Personal Blog Post 2

Having a day off from class week worked out perfectly for me. Our team met on Friday before we had off and decided to take the time off and meet this week. I went away to see family in Colombia, and the timing worked out great. It’s still early in the semester that it wasn’t a heavy lift to go away and be offline.

By working through our project proposals, defined our roles, and established concrete team and project guidelines, I am clear on the expectations. We have established a good relationship and rapport, I know if I needed clarity or assistance I can reach out at any time. I’m leading the data collection and mapping for the project. Our team set ourselves up to work and think about the project individually, I set up a task tracker in google sheets to organize deliverables and created a data folder and began collecting information.

Before leaving, I looked at more data sets on IPUMS, kaggel, and NYC Open Data and began to work and play in ARCGIS. I thought I work on more during the weekend, but with no wifi on flight and terrible connection at my grandparents my productivity slowed down. Again, it was nice to disconnect, it’s early enough in our project to take the break now.

I am excited to meet with our guest this week and take advantage of the ARCGIS workshop being offered on Wednesday. Time to jump into work mode!

Personal Journal Entry 2/24/25

Over the last 2 weeks we worked on editing and finalizing our proposal, workshopped a new name for the project, met with WBENA and introduced ourselves, chose potential scholarly advisors to reach out to, started to construct on our work plan, and started to navigate working together. We have been meeting on Thursday evenings to touch base and figure out our work flow.

After class 2 week ago we met with Teryn, WBENAs concert mistress and our contact for this project, her mom, Irene, who is the president of the ensemble, as well as some other WBENA board members as they jumped onto the call for their own meeting after ours. Teryn and Irene both seemed really excited about the project which in turn was exciting for me! I was already interested in the project, but talking to WBENA made it real.

Our conversations around how to name the project have been really interesting and thoughtful. The team is taking care to not be too limited in our language, but we’re also bumping into the limitations of English. I think we are looking for a more inclusive term than women, but Non Men in Bandura doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. We put the question to WBENA and Teryn liked Women of Bandura. Personally I think the focus on women is the heart of the project, but I would also hate for anyone to feel left out/excluded by that language. This isn’t the first time I’ve wrestled with this question of language and I am sure it won’t be the last.

I reached out to 3 possible scholarly advisors on Friday – Dr. Marina Berezutskaya (a Ukrainian scholar of Ethnomusicology who has written about the bandura), Dr. Maria Sonevytsky (an Anthropology and Music professor at Bard who was recommended by a friend of Lini’s, her research focuses on post-Soviet Ukraine with interests in folklore), and Dr. Marcia Ostashewski (a Canadian scholar at Cape Breton University who wrote a piece on women in bandura that we used as a resource in our proposal). I was absolutely delighted to hear back from Dr. Ostashewski! She is interested in our project and included her project coordinator in her email response in order to set up a time to meet. I am looking forward to sorting out the next steps with the team in class Tuesday and getting a meeting with her on the calendar.

I think we’re on track so far, though experiencing a bit of an unanticipated (we knew WBENA would be busy in March, but are figuring out what we need to prioritize first in order to prevent later hiccups) crunch since WBENA will be unavailable for much of March, preparing for an upcoming concert. We’re trying to get some basic wire frames ready for them to review and make sure we have all the materials we need from them before they will be too busy to assist us. Tasha created an Asana board for project management, which so far has been satisfying in terms of seeing what we have crossed off! And what is yet to come. I think it will be a good tool for us to keep up with each other as the semester gets busier and this project gets rolling.

Gender Disparities in Professional Wrestling, or GDPW: The Numbers Don’t Lie

ABSTRACT

Over the decades, the colorful sport of professional wrestling has entertained billions of people around the world in person and via radio, television, and the internet. The ways in which professional wrestling is consumed by audiences has changed a lot since its inception in the mid 19th century; one of the most significant changes to the sport, arguably, has been the inclusion of women’s matches. But by looking at the sport’s event cards, one notices that women’s matches are held much less frequently than men’s. For example, in an event with eight matches, women will have just one match, or none. This is a trend that has persisted. To quote champion wrestler (and math whiz) Big Poppa Pump, “The numbers don’t lie.” Today, there are more female wrestlers than ever, but women’s matches are still held far less often.

This project, Gender Disparities in Professional Wrestling (GDPW), uses professional wrestling data to reveal a continual gender disparity in the number of final matches scheduled. Information will be gathered from Cagematch, the international database for professional wrestling. GDPW will extract data on the final yearly events at New York City’s Madison Square Garden from 1934 to 2024 and create interactive visualizations, using Tableau, to illustrate that women professional wrestlers have fewer year-end events than men. These visualizations will be published in a WordPress narrative, which will allow visitors and fans of professional wrestling to reach their own conclusions about reasons behind the gender disparity.

In an industry that is often seen simply as a producer of contrived, over-the-top entertainment, there are nonetheless serious issues of gender equity worthy of examination. GDPW: The Numbers Don’t Lie begins this by highlighting the gender disparity in key professional wrestling events.

LIST OF PARTICIPANTS

Martin Bueno: Project Lead, In-Person Outreach, and Data Extraction
Cathy Melamed: Researcher, Editor and Online Outreach
Elijah Nunez: Lead Web Developer and Data Visualization Support
Madison Watkins: Lead Data Visualization, U/X Design and Front End Support

A BRIEF HISTORY OF PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING

Wrestling is one of the world’s oldest combat sports (Fields, 2005), out of which grew the popular, theatrically campy entertainment known as professional wrestling. A highly scripted spectacle, professional wrestling unites serious athleticism with even more serious flamboyance: the wrestlers’s personas, costumes, storylines and moves are crafted into flashy, melodramatically fun events. It is 1985: picture the outrageously muscular Hulk Hogan, a deeply tanned, oil-slicked bleach blond in a sparkly gold Speedo, as he slingshots off the ropes to “clothesline” an equally muscular Randy “Macho Man” Savage, knocking him flat. Macho Man, in a red satin Speedo with his name blazed across the rear, jumps to his feet, climbs to the top of the ropes, and leaps onto Hogan, slamming him to the mat so hard that Hogan bounces and flails in exaggerated agony. The crowd is roaring, but the announcers calling the match are distracted, heatedly arguing over which wrestler deserves the beautiful female “manager,” Miss Elizabeth, who quietly paces outside the ring in a purple sequin gown.

Professional wrestling started in the United States around the time of the Civil War (Hester, 2010), when soldiers learned and practiced how to defend themselves during repose between battles as a form of entertainment to make quick money. From about the late 1800s, professional wrestling became more respected and organized as a form of mock combat entertainment. The first title belts were introduced around this time.

The early 1900s brought wider popularity and greater theatrics. The biggest names of this era were Martin Burns and Frank Gotch. Frank Gotch became the first world champion in 1908, and he retired in 1912 (Stone and Elias, 1971). Gotch’s retirement left professional wrestling without its one true champion, and many wrestlers subsequently claimed to be the world champion themselves. This brought about the start of organized companies providing wrestling entertainment, with promoters taking control over who would be the champion. Previously, a wrestler and his managers decided who won and who lost (Hester, 2010).

