This week I began the pitch process for my blog topics. On Wednesday I had a zoom meeting with my supervisor where I presented my main topic: the 1860 seizure of slave ships in Key West. I then submitted a formal written pitch on Friday. I was given the go-ahead to continue researching my topic, but I was warned that it could be narrowed down or split into two posts. This is understandable as the scope of my blog expanded over the last week.
I wanted my post to have a strong connection to national laws since my potential publisher is the Law Library of Congress. As such I heavily researched the 1808 Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves (which is pictured throughout this blog). In doing so I discovered that this act is an expansion of two federal statues (the 1794 and the 1800 Slave Trade Acts) that also restricted the Slave Trade. I intend to use these laws to represent a historic trend of Americans viewing the slave trade as immoral while having no qualms regarding their ownership of slaves. This contextualizes Key West residents’ contradictory reaction to the seized slave ships. Upon the recommendation of my supervisor, I will be looking into how and when the 1808 Act was initially implemented in Florida. Florida was granted statehood in 1845, well after the 1808 law was passed. I have primary sources indicating that Key West was enforcing the law by 1860 despite its lax enforcement in other parts of the U.S. It’ll be interesting to pinpoint when Key West began enforcing the law and whether it perfectly aligns with Florida’s statehood in 1845.
Throughout the week I also attended multiple Library of Congress webinars. My Thursday webinar on U.S. Federal Statutes was open to the public. Past public webinars are available on this page. On Friday I attended a meeting on web accessibility. This was a very informative meeting that taught me a lot about inclusive web design can expand digital accessibility. I’ve done further reading on my own and found a good definition of digital accessibility however I’m not claiming it to be representative of how the Library of Congress’ would define the phrase. The United States government has created guidelines on how to use Plain Language to make government websites easy to read and compatible with assistive technologies. That said the library's policy may have differences from what is detailed on plainlanguage.gov.
Picture Source: Act Prohibiting the Importation of Slaves | DocsTeach
Comentários