city has maintained the memory of Syracuse as an abolitionist city, but it is not the whole truth. The next step I would like to take with this project is to look at the process of erasing the anti-abolitionist story from the city’s history. I remember reading Joanne Pope Melish’s 1998 monograph Disowning Slavery and coming to the realization of how well New Englanders had erased the history of its slavery past and how that erasure became a key part of New England social memory. Similar stories can be told in other places through the North, including Syracuse. Moreover, the should be told to help us understand the continuation of racist attitudes and policies in the heart of what was abolitionist territory.

Here I will admit that I am very happy that there are people on campus who not only know more about the assessment and evaluation of goals and objectives, but they enjoy it more than I do. I know it is an important element to any undertaking like this, but I will be glad to have some help with this aspect. Unfortunately, our online learning rubric/assessment guru had Covid when I asked to talk with him, but I now realize that to move the “Syracuse at the Cross-roads” project forward he will have to be a key member of the team.

For the moment, I believe that the two biggest factors to show that the project met its goal to reach its target audience (current and former residents of Syracuse/CNY) would be indicated through tracking the number of unique visitors to the cite. However, sheer numbers only tell part of the story. The bigger goal, to get that audience coming back, sharing the cite, and engaging with content creators and other visitors, would have to be evaluated through both quantitative measures (how many people are coming, how many shares, how many comments), but also through qualitative assessment of HOW they are engaging with the site. What types of comments are visitors leaving? Are they asking questions? Are they engaging with one another? Of course, like the bright student in class who never speaks, I wonder how we could figure out if and how well we are reaching that crowd as well. I will be discussing this with my online learning /rubric assessment guru soon.