This was also when the first female wrestlers entered the scene. Cora Livingston began wrestling both women and men at carnivals around the country in 1906, when she was 17. She became the first Women’s World Champion in 1910 (“Cora Livingston,” 2025). Fierce and athletic, Livingston was known for a self-aggrandizing swagger and for scandalously dressing in leggings (Jennings, 2016), despite the fact that male professional wrestlers had always worn the skin-tight, form-fitting uniform known as a singlet. Women’s wrestling was outlawed in many states during this post-Victorian period, but, where legal, it became an attraction at men’s events (Laprade, 2017), albeit with a sideshow pretense. “When promoters needed an extra gimmick to draw a crowd, they’d present a women’s wrestling match,” Keith Elliot Green wrote in his book Pro Wrestling: From Carnivals to Cable TV (2000).

World War II saw women’s professional wrestling, like other sports, experience a burst of popularity as female wrestlers replaced male wrestlers serving in the military. During this period, it is estimated that 40% of the national wrestling audience was female (Laprade, 2017). This was also when Cora Livingston began mentoring the powerful 5’2” Mildred Burke, who became a three-time Women’s World Champion and one of the most famous personas in women’s pro wrestling.

Over-the-top, theatrical characters had become the norm in the sport by this point: Burke became famous for making grand entrances to her wrestling matches wearing a rhinestone robe, and for wearing mink coats and diamonds outside the ring (Laprade, 2017). The campy personas exploited female sexuality and beauty: Burke and her mega-promoter husband, Billy Wolfe, founded a women’s wrestling school in Ohio in the late 1940s based on the formula “sex, muscles and diamonds.” Wolfe’s gym also sponsored the first Black women wrestling stars, including Babs Wingo, Ethel Johnson and Marva Scott. Another Wolfe alumna, Lillian Ellison, went on to become The Fabulous Moolah, the 1956 world champion who held the title for 28 years before becoming a formidable trainer and promoter herself (Laprade, 2017). Moolah was key in legalizing women’s professional wrestling in New York in June of 1972, and she became the first woman to wrestle at Madison Square Garden the next month (“The Fabulous Moolah,” 2025).

Men’s professional wrestling was first televised in the late 1950s and subsequently evolved into a national sensation. Despite the enduring (if still second-string) popularity of women’s wrestling, the first women’s match wasn’t televised until 1984, when pop star Cyndi Lauper and her “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” music video co-star, wrestling manager Captain Lou Albano, arranged for a match between Moolah and Wendi Richter on MTV. Prior to the televised matches, women usually appeared on screen as managers, valets, ring announcers or love interests for male wrestlers. Later, women’s matches were billed as “catfights” between “Divas,” and their already oversexualized personas were further fetishized for a national television audience.

The wrestling industry’s effort to focus more on women’s athleticism and less on women’s sexual appeal began to take shape in the early 2010s, and was deliberately articulated in 2015 when the name “Divas” was dropped from the titles of women’s matches. (A lack of athleticism, though, had never been an issue: in 2023, critic Gerry Chisolm, writing about Lady Wrestlers, Chris Bournea’s 2018 documentary on the Black female stars of the 1950s, noted that the women “performed some of the industry’s most difficult moves and introduced new ones, which became their signature. [Ethel] Johnson’s flying dropkick and other aerial maneuvers made the women more exciting to watch than the men.”)

Some might say that today, women’s professional wrestling is more focused on athleticism than ever. Still, no one watching women’s matches today could miss the unmistakable sexualization of the athletes. Indeed, a 2024 study for the journal Feminism & Psychology concluded that, after watching 20 contemporary women’s matches, stereotypical motifs remain dominant (Hill-Cann and Burr, 2024). Perhaps this should be unsurprising; as Roland Barthes famously wrote, “The virtue of all-in wrestling is that it is the spectacle of excess,” (Barthes, 1957). Referencing Barthes’s comment in The Paris Review, writer Mairead Small Staid adds that, with women wrestlers, the excesses highlighted in the ring are unfortunately not their athletic achievements, but age-old antifeminist tropes (Staid, 2018).

NARRATIVE

ENHANCING THE HUMANITIES

Shortly after its inception, professional wrestling featured women in its male-dominated world. However, gender inequality is a historical problem in all areas of society, appearing in the household, workspace, and academia (Huang et al., 2020). Ever since women stepped through the doors of professional wrestling in the early 1900s, they have yet to be equally featured in the same number of matches as men.

The GDPW project will use data to showcase gender disparity in professional wrestling by extracting information about the year-end matches at Madison Square Garden for each year from 1934 to 2024. Madison Square Garden was chosen as it has the most available data on professional wrestling matches and represents the excitement of professional wrestling in New York City. The final events of each year have no particular significance other than they provide a constant variable to extract data from; the events may be sponsored by different promotions, or wrestling organizations. Another purpose of choosing the final event of each calendar year is to avoid extracting data that may actually have more women on the card than the beginning of the month or another date.

The issue of gender disparity in professional wrestling is a topic that is explicitly visible when a fan watches a wrestling show, whether on a streaming device, television, or in person. However, it is a topic that is rarely discussed in wrestling discourse, and even through academia, the issue can be drowned out by other sports that also have gender disparities. GDPW can be of value to those involved in the Women’s and Gender Studies program and the Center for the Study of Women and Society at the Graduate Center, as it sheds light on an issue of disparity in a field that is not often examined or discussed. In the same sense, it can also benefit those who study topics on feminism and sports history.

GDPW has the potential to inspire examinations of gender inequality in sports beyond professional wrestling, including other sports not often discussed in academia. Creating this website with interactive data visualizations will make it clear that, at least at one venue within the last 90 years, there has been a gender disparity at a major event in a sport that features both men and women. And for fans of professional wrestling, providing an interactive data visualization will allow them to look at the data themselves and reach their own conclusions on the matter as well.

Importantly, GDPW is not attempting to fault Madison Square Garden for not allowing more women to wrestle in their arena. One of the essential bases of this project is to keep a sole focus on a local venue with a history of showcasing professional wrestling, which has been around the same length as when women were introduced as competitors. If our project focuses on other venues and cities, there will be too much data overflow, and it will be difficult to extract the data without exceeding the time restraint for one semester.

ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN

GDPW is unique and this first presented a difficulty in finding comparable projects, but a couple did emerge. A digital project created at the Pratt Institute in 2016 by KMeizner, Gender Representation in the WWE Based on Wrestlemania Data 1985-Present, also examined gender inequality in wrestling, focusing on televised World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) Wrestlemania events from 1985 through 2015. The author extracted data on the length of men’s matches versus women’s matches and the amount of screen time allotted to men and women. The data for this project came from Wrestlemania’s published “Results Tables” and “Every Diva Ever” features. Three visualizations were created, and together they show a stark inequality in both the length of women’s matches and the length of their televised appearances during Wrestlemania events.

