Bringing Big Data to Asylum Studies: Historical Possibilities, Ethical Challenges

Bullitt Club Lecture Series Presents

Dr. Robert C. Allen
James Logan Godfrey Professor of American Studies and Co-Director of the Community Histories Workshop, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

and

Sarah E. Almond
Assistant Director, Community Histories Workshop, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Bringing Big Data to Asylum Studies: Historical Possibilities, Ethical Challenges

Bondurant Hall, Room G-100.

Lecture information: Using material from the State Archives of North Carolina, Dr. Allen and Ms. Almond have overseen the creation of what they believe to be the first comprehensive, searchable patient database of a nineteenth-century American insane asylum, some 7200 admissions between 1856 and 1918. Complementing the database is a collection of some 5500 extended intake forms (1887-1918), and hospital/state administrative records, including a hospital cemetery inventory of more than 700 interred patients, minutes of hospital board meetings, comprehensive medical staff meetings and interviews with patients (1916-17), and records of the N.C Eugenics Board (1958-59). Utilizing a multi-disciplinary approach, Allen and Almond, together with their students, are exploring these unique materials and their ethical use in research, graduate and professional teaching/training, and public engagement.

Speaker information: Robert C. Allen is the James Logan Godfrey Professor of American Studies and Co-Director of the Community Histories Workshop. He co-founded and was Director of the Digital Innovation Lab (2011-2016) and Co-PI of the Carolina Digital Humanities Initiative (2012-14). His work on “Going to the Show,” an online digital resource documenting the history of moviegoing in North Carolina, was awarded the American Historical Association’s Rosenzweig Prize for Innovation in Digital History in 2011.

Sarah E. Almond is the assistant director of UNC’s Community Histories Workshop. She previously served two years as the program coordinator of the Dorothea Dix Park History Initiative. She is a recent graduate of the joint Masters program between NCSU and UNC-SILS, and holds a MA in Public History in addition to a MSLS with a focus on archives and records management. Her primary interests include archival accessibility and representation, implementation of community archiving practices, and digital humanities pedagogy. She holds certificates in Digital History (NCSU) as well as Digital Curation (UNC-SILS), and is the designer and co-creator of Redlining Hayti, which links discriminatory lending practices and urban renewal in her hometown of Durham, NC. She holds a BA, summa cum laude, in Literature and Language from the University of North Carolina at Asheville.