Our Beloved Friend: Website for John Hunt’s Journal

• This project is dedicated to John Hunt, specifically digitally archiving journals he wrote throughout his life. John Hunt was an active member of the Society of Friends (colloquially known as the Quakers). John Hunt was born in 1740, the son of Robert and Abigail (Wood) Hunt of New Jersey. His father was a first cousin to the John Woolman (1720-1772). In 1763, John Hunt married Esther Warrington in the Chester meeting house, under the supervision of Evesham Monthly Meeting. He was a Quaker minister for more than 50 years and died in 1824. His memorial, published in 1841, highlighted his public testimony concerning pride and superfluity, and stated that he was particularly concerned with temperance.

• Besides his active presence as a Quaker, John Hunt was a farmer and carpenter in New Jersey.

• Following William Penn's advice, John Hunt kept a journal for over half a century, beginning in 1770 and ending shortly before his death in 1824. This original work, penned in his own hand, is in the collections of Friends Historical Library.

• The Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College initiated an ambitious project to digitally archive these momentous journals, in the context of Quakerism, in SNAC Cooperative and as well as in another digital assets management sector called Islandora. Going beyond archiving, the project is accomplishing in building a user-friendly website where these journals can be displayed interactively.

• The main aim of pulling out these journals and displaying it on a nice website is so that researchers and historians can extract meaning insights and interpretation from the information contained within the journals. The site has implemented many interactive features, in addition to displaying the journals, so that information and understanding of the journals can be harnessed very easily, conveniently, and informatively.

Features of the site

• Landing page
  • This page contains succinct information about the site
  • Our goal of creating the site in few words
  • Direct the user to where they can find the most useful information
  • Still on progress to add more
• Journal Page
  • This page shows the journal manuscript and the corresponding transcript
  • It allows manuscript images to be zoomed on a tile base
  • It automatically changes the manuscript image when scrolled to next page with button

3. People page
   • This page shows all the people related to John Hunt, each on a small card with some basic information
   • The user can click on any part of the card, and it will take them to a page where there are detailed information about the person, including a mini network diagram
4. Network page
   • This page displays a network diagram of every relative or acquaintance of John Hunt
   • The diagram is a Force Directed Graph created with D3
5. Timeline page
   • This page contains a timeline of John Hunt
   • On the timeline, it lists some of the events happened to John Hunt or is immediate relative and an associated time

Additional Features

• Searching
• Other features maybe appended (tentative)

Major tools used

• GatsbyJS
• D3
• OpenSeaDragon
• React-bootstrap
• Sass

Reference

• GatsbyJS
• D3
• OpenSeaDragon
• React-bootstrap
• Force Directed Graph Tutorial