This project would not have been possible without the help and ideas of a number of individuals and organizations. Anyone who seeks to continue researching William B. Whiteside or create a website for their senior project would be wise to seek their help.
Dr. Jason Stacy, a history professor, was the first person to suggest creating a digital product for my senior project, due to my computer science minor. Without that suggestion, I would likely still have written a traditional paper like most other students. When he first made that suggestion, I had not even begun researching Whiteside with Dr. Paulett, so the idea of a digital project is older than the topic. Since then, Dr. Stacy has provided recurrent feedback to my topic and the digital form it would take. Much of how the website is organized was his idea. Dr. Stacy is not only an idea man though; he is an excellent teacher and mentor.
Dr. Stacy was also among the first professors in the history department to get involved in the Whiteside project. He was the one who walked to the obelisk and read the names off it. He also recommended to me to take the Whiteside project class with Dr. Paulett, thus beginning my involvement.
Dr. Paulett's specialization in colonial and frontier America was the closest fit for the Whiteside project in the history department; therefore, he was the professor of the first Whiteside project course, which I took. Thus his influence on this website's content is probably the largest of anyone other than myself. Dr. Paulett has written about frontier landscapes and colonial relations with Native Americans in his book, An Empire of Small Places: Mapping the Southeastern Anglo-Indian Trade, 1732 - 1795. He was also a major push for presenting historical arguments in formats other than linear books and journal articles, challenging me to create an argument that would not have been better off just written as a traditional paper. Dr. Paulett has both provided invaluable insight on my interpretations, while also giving me the freedom to pursue the ideas that interest me.
Dr. Jessica DeSpain is an English professor with an interest in digital humanities. I have had the privilege to work with her on The Wide, Wide World Digital Edition for two years, during which time I have gained valuable experience in digital processing and presentation of historical artifacts, in this case 19th century books. For this project, Dr. DeSpain used her digital humanities connections to give me server space, including an interactive map section. Without her, this website would likely only consist of static pages.
William R. Whiteside is a retired special education professor from SIUE who has done extensive genealogy research on the Whitesides since the 1970s. This project would not have happened without his research. When history faculty first started researching Whiteside, they found a copy of William R. Whiteside’s research at the Edwardsville Public library. In early 2016 I contacted Dr. Whiteside and met with him in person, where he was gracious enough to loan me copies of his extensive binders of research, which revealed more sources than in the library’s copy. Dr. Whiteside also proofread my biography of Whiteside, correcting any inaccuracies.
The following provided valuable contributions to the project. I am thankful to all of them. All professors and instructors are employed at SIUE. In alphabetical order they are:
Made with Bootstrap and Glyphicons.
Borderlands: The Goshen Settlement of William Bolin Whiteside by Ben Ostermeier is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.