Religious Items

[Lindsey Dowling]

For this Simple Digital History project I digitized some religious relics that my grandmother had given me over the years. The religious pieces I compiled included a rosary, two prayer cards, a newspaper clipping
with a prayer to St. Jude and a scapular.

My grandmother had two aunts who entered a convent between 1912 and 1915. My great-great Aunt Kathleen was only 15 years old when she took her vows. Her sister Marie Agnus took her vows shortly after Kathleen and was
three years older. They were nuns in the Sisters of St. Joseph order which was
founded in France on December 13, 1651. Their influence on my grandmother led
her to collect prayer cards and rosaries.

When I was a history student in high school we lacked the option of humanities electives. We had the choice of Economic, Legal and Political Systems (ELPS), World Geography, US History and Government. The
levels varied from academic to AP but we were not exposed to seminars such as
the History of Religion. The school that I am currently student teaching at
offers this class. Teachers have more freedom with seminar classes but they
still need to make sure that the students are receiving a quality education.
Using relics or digitized versions from different religions is not only
intriguing and attention grabbing but may give the students a visual aid in
remembering the information we are teaching.

I gathered the artifacts and then took photos with my digital camera. I manipulated the items in a few different ways in order to take the best eye catching photos. I still needed to edit a few pictures so I
uploaded them into iPhoto and made some corrections. I created a Flickr account
and configured my iPhoto to uploads pictures directly to Flickr. Once the pictures were uploaded I was able to give
them titles and fill out more specific information about the items.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/47524134@N02/