Although KMeizner’s project was the only digital study we identified for the scan, we found several online articles and essays on the topic of women in professional wrestling. There was even one dissertation, An Exploration of the Race and Gender Representations in Professional Wrestling in the United States: A Qualitative Case Study, authored by Lucas P. Luther and published at Georgia Southern University in 2024. Luther examined race and gender focused storylines found in wrestling magazines and videos, and noted a clear disenfranchisement of female and Black wrestlers. The goal of Luther’s study is to highlight the need to “confront widespread normative biases that privilege White male wrestlers and disenfranchise Black wrestlers and females of all colors.” (2024)

Projects were found that could center GDPW in other fields of digital humanities, such as feminism and sports history. The relevance of the feminist projects lies in their approach to gender studies, which can be applied to the analysis of gender disparity in professional wrestling. It was fascinating learning about these, such as the Women Writers Project and The Orlando Project. The environmental scan additionally brought up data and statistics for a broader area: sports, mainly the site Sports-Reference.com. There is also an interesting article, Doing Sport History in the Digital Present, in The Journal of Sports History, which states the importance of digital humanities in sports history: “Digital humanities projects can connect institutions— archives, libraries, museums, and universities— all of which are uniquely relating to the digital era, their collaborations combining to create vastly larger and more diverse communities, allowing for a revisioning of their missions. This vision of digital humanities also encourages unlimited contributions from citizen scholars, including amateurs, archivists, librarians, public historians, and academics, and actively solicits their help in the form of crowdsourcing to generate content and edit material.” (Sterling, et al., 2017) Though wrestling is not specifically mentioned in the sports journal, sports history within digital humanities–and Matthew K. Gold’s influence in the field–are mentioned. The inclusion of sports history in digital humanities proves that there is indeed a place for professional wrestling, as much as there is the goal of how it can engage and use digital humanities tools to create and distribute our findings.

GDPW fits into the field of digital humanities as there is an issue that can be explored and analyzed with digital tools for a problem that has been touched upon before, which is that “women who value athletic participation have been fighting an uphill battle to gain recognition from and parity with men.” (Jarratt, 1990). While some say there has been improvement in how women in wrestling are presented as equals in the world of professional wrestling, the available data say otherwise.

There are other digital tools that we could possibly use to explore this issue further. For example, text analysis of wrestling websites and publications could shed more light on gender disparity. But the GDPW project will exhibit much more than data: it will feature interactive data visualizations that allow users to engage with the data. Since “digital humanities projects often use data, tools, and methods to examine particular questions, the work supports interpretation and exploration” (Spiro, 2012), we want the audience to explore this data and interpret it themselves as well. The strength of digital humanities projects lies in that unless someone pulls up data and does something with it, new understandings will go unexamined.

The projects we encountered during the environmental scan, with their data visualizations used as the primary tool to display data in many forms, have sparked ideas about how our data on women’s professional wrestling can be exhibited on WordPress.

WORK PLAN, STAFF AND MANAGEMENT

The first steps in creating the GDPW website fall upon the Project Lead, Martin Bueno, who will be responsible for extracting the data. During this time, Researcher Cathy Melamed will begin to examine and document the history of women’s professional wrestling for the project proposal.

The Project Lead will gather data from Cagematch, the world’s largest wrestling internet database. The Cagematch data used by GDPW will be unbiased, as it will not reflect specific promotions or random dates. Data from each year will be needed for the last event that took place at Madison Square Garden, which is likely to always have been in December. This yearly wrestling data also allows for a more manageable workload. The data required for each yearly event will consist of: how many matches took place, how many were men’s matches, how many were women’s matches, the date/year, how many men performed, how many women performed, broadcast type, name of event, and name of promotion. The best thing about the Cagematch site is that it provides all this information; no one will need to sit through all these matches and watch them! Lastly, the Project Lead is responsible for tidying the data, as it’s important to ensure it is clean (Wickham, 2014). If GDPW needs to expand its focus and include additional data for comparison, Cagematch has data for Long Island’s Nassau Coliseum venue dating back to 1974.

When the first ten years of data have been extracted and cleaned, the Project Lead will share it with the Data Visualization team to allow them to begin designing the visualizations. Data Visualization Lead Madison Watkins will present handwritten and hand-drawn rough drafts of how the data could be represented in Tableau. At the same time, Website Designer Elijah Nunez will need to commence creating the GDPW site on WordPress. They must take into consideration whether plug-ins will be needed, as well as how they will add accessibility features to the site. When the site is opened, it is crucial that the Website Designer sends a wireframe of how they envision the site and what it should look like for the project.

Less than halfway through the semester, at about week five or six, the data extraction for each year of wrestling in Madison Square Garden should be finished and submitted to the Data Visualization team, who can begin creating intricate and interactive data visualizations using Tableau. At this point, the Project Lead will work closely with each staff member to ensure that all data on Tableau and WordPress are being handled to align with the project’s initial vision. The Data Viz experts should have at least three to four different visualizations towards the end of the project, but only three will be used, and at least one will need to be submitted weekly so that the Web Designer can attach the Tableau data to WordPress. Each data visualization presented will require a summary of what the data means and what can be learned from it. Throughout the semester, the Researcher/Editor must submit a weekly summary of what they have adjusted or fixed for their part in the project and what they need from other members in order to progress. This will allow for communication between staff members on what is missing or needs attention. The Researcher/Editor will also oversee writing the summaries of how to use each data visualization so that the web designer can include it in WordPress. They will also coordinate writing the GDPW white paper.

The Researcher/Editor must then thoroughly check all the information on Tableau, WordPress, and the white paper to ensure everything is correct and accurate. Next, importantly, all staff members will take part in copyediting so that everyone has an understanding of what the final product experience will be. It is key that everyone takes time to thoroughly proofread all audience-facing text, as mistakes in this area are distracting for the user.

As the project moves forward, there will be a need for a consultant in fields related to wrestling/sports/NY history to weigh in on our progress. Someone with vast knowledge in these fields can help us ascertain more nuanced information for our site. Online outreach will begin, and in-person outreach strategized.

During the final weeks, all staff members must complete each task and submit any last-minute changes before presenting the final product. The project manager must thoroughly check the data; the Data Viz and U/X experts must ensure the visualizations and site are working fluidly; the web designer must check if there are any broken URLs and if the page has public accessibility. Information provided by all staff members must be vigorously cited and connected to actual sources; the use of OpenAI is prohibited, as this project needs to be free of any outside influence besides the tools necessary for the project (Excel, Tableau, WordPress, and Google Docs).

If any team member is unwell or needs help to do work for a particular week, the project manager should be notified, and proper time will be given to allow us to finish up any work that needs to be done.

All of this is doable in one semester.

WORK PLAN TIMELINE

Feb 4 – 18 (Phase 0)

Pitch proposal, assign roles, supervision/guidance (MB)
Documentation and Research of necessary historical content, start upcoming group blog post (CM)
Creating WordPress, creating Links, create social media accounts (Reddit and BlueSky) (EN)
Install Tableau or any software that will be used for data visualization, and look at samples of data visualization. (MW)
Establish a form of group communication and a Google Drive
Discuss gender disparity and professional wrestling
All members should provide any input before the revised proposal pitch due date. They should also add additional writing to the group blog post.
Possible Zoom meet-up on Feb 18 to discuss anything important and provide updates for upcoming Phase 1.

