The sources we plan to use for our project are the 22 “dime novels” that Carleton’s Special Archives has, online articles about Jesse James, and a non-fiction book called “Jesse James Was His Name”.
Dime Novels
Format: Paperback novel. We need the locations specified in the novel.
Rights: Two authors, William Ward and “Capt. Kennedy” wrote the bulk of the 22 novels. The publishing company was Author Westbrook Company. However, due to copyright laws, all of the novels are in the public domain.
Privacy/Ethics: Since many of the details and characters are fictional, and if not, long gone, there isn’t much of a concern with privacy.
PBS Article on Jesse James
Format: Online news article. We need the facts of Jesse James.
Rights: Public Broadcasting Service has the rights to the article.
Privacy/Ethics: No concerns as this is a historical piece with no personal details mentioned besides that of Jesse James.
“Jesse James was His Name”
Format: Hardcover, non-fiction book
Rights: William A. Settle Jr. was the author and the rights belong to the publishing company, University of Missouri Press.
Privacy/Ethics: No concerns as this is an account of Jesse James who was a public figure.
Map of Jesse James’ Path
Format: Online map
Rights: The creator, Nancy Cole, and the company, SlideShare.
Privacy/Ethics: None
Progress Update
So far, we have read through 14 out of 22 books in the Carleton Special Archives. Elias and Max will read the rest on Friday to document in-book locations. The data has been saved in a Google Sheet, though some data cleanup is necessary. We’ve already decided on using ArcGIS as our mapping software. We will convert the locations of cities, towns, and other natural features into coordinates to input into ArcGIS.
We haven’t run into any issues so far besides an episode of “book burnout” which caused our group to finish reading the rest of the novels on Friday instead of knocking it all out in one day.
5 thoughts on “Jesse James Project Update”
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This is an interesting project idea! How easy was it to find all this information on jesse james day? I know it’s a large part of the town’s culture, but I’m a little suprised at how many books you mentioned finding. Excited to see how it turns out though, I bet the books have a lot of interesting info.
I think this is a really cool idea and I like how you were able to find so many different sources on the topic. I ended up scrolling through some of them and learned some interesting things about Jesse James. I’m glad your group didn’t run into too many issues and I’m excited to see what your final result on ArcGIS will look like.
I am impressed with your method of data collection. That is some real commitment to a lot of reading. I like that this project could actually be very useful to the archives and even the Northfield museum. The Jesse James chase is clearly a very important event to the town.
Really cool idea! One question I had was: are these dime novels trustworthy? How can we be sure Jesse James actually was there? I think you guys have already put in a lot of work and your project will end up being impactful and worthwhile.
This is an interesting project, and I like that it focuses on Northfield. I’m wondering about the amount of books you plan to use as source material; Are they long? And are you each having to read through the entirety of all 22 books? It’s a very impressive task, and I hope that “book-burnout” doesn’t prove to be a huge issue.