Please join us for the first Digital History Colloquium of 2025. History PhD Candidate Jess Cavalari will offer practical advice for pursuing database-driven historical analysis, based on his experience developing the digital project: "Dr. Burke's Pharmacopoeia: Colonial Medicine in the Late 19th-Century British Caribbean."

Lunch will be provided!
 

At the core of this project are the prescription records kept by a colonial medical doctor working in British Nevis, spanning 214 patients, hundreds of prescriptions, and nearly one thousand individual medicinal ingredients, Based on this source material, Jess has developed an Excel database, which enables rich historical inquiry into the nature of colonial medicine. Basic excel functions shed light on the differing medical experiences of men, women, and children, as well as the colonial dynamics that determined public health outcomes for racialized indentured South Asian laborers. Pivot tables allow for fine-tuned inquiry into the experiences of individual patients and families, and offer insights into the global circulation of organic medicinals and medical knowledge. 

The colloquium will provide practical advice and discussion of: 

• how to identify viable datasets in primary sources (including hand-written manuscripts) 
• how to structure a database to maximize querying/analytical potential
• the kinds of insights exclusive to data-driven historical analysis
• the potential for interdisciplinary collaboration through shared data literacy