Feb 19 – Mar 4 (Phase 1)

Data Extraction, discuss and provide essential interpretation of data, supervision/guidance, floater (MB)
Provide sample data visuals, sort through data, assist front end (MW)
Provide sample data visuals, start WordPress web design, sort through data (EN)
Research any additional information, documentation, crucial user-facing information (CM)
All members should keep posting their weekly group and solo blogs and should reach out for any concerns.

Mar 5 – 24 (Phase 1.5)

Oversee all progress of current roles, provide any feedback, update timeline if necessary, float (MB)
Begin a paper outlining and drafting for the final group paper (CM)
Create data visuals; provide a summary of why you chose these visuals (EN)
Create data/map visuals; provide a summary of why you chose these visuals (MW)
We will vote on which visuals to use moving to Phase 2
Everyone should be thinking about what they want to include in the final paper and possibly start writing About Us page (CM coordinate)

Mar 25 – Apr 11 (Phase 2)

Float, supervise, and begin discussion of outreach implementation (MB)
Writing drafts/documenting and working with the project manager to determine what written information will be added to the site (CM)
Upload and submit final data visuals to Google Drive and assist the front end with web design (MW)
Upload and submit final data visuals to Google Drive and commence implementing web design (EN)
All members should check in from April 8 -11 to see if everything is in order, provide any concerns, request feedback, and ask or check if anything else needs to be done before moving on to Phase 3.

Apr 12 – 20

Spring Break! Enjoy It!
Do reach out to the group if anything

Apr 21 – May 5 (Phase 3)

Supervise and commence outreach implementation (MB)
Begin adding visuals to the website and finalizing web design (EN)
Write up and summarize what the audience should be thinking when looking at the data visuals and assist front end (CM)
Commence outreach on social media and establish a presence; any documents/drafts and updated docs should all be on Google Drive (CM)
All members should start drafting and/or writing their portion for the final and solo papers.
In addition to that, personal information should be included on the About Us page.
The weekend leading up to class on May 5, everything should be completed at this point

May 6 – 18 (Phase X)

Dress Rehearsal (May 6)
Last minute fixes, additions, and project polishing (May 7 -12)
Showcase! (May 13)
Finalize project reports and submit individual papers (May 20)

FINAL PRODUCT AND DISSEMINATION

The final GDPW digital project will consist of a WordPress site with three different data visualizations that depict the gender disparity in professional wrestling matches throughout the years in New York City. The website will be distributed online within wrestling communities on platforms such as Reddit and BlueSky. It is important that we invite commentary from many perspectives on the inequality gap that persists for women after almost 90 years of inclusion in professional wrestling. Moreover, other communities may want to examine how the disparity we highlight is comparable to that in other sports. The project lead will publicize the website in person at local wrestling shows within the tri-state area, emphasizing the interactive nature of the visualizations created for this project so that people can form their own opinions.

Though GDPW may seem small in scale at first, it aims to keep building on the group’s findings. This continuation may include the use of other digital humanities tools that can further ground the project in both academia and the sport of professional wrestling. The long-term goal is to include data from other venues, dates and cities besides New York and Madison Square Garden. Expanding the project to include data from a wider range of sources will allow it to gather more eyes on gender disparity in professional wrestling. And though more data can be added, there are sustainability considerations, as staff members may need time to balance workloads from other academic projects, personal lives, and employment.

In conclusion, the goal of the GDPW project is to create a WordPress website with interactive data visualizations made in Tableau that reveal the gender disparity in professional wrestling in New York City, using data from the final event of each year at Madison Square Garden from 1934 to 2024. This project has much to offer, as it intersects sports and feminism to examine how gender disparities can be observed through the digital humanities lens.

WORKS CITED

“1980s Professional Wrestling Boom.” 30 December 2024. In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980s_professional_wrestling_boom#:~:text=Lauper%20asked%20Albano%20to%20appear,process%20expanding%20Hogan’s%20young%20fanbase

Barthes, Roland. 1972. “The World of Wrestling.” Mythologies. New York: Hill and Wang.

Chisolm, Gerry. 26 December 2023. “Remembering the Black Lady Wrestlers.” Black Belt Magazine. https://www.blackbeltmag.com/remembering-the-lady-wrestlers

“Cora Livingston.” 29 January 2025. In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cora_Livingston

Fields, Sarah K. 2005. “Wrestling.” Female Gladiators: Gender, Law, and Contact Sport in America, pp. 102-120. University of Illinois Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/j.ctt1xcnqq.9

Greenberg, Keith E. 2000. Pro Wrestling: From Carnivals to Cable TV. Lerner Publications. ISBN 978-0-8225-3332-0. https://books.google.com/books?id=QsCizgeX_ngC&dq=Mildred+Burke&pg=PA31

Hester, Matthew. 11 August 2010. “The History of Pro Wrestling In The U.S (Part 1)” Bleacher Report. https://bleacherreport.com/articles/433611-the-history-of-pro-wrestling-in-the-us-part-1

Hill-Cann, A., & Burr, V. 2024. “As tough as she is beautiful”: Discourses of female professional wrestlers in World Wrestling Entertainment’s ‘Evolution.’” Feminism & Psychology, 34(1), 3-25. https://doi.org/10.1177/09593535231173236

Huang, Junming., Gates, Alexander J., Sinatra, Roberta, & Barabási, Albert-Lázló. 2020. Historical comparison of gender inequality in scientific careers across countries and disciplines. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(9), pp. 4609-4616.

Jarratt, Elizabeth H. 1990. “Feminist issues in sport.” Women’s Studies International Forum 13(5): pp. 491-499. http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/28892

Jennings, L.A. 2016. “Cora Livingston and the Spectacular Sport of Wrestling.” Vice. https://www.vice.com/en/article/cora-livingston-and-the-spectacular-sport-of-wrestling/

KMeizner. 2016. Gender Representation in the WWE based on Wrestlemania data 1985-present. Retrieved 13 February 2025 from https://studentwork.prattsi.org/infovis/visualization/gender-representation-wwe-based-wrestlemania-data-1985-present/

Laprade, Pat. 2017. Sisterhood of the Squared Circle: The History and Rise of Women’s Wrestling. 9781773050157. Toronto: ECW Press.

Lucas, L. 2024. An exploration of the race and gender representations in professional wrestling in the United States: A qualitative case study. Doctoral dissertation, Georgia Southern University. Retrieved 13 February 2025 from https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4084&context=etd

Spiro, Lisa. 2012. “This Is Why We Fight: Defining the Values of the Digital Humanities.” In Debates in the Digital Humanities, edited by Matthew K. Gold. University of Minnesota Press.

Sports Reference. 2025. https://www.sports-reference.com/

Staid, Mairead S. 2 August 2018.” The Spectacle of Women’s Wrestling.” The Paris Review. https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/08/02/the-spectacle-of-womens-wrestling/

Sterling, Jennifer J., Phillips, Murray G., & McDonald, Mary G. 2017. Doing Sport History in the Digital Present. Journal of Sport History 44(2), pp. 135-145. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/666540.

