Day 1: In learning about this project, I wasn’t too enthusiastic about it. I was uncomfortable creating a profile to post on Wikipedia. I was always advised to stay far away from Wikipedia, so my instinctive reaction was why? lol you know especially when we’re always taught to stay away from it. Once learning about the women in red, it did make sense. Sadly, despite all the time that has passed there are still so many misogynistic environments around. After we were informed that the profiles created by women were under attack, I made my username very masculine. I noticed when I was creating the profile that they asked if I intended to write an article about a woman specifically. That made me more curious, so I’m looking forward to seeing what happens to my article after I’ve posted it. Even though I am a bit uncomfortable, there’s no way for people to find me outside of the Wikipedia profile so I’m going to try my best.
Day 2: I honestly didn’t know who to pick. I assumed that if they made it to the women in red list 9/10 there won’t be too much information about them on the internet. I kinda just started going through women in business and saw Entenmann. It’s a brand I think we’re all familiar with, but I didn’t know there was a female owner involved at all. Once I realized who she was I had to move forward. Despite not being the one to start the company she saw the company to it’s peak and of course it’s overlooked. I got interested once I saw her story and got curious to learn more. I also got a chance to edit some articles in wikipedia, which was a bit intimidating. The first few articles were written pretty well so I had a hard time finding errors, but after clicking through a few I was able to find a couple corrections. This is a different experience for sure, but I’m struggling through.
Day 3: As anticipated, I am having a hard time finding articles. Whenever I search the name, her husband(the founder of the company) is the only one that comes up. It’s discouraging and I was almost tempted to change my person but I don’t want to give up on her. lol I feel symbolically if I don’t even try to get something down about her I’d be doing her the same disservice that wikipedia has. So we’re still trecking through. I want to at least get a brief summary about her so fingers crossed that things get better from here. I have been going through the wikipedia game which eh I don’t really have any feelings about it so far. Just want to be done, but I’ve been clicking back and forth between that and research so I’m going to get it out the way.
Day 4: I got to the end of the game but I’m not sure if I did it correctly. The game asks you to click around to Earth but it’s just not uer friendly. I got through all the missions but I didn’t complete any games or anything. When I selected the in game links they didn’t open anything . I know for sure I didn’t complete it correctly but I got the gyst and the over all information about the game. I also found a few websites that have information about her. The company began to expand in Long Island. I always enjoy there because they have small town vibes. Anywho, I mentioned that to say I noticed a lot of the links that I found her information were websites from Long Island natives. There’s a lot of information about her husband but I’m finding a lot of cites mention the company expansion after her takeover so I’m surprised she’s not a bigger deal. Well surprised, but not really. I’m learning more and more throughout this process that women do get overlooked in a lot of situations.
Day 5: I’m still struggling along. Today I’ve just been going through a bunch of Links I collected that had information about her and I’m separating bullet points on a word doc. I want to be sure to have accurate information so I’m gonna gather everything to make sure all the facts check out and then I’ll write out her story. I feel a little bad because I’m not sure if I’ll be able to do her story justice but I will try my best. There was this website sun sentinel. They appeared to have brief but good information. Unfortunately you need a subscription. All the cites seem to have similar information so I know that it’s accurate there just isn’t much. It seems a lot of her history was drawn from census paperwork and public records. Times like these I wish there was an autobiography somewhere. I’m going to keep searching though so hopefully I get a bit more luck.
Day 6: I was a bit stuck with my sources so I decided to try the library from the links Professor provided in class. I was able to get a few articles from there which was pretty cool. There were a bunch of dead ends as well. Meaning, in the databases I searched a link would pop up seeming to have promising information, but when you open it it has her DOB/DOD and that’s it. I thought I came across an autobiography but that was another dead end. There was also the vineyard that kept coming up through my research in the library but I couldn’t make the connection so I left that one alone. The library is good at finding links on popular topics. However it doesn’t seem to be doing justice to the smaller topics.
Day 7: I went back into the Wikipedia game. Turns out I did make my way through it I just missed some details in between. Today I started my annotated bibliography. I had all my links and notes on a word document which was really helpful in addition to my works cited page. So I’m going to go through the major links I found for my bibliography and submit it. I finally finished this journal so that’s another thing marked off the list of tasks for this project. I noticed, as I did day one, in. the end of this that women really don’t get the praises they deserve. Martha Entenmann was the daughter in law of the founder of the company. Granted, the company’s founder should be praised, but she was the person responsible for expanding the company and creating the goods we know and love. Her work is embedded into the legacy of Entenmann’s. In doing research about her, it also shed some light on how much we don’t pay attention to the brands in our lives. I’ve been buying these goods in the supermarket for years and I’ve never thought about the history of it. Very fascinating.
I agree with the struggles of Day 5 and 6 as its quite hard to find sources especially sources that seem credible to detail well enough the stories of notorious figures. Something else I have noted sometimes articles or sources go off topic regarding the figures.
I felt the same way you did on day 1. Learning about the project gave many mixed feelings. You stated in day 3 how you struggled finding articles and I agree that it was not easy. I was also unsure if I had done the game correctly, it was a bit confusing for me.
I also used the Wikipedia games as help for navigation and believe that it did indeed somewhat help me.