Visualizing Firearms History

Visualizing Firearms History
HISTORY 278, Fall 2024
Instructor: Jennifer Tucker 
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This project-based course provided a unique cross-disciplinary opportunity to study important historical questions surrounding firearms. Combining quantitative methodology in data science with qualitative research methods in history, students answered questions they were passionate about based on existing datasets. Students read, discussed, and wrote responses to the latest historical scholarship on the technological development of guns, firearms in media, gun violence statistics, and advertisements. Students chose one of four datasets to research and analyze. These included data sets related to firearms patents since the 1820s, firearms in media (film, television, anime, games), firearms-related deaths, and advertisements of firearms. Students developed skills in hypothesis testing and inferential statistical analysis alongside qualitative research methods used in history. The course offered one-on-one support and training in the skills required to complete a team-based final project. The final project was a hybrid between a research paper and an exhibit (e.g., film, website, media, art installation). Students will present their work at the center’s third annual undergraduate research conference (Spring 2025). Select students can apply to continue on as QAC summer apprentices and Baker Collabria Fellows in Data Analysis, and as CSGS NEH-funded summer history research fellows and as History thesis researchers.