Stone, Gregory P., and Elias, Norbert. 1971. “Wrestling: The Great American Passion Play.” In Sport: Readings from a Sociological Perspective, edited by Eric Dunning, pp. 301-336. University of Toronto Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/j.ctt1gxxrtw.26

“The Fabulous Moolah.” 9 February 2025. In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fabulous_Moolah

The Orlando Project. 2025. https://www.artsrn.ualberta.ca/orlando/

Wickham, Hadley. 2014. “Tidy data.” Journal of Statistical Software. https://vita.had.co.nz/papers/tidy-data.pdf

Women Writers Project. 2023. https://www.wwp.northeastern.edu/

Women of Bandura Project Proposal

Abstract

The bandura, a large, lute-like instrument, is Ukraine’s national instrument and a symbol of resistance. The bandura developed from the kobza, a smaller lute-like instrument over the centuries. After the massacre of the kobzars – nomadic, often blind, musicians and storytellers who played the bandura or its predecessor – by the Soviets in the 1930s, the instrument was brought to the United States. Since then, ensembles have formed across the country, and bandura communities continue to this day. This project aims to explore modern Ukrainian American musical identity by digitizing musical programs from the Women’s Bandura Ensemble of North America (WBENA) from their founding in 2015 to today in an archive. This archive, powered by the Wax framework, will include recordings where available as well as tags for composers, country of origin, themes, tempo, genre, presence of religion, and language. The team will be working closely with a member of the ensemble for acquisition, publication, and context of the programs and will proceed in publication of this archive only with tacit approval from the Ensemble Board. This website will also include a section on the history of women playing the instrument, meditating on the intersection of gender, diaspora, and Ukrainian identity in a time in which that identity is under threat.

List of Participants

Project Lead / Backend Developer / Assistant Researcher – Anastasia Hutnick

Frontend Developer / (Internal) Dev-Ed Lead – Alex Millatmal

Researcher / Assistant Content Editor / Development Shadow – Lini Radhakrishnan

Researcher 2 / Content Editor / Social Media Specialist – Melissa McDonald

WBENA Liaison – Teryn Kuzma

Enhancing the Humanities

Brief History of the Bandura

The bandura is a large wooden stringed instrument, played similarly to a harp or a lute, that is native to Ukraine. The instrument has typically fifty-five to sixty-five strings, though it may have as few as twenty in the Classical style (“About the Bandura”). It derives from its instrumental ancestor the kobza, a smaller, more lute-like instrument. The kobza has been prominent in Ukrainian culture since at least the 15th century, with mentions of a lute-like instrument as early as the 6th century (“The Bandura”). Through the kobza and bandura, musicians (typically blind men) would carry on Ukraine’s independent identity through songs of its folklore, history, Chumaks (merchant, typically of salt), Cossacks, and legends. Due to these instruments’ pivotal role in perpetuating Ukrainian culture, any group that would conquer Ukraine would attempt to suppress or restrict kobzars / bandurists (Berezutskaya, 498 – 502).

In this vein, the Soviet Union targeted bandurists in the late 1920s to 1930s. In 1929, the Bolsheviks began the “purges”: shooting, imprisoning, and exiling several bandurists to Siberia for their “counterrevolutionary” efforts in performing traditionally Ukrainian historical and folk songs. In 1930 – 1932, many bandurists died along with millions of other Ukrainians during the artificial famine, the Holodomor, enacted by the Soviets (Berezutska 55). Throughout the 1930s, Soviet persecution of bandurists continued, including the famous 1935 kobzari conference in Kharkiv, in which the Soviets executed the attendees (“The Bandura”). As a result, some bandurists fled to Western Europe and then the United States. In Detroit, Michigan, the first North American kapelia (ensemble) began from these Ukrainian emigrants. From here, the North American history of the bandura officially began (Ostashewski 126).

Ostashewki argues that although the bandura is a “traditional” instrument, it has been retranslated, even physically reconstructed, and is now played in new contexts, with new repertoires, and by women. She goes on to say, “its nationalist image essentially portrays what it means to be Ukrainian” (Ostashewski 128). In order to justify his invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin said “it should be noted that Ukraine actually never had stable traditions of real statehood” (Hayda).

The Women’s Bandura Ensemble of North America

This project will publish the programs of the Women’s Bandura Ensemble of North America (WBENA) from its founding in 2015 to the present on its own dedicated website. The ensemble is comprised of twenty-one women from seven different cities across the United States and Canada. The WBENA was chosen to examine the song choices of a North American bandura ensemble as well as the song choices of an all-female bandura ensemble, as the bandura is largely considered a male-coded instrument due to the kobzars traditionally being male (Ostashewski 143).

Meanwhile in Ukraine, the Soviets institutionalized the instrument by only allowing bandura to be played in the conservatory. In so doing, the bandura would not perpetuate Ukrainian cultural sovereignty, but instead would be used to perform Neo-Classical music. Women became the main performers of this style, as men playing the bandura at this time would have risked persecution. After Ukraine became independent in 1991, Ukrainian folklore and tradition became a cornerstone for its reclaimed national identity. This focus on tradition can intertwine strongly with gender expectations, especially with the bandura. At this time, while women were playing the bandura, many people expected women to follow certain themes, such as courtship, seasons, nature, and work in the fields, and not play dumy – or epic poetry. Opportunities for women to play bandura beyond the conservatories or coeducational camps were scarce (Ostashewski).

Today, the bandura endures and is played across the world by people of all genders in multiple styles. Yet, the tradition of bandura speaks to the enduring strength of Ukraine’s identity and sovereignty. The instrument survived countless invasions and spread throughout the globe. The bandura connects people of Ukrainian descent to their heritage, and continues to pass down Ukraine’s unique history to this day.

Overview of Project

For this project, PDFs for each program will be uploaded to the site and more information provided on each document and song performed via Wax, a Jekyll based website framework. The website will contain collections for both the Programs and Songs generated by a csv file with relevant information obtained by the project’s Researchers. Wax was selected because it is free to use, can be deployed for free through GitHub Pages, and is lightweight given the project’s relatively small file footprint.

This framework fits the four questions of minimal computing posed by Roopika Risam and Alex Gil. Minimal computing refers to the Digital Humanities concept that a project’s software should reflect only what the project requires. Given that the team has three months to finish phase one of this project, we would do well to work within a set of clear boundaries without excess features to slow down our progress. For context, the four questions of minimal computing are “What do we need?”, “What do we have?”, “What do we need to prioritize?”, and “What are we willing to give up?” For this project, the team needs to be able to relatively quickly assemble two small static databases and generate pages for each item on both databases. The team has a Project Lead who is familiar with the Wax framework as well as sixteen PDF documents of concert programs. The team must prioritize both efficiency in their timelines and clear and open communication with the WBENA. Given Wax’s quick ability to generate pages and deploy via GitHub Pages, sharing the results of the site will not be difficult. Finally, the project does not require an expensive, dynamic database given that the ensemble performs a few times per year, so we are willing to give up that functionality.

For each program, the website will provide a PDF that the user can flip through as well as the date(s), location(s), performers, and if applicable collaborators. Each program will also list the songs performed (roughly 10 – 15 per performance), each of which will have their own page detailing where applicable the composer, the year / period published, the country of origin, language, genre(s), tempo, lyrics, and themes.

