Resources

Use the menu to the left to access some of the infrastructure of the Digital Egyptian Gazette project.

About

The Egyptian Gazette, a daily newspaper catering to English and French speaking residents of Alexandria, began publication in 1880. This website is product of a digital microhistory course at Florida State University, which was offered for the first time in fall 2016. The aim of this course is to produce a digital version of the paper for the years 1905-8, including full structure and content markup. This website presents the contents of the paper, and host student analysis of our findings.

For more information, contact Will Hanley by email.

Course description

Through close reading of the Egyptian Gazette, an English-language daily newspaper published in Alexandria, we will compile comprehensive data about local events during a single year, 1905. Each student will be responsible for one week (6 issues, totaling 40 pages) of the paper; together we will cover the year.

This class brings together

  • microhistory,
  • urban history,
  • Middle Eastern history,
  • media history,
  • and digital history.

It is suitable for those interested in

  • history
  • Middle East studies
  • digital humanities
  • computer science
  • communications
  • international studies
  • history of journalism and advertising

No background in these fields is necessary, however.

We will gather this data using digital methods. Students will learn to use:

The class is composed of labs and workshops, not lectures.

We then work together to represent those events in a website that will employ a variety of digital communication tools. This website will present serial data and analysis concerning:

  • local crime news

  • international events

  • commodity prices

  • shipping

  • passenger arrivals and departures

  • weather

  • the stock market

  • advertising

  • sports scores

  • science news

    and much, much more!

Last updated on Aug 28, 2019