Though the information tags are considered guidelines for the site’s database, the team will not be beholden to standardization in song identification where necessary. A song may not have one origin, may have nuances in its themes that cannot be replicated, etcetera. While the Wax framework requires some efficiency, the project requires the team to avoid reductiveness and respect the nonscalable aspects of songs harkening from a centuries-old oral tradition (Rawson and Muñoz). As such, the team will craft the csv structure at the end of the Research Phase, constructing the table to reflect the team’s findings.

The first phase will focus on deploying the website with two programs and respective song pages populated as a minimum viable product. Throughout the process, the team will meet with the WBENA and present wireframes of the webpages for their approval. The team will draft an agreement that assures WBENA of transparency at every stage of the project to avoid any inaccuracies/ misrepresentations in the content and will include decision making processes as well as conflict resolution strategies to ensure the project stays on track. As Christen and Anderson advocate in “Toward Slow Archives,” the team will focus on their relationship with the community of origin (the WBENA), ensuring that the ensemble has the right to refusal concerning what is published about their repertoire, their history, and their performances (107). The team aims to collaborate with the ensemble rather than to speak for them.

Environmental Scan

Currently, we have not found a digital archive of a series of programs with background information on each song performed, regardless of whether these programs were for a bandura ensemble. The existing site for the WBENA presents the history of the bandura, information on its founding, introduction to its members, and a brief log of their past and upcoming performances. The closest archive to Bandurapedia at this moment appears to be the website for the CD recording of the bandura concert “Songs of Truth” by Julian Kytasty. For this website, The Word & Image Studio in partnership with The Centre for Cape Breton Studies at Cape Breton University published a brief history of the bandura, program notes and lyrics in Ukrainian and English for each of the songs on the CD, a brief biography for Julian Kytasty, videos of his performances, educational materials for bandurists, and a blog for the site’s ongoing development. Bandurapedia, like “Songs of Truth”, seeks to provide more context to songs played on the bandura by a particular artist / group.

Unlike Songs of Truth, Bandurapedia has a larger scope and seeks to encourage more interactivity between the songs covered. Bandurapedia ultimately seeks to record the songs and program information for each of the WBENA’s performances. With this larger performance timeframe, Bandurapedia’s song page structure would focus more on providing points of categorical comparison – such as themes, genre, origin, etc. – than Songs of Truth’s brief history integrated with personal reflection in a singular editorial paragraph. However, Songs of Truth’s more familiar tone and content reminds the team to avoid being too clinical in its song summaries and to leave room for each song’s complex history.

Besides Songs of Truth, the three types of websites most similar in concept to Bandurapedia fall under the categories of Bandura History, Program Archives, and Music Archives. Bandura ensembles – such as the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus of North America, the Hryhory Kytasty Cleveland School or Bandura, and the WBENA – typically include brief histories of the instrument and its players, from its cultural importance to Ukraine, development, arrival in North America, and current classifications. Given that the WBENA already provides a brief history of the bandura on its website, the team will seek permission to include links to the WBENA site for information on the history to avoid duplication. Any additional context required will be either provided on the song pages or a more general About page.

Most Program Archives, such as the ones belonging to the London Symphony Orchestra or university music programs such as the University of Alabama’s School of Music, contain a digitized version of the program arranged by date and musical genre. Unlike Bandurapedia, they do not contain any song information that is not already provided by the program, although the London Symphony Orchestra includes an article pertaining to each song in its program. However, given the size of the organizations’ collections and number of resources that such creating an archive would entail, these archives’ simplicity is by design. The University of Alabama’s archive in particular is well designed for ease of access and provides the user with programs from twenty different genres and ensembles. Bandurapedia, on the other hand, is designed to provide more context to the existing programs, dedicating its resources only to this goal. For this reason, Bandurapedia exists as a separate website rather than as a tab on an existing site.

Similarly, most music archives, such as those found in the Library of Congress or Internet Archive, exist to provide context and/or audio recordings for specific songs or albums. Unless the album is itself archived on the website, such as Ola Herasymenko Oliynyk – Ukrainian Bandura in Concert in the Internet Archive, each song is typically isolated. Context provided can vary from only providing topics to the Library of Congress’s more robust classification system, providing information such as title, performers, genres, topics, notes, location, language, etc. However, the tags provided to the songs can be vague, such as its collection which contains over one thousand items or topics such as “Ukrainian Americans,” which contains various media and topics not strictly related to the piece itself. Again, given the scope and resources of these archives, the broad categorization is part of its design. Bandurapedia, like the Library of Congress, seeks to provide clear background information about each song, but also will provide more connections between the songs and performances.

Work Plan

Overview

The first phase of the project serves to deploy a minimum viable product version of the site. Over the Spring semester (roughly mid-February to early-May 2025), the team will launch the website on GitHub Pages containing two program pages and pages for each song within those programs. An About section will also be provided with a brief overview of the project, any necessary historical or cultural context, names of the contributors, and links to the WBENA site for any relevant information such as the instrument’s history (subject to approval from the ensemble).

The second phase of the project involves adding the rest of the programs and their songs into the already existing framework. The Project Lead will add the rest of the Program PDFs and songs to the framework, not including the context. This phase is intended to be completed by the end of May 2025.

The final phase of the project will include adding the rest of the context to the Song Pages. Only the Project Lead will be working on this phase of the project with 14 additional programs containing songs to research; however, the Ensemble does often keep most of the same repertoire from performance to performance. Given these factors, this phase will likely conclude by 2026.

The Project Lead will stay on to aid the Ensemble in running the site after these phases end. The Ensemble will also have full access to the site’s GitHub repository.

Below are the steps to Phase 1 of the project:

February to March 2025 – Song Research and Development Education Design

The first month of the project is dedicated to compiling notes for the two programs and approximately 20 songs, split amongst the two researchers. For programs, the researchers will record the name of the concert, its location(s), the date(s), any collaborators if applicable, the performers’ names, the song titles, any other notes, and the PDF file path. For songs, the researchers will record where available the title, composer, original year or period, language, location of origin, genre, themes, tempo, description, YouTube link, lyrics, and soloists. The researchers will also be free to record any other relevant or interesting information that they find for the song. Given that the team will unlikely be able to read in Ukrainian, interviews with the WBENA will be essential for this research. The WBENA has generously offered to share their records available on google drive with the team which will be an invaluable source for research. The wireframes will be created, the group agreement will be shared and the team will seek approval from WBENA within this period.

Late March to Early April 2025 – Backend Development

Towards the end of the Research step, the Backend Developer will begin assembling the csv structure that will power the site. Towards the end of the Backend Development period, the Backend Developer will work with the Frontend Developer to confirm the information provided and needed for the user interface. The Developers will also generate and briefly deploy sample pages at this time to ensure that the csv is connected properly.

Mid-March to April 2025 – Frontend Development

As a part of research and development, in coordination with the WBENA, the Frontend Developer and Project Lead will produce wireframes for the WBENA liaison review. On receipt of the wireframe approvals, some tasks of the Frontend development will be initiated and run parallel to the Backend development, with use of placeholder data.

Towards the end of the Backend development step, the Frontend Developer will add higher-fidelity to the site UI/UX, with the Researchers aiding in finding images and other material for site content. The Frontend Developer will also collaborate with the Backend Developer to ensure that all the information required for this design is available to them. The Frontend Developer will then collaborate with the Content Editor to incorporate the content for the site. The Frontend Developer will work under a model of deploying often to production, to ensure that the site behaves as expected.

April 2025 – Women’s Bandura History Research

At this time, the team will turn their attention to researching the history of Women playing Bandura to publish on its own page at the request of the WBENA. This time has been chosen since the WBENA will have finished their March concert series, and the team will have assembled the back-end for the song pages. This research will be inserted into its own static page featured in the About tab.

May 2025 – Revisions, Testing, and Deployment

After the completion of Frontend Development, the team will take the WBENA through the MVP of the site and resolve any edits provided. Once the WBENA is comfortable that the outcome has stayed true to the approved wireframes and okayed any minor deviations, the team will test all pages and links locally before deploying the site and testing all pages and links publicly for bugs or errors.

Phase 1 Note

Throughout the development process, we will have weekly check-ins with our liaison Teryn, and we aim to meet with the Ensemble Board at least once per phase / month. We will defer to the Ensemble Board’s schedule as they are preparing for a show in April. We will also have a standing agreement with the WBENA outlining expectations for both sides. In addition, the Ensemble will have full visibility into each phase of development as well as all our documents.

Staff / Partners

Project Lead / Backend Developer / Assistant Researcher – Anastasia Hutnick

The Project Lead will keep track of the team’s progress and assist to ensure that they stay on schedule and will act as point of contact for the WBENA. The Backend Developer will create a basic csv-based infrastructure for the site from the Researchers’ findings and provide the internal database from which the Frontend Developer will create the site design. She has previous experience with the Wax framework as well as HTML, CSS, and GitHub Pages deployment. She will mentor the Researchers in creating the tables in Wax, will assist the Researchers where possible, and also seeks to learn Search Engine Optimization to benefit the website.

Frontend Developer / (Internal) Dev-Ed Lead – Alex Millatmal

The Frontend Developer will be responsible for the aesthetic design of the website and will program the graphical user interface (GUI) using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. She will coordinate with the Backend Developer to ensure that the infrastructure is optimized for the GUI.

Alex will also take on designing low-lift learning opportunities for the team members who want to shadow development, in a way that builds upon and incorporates existing workstreams. Examples include: sequencing work to include well-defined, beginner- friendly implementation tickets; pair/group code reviews; pairing sessions; and further resource/reading curation.

Researcher / Assistant Content Editor / Development Shadow – Lini Radhakrishnan

The researcher will refer to the shared WBENA google drive contents and any other research sources to compile notes on the programs and songs. Lini will also assist the Content Editor/ Social Media Specialist in copyediting the site content and content creation for outreach. In order to understand the application of the Wax framework and the user interface, Lini will shadow the developers and develop allocated portions of the code.

Researcher 2 / Content Editor/Social Media Specialist – Melissa McDonald

The second researcher will also refer to the shared WBENA Google drive contents and any other research sources and compile notes on the programs, songs, and women in bandura. They will also write social media posts and any outreach correspondence with assistance from Lini. They will shadow the backend and frontend developers.

WBENA Liaison – Teryn Kuzma

Teryn Kuzma is a current member and Concertmaster of the Women’s Bandura Ensemble of North America. She will serve as liaison between the Ensemble Board and the Project Team. The Team will ensure consistent communication with the Ensemble Board and will not publicize any material without their approval.

Final Project and Dissemination

The final project will be deployed as its own GitHub Pages site and will be shared on the WBENA website. The Project Lead will coordinate publicization on social media with WBENA and will also reach out to organizations such as the Ukrainian Museum in Manhattan and the Ukrainian History Education and Cultural Center of New Jersey for them to share on their sites and social media.

Within the CUNY network, the Project Lead will also reach out to the Ethnomusicology department at the Graduate Center and the Russian, Eastern European, and Eurasian Studies scholars at CUNY to share the site through their internal communications and social media as well.

Works Cited

“15 December Programme.” London Symphony Orchestra, 2024, https://www.lso.co.uk/15-december-programme/

“About the Bandura.” The Hryhory Kytasty Cleveland School of Bandura. 2021, https://www.hkbanduraschool.org/about-the-bandura 11 December 2024

Berezutska, Maryna, “The Development of Bandura Music Art Between the 1920s and 1940s.” Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics, 2020, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 44 – 66, https://doi.org/10.2478/jef-2020-0015. 11 December 2024

Berezutskaya, Marina. “The History of Bandura Art or How Bandura Became the Musical Symbol of the Ukrainian Nation.” National Identities, vol. 23, no. 5, 2021, pp. 491–509, https://doi.org/10.1080/14608944.2020.1779207.

Christen, K. and J. Anderson. “Toward slow archives.” Arch Sci vol. 19, pp. 87–116 2019. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-019-09307-x

Hayda, Julian. “War isn’t dampening artists’ determination to revive Indigenous Ukrainian music.” NPR. 2022, https://www.npr.org/2022/04/17/1093264993/war-isnt-dampening- artists-determination-to-revive-indigenous-ukrainian-music13 . February 2025

Herasymenko-Oliynyk, Ola. “Ukrainian Bandura in Concert.” Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/ola-herasymenko-oliynyk-ukrainian-bandura-in- concert_202411. 11 December 2024

Kytasty, Julian and Marcia Ostashewski. “Songs.” Songs of Truth: Music and Song from the Kobzar Tradition. 2015, http://soundcommunities.org/archives/songs-of-truth/index.html.

11 December 2024.

Ostashewski, Marcia. “Women Playing the Bandura: Challenging Discourses of Nationhood.” Ethnologies, vol. 23, no. 1, July 2001, pp. 123–45. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.comlogin.aspxdirect=true&db=hus&AN=510040971&site=ehost-live.

“Program Archive – School of Music.” University of Alabama School of Music. 2024. https://music.ua.edu/program-archive-2/. 11 December 2024

Rawson, Katie and Trevor Muñoz, “Against Cleaning” Debates in the Digital Humanities 2019, ed. Matthew K. Gold and Lauren F. Klein. 2019

Risam, Roopika and Alex Gil. “Introduction: The Questions of Minimal Computing.” Digital Humanities Quarterly Vol 16.2, 2022

“The Bandura.” Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus of North America. 2021, https://www.bandura.org/ bandura-history11 December 2024

“Women’s Bandura Ensemble of North America.” 2023, https://www.banduristka.org/. 11 December 2024.

Carousels of NYC Project Proposal

Abstract

Carousels evoke joy and nostalgia, drawing people across diverse backgrounds, yet their placement is often restricted to wealthier neighborhoods, limiting accessibility for many communities. This project seeks to explore and address these disparities through an interactive digital exhibit and mapping tool that visualizes carousel locations throughout New York City. Each carousel pin will feature practical information about the carousel including fee structures and visitor policies with layers to highlight neighborhood demographics such as income levels and density of homes with children across the city. Through this mapping and analysis, the project aims not only to illuminate existing spatial inequities but also to serve as a resource for families to discover accessible carousel options. The project will conclude with a reflective analysis offering recommendations for a more equitable distribution of carousels, inclusive fee structures, and enhanced community engagement strategies for future carousel installations in NYC.

List of Participants

Project Manager: Kelly Karst
Digital cartographer: Carla Ordonez, Leonard Santos
Photographer(s): Leonard Santos
Data analyst: Carla Ordonez
Field workers: All staff members
Website Developer: Kelly Karst, Leonard Santos
Social Media: Julissa Russo
Graphic Design: Julissa Russo

Narrative

Enhancing the humanities through innovation

Carousels have brought joy to New Yorkers since the 1840s, with the first two installed in the now-lost amusement parks of Vauxhall Gardens and Jones Woods (Bartash-Dawley). Today, carousels can be found across New York City’s five boroughs, though they are notably concentrated in Manhattan and Brooklyn, often in affluent neighborhoods. While these carousels appear on digital mapping platforms like Google Maps, these platforms do not offer a comprehensive view to easily identify carousel locations or provide logistical details such as fees and policies, which vary from one carousel to another.

The NYC Carousel Mapping Project seeks to address these gaps by creating an accessible, interactive map using ArcGIS that highlights where carousels are located and, crucially, where they are missing. This map will overlay socio-economic data—such as income levels and the density of households with children—to identify areas in need of carousels or other low-cost recreational spaces. Evidence shows that accessible recreation is vital for community well-being (Sullivan and Chang) and social equity (Beck, et al.l), while newer carousels themselves have been tied to larger projects to increase their neighboring real estate value (Bagli), (Ronderos, et al.), (Rosin) . With the City of Yes legislative initiatives promoting urban development, now is the ideal moment to advocate for these spaces.

In addition to serving as a tool for urban planners and policymakers, the project will benefit local families, visiting families, and carousel enthusiasts by simplifying the process of planning carousel visits across the city. The platform will be hosted on WordPress and designed to work on computers or mobile devices with an intuitive design where users will see a map with pinned markers for each carousel. When clicking on the pins users will see a summary of information including an image of the carousel, the name of the carousel, date created, borough/neighborhood, fee structure, important carousel policies, and a link to input directions. An optional layer can be clicked to see how the carousel locations land along income lines and homes with children based on information found on NYC Open Data and the NYC Population Fact Finder.

Environmental Scan

This sort of project falls under the cultural asset mapping method which has been utilized a number of times, and sufficient documentation exists on incorporating this methodology. In that vein, carousel maps exist such as Carousel History’s Operating Historic Carousels – North America and Historic Lost Carousels – 1880s – Present and the National Carousel Association’s Carousel Census Map which utilize INEGI/Google Maps. However, these maps do not focus specifically on New York City, and are limited to “historic” carousels, and therefore do not include all the carousels currently in operation. The pinned information is limited and their purpose is to complement the larger website which celebrates the historicity and artistic value of the carousels, rather than providing practical information for potential visitors or those seeking to develop recreational facilities.

The HueArts NYC Map & Directory which maps art entities founded and led by people of color in New York City. This project utilized ArcGIS to create an interactive map whose pins symbolically represent the art discipline of the art entity (ie: Music, Dance, Art Gallery, Literary Arts, etc.) on a map of New York City’s five boroughs. Users can either search by keyword to locate art entities, browse through a provided list, or browse through the map pins. Each pin includes a small amount of supplementary information about the art art entity such as the community it serves, its location, and website. This collaborative project came through to fulfill a need to highlight art entities by people of color in the city, while also providing data to advocate for increase funding and support of these entities.

Similarly, the Bronx Council on the Arts Cultural Asset Map also utilizes ArcGIS and data incorporated from NYC Open Data to map to highlight arts and cultural offerings in the Bronx. The project invites individual artists and larger projects or organizations to submit their information to be included on the map. Beyond exploring the pins on the map, users can also select various layers such as zoning districts, construction years, and green spaces to paint a larger picture. The purpose of the map is to both highlight these cultural assets while also advocating for their continued preservation.
The CAMP: The Cultural Asset Mapping Project from the municipality of Austin Texas was a community oriented project which asked participants to map cultural assets in the city that felt important to them. In so doing, they created a directory, report, and map of nearly 3,000 points. Users are encouraged to discover sites, bridge connections between cultural organizations and projects, and for developers to keep in mind existing communities and their strengths to avoid displacement and work towards continuity of cultural community strengths. The map platform utilizes Open Street Map and Carto to map points using differing colored dots to represent the cultural asset by type (ie: Public Art, Organization, Event/Festival, etc.). Each point houses a small set of information such as the name, district, and website of the cultural asset.

The Carousels of New York City mapping project aims to continue this work by creating a space specific to currently operating carousels in New York City to be both be used as a practical tool to easily locate carousels, but also to provide a snapshot of important logistical information for those that wish to visit them. With that aim, we will bear in mind the tenets of minimal computing (Risam and Gil) to try and create a simple website to host our map with the aim of allowing for its use across various devices and with varying levels of internet access and computational speeds. Further, like the projects above, it aims to act as an advocacy tool to provide a clear visual representation of where carousels may be lacking, and where new ones could be considered either by developers, private entities, or New York City’s Parks and Recreation Department.

Work Plan

This project will culminate in a layered ArcGIS map which pins all the carousels in current operation in New York City with supplementary information on the location, fee structures, and policies of each carousel while also allowing the user to choose layers highlighting the income levels and the density of households with children on that map. As such, data collection, data analysis, map building, original photography, website building, and visiting or calling the carousels to understand their fees and policies will be the bulk of the project.

Data Collection & Analysis

Project staff will use tools such as Google Maps and publicly available data on NYC Parks/Recreation websites to locate carousels locations across the city and collect their GIS/spatial data. Staff will be assigned to visit and/or research carousels and fill out a Google Form. The data collected on the Google Form will be used to start a spreadsheet which will include information such as the carousel name, fee structure, policies, contact information, and website (if available). Staff may need to call or visit the carousels in order to fully understand the fee structures and policies, and will be encouraged to ride the carousels if possible. While visiting the carousels, staff should take original photographs to be embedded into the map data point, corresponding website, and possibly for social media.

Data will also be collected from either one or both of the platforms NYC Open Data and/or NYC Population Fact Finder. Extracted data should focus on income levels and density of households with children. This data will likely need to be cleaned to highlight only these data points.

Map Building

Once this information is collected, staff will begin the map building process in ArcGIS with an initial focus on mapping the carousels and creating a unique pin that exhibits the fun character of carousels. A few major data points (such as the carousel address and price) will be included in the map snapshot of information on the carousel, but will also link to a supplementary webpage with more information about the carousel created on the hosting website.

From here, two layers will be added to optionally view the income levels and density of families across the city. Color shading may be implemented to decipher income level differences.

Website Building

Once the map is complete, staff will develop a simple website using the WordPress platform to display the map. Graphic design choices and imagery will be created to align with carousel aesthetic. Supplementary pages on the site will include spaces for a brief analysis with recommendations for current and future carousels, a space for community input, and information about the project and staff members.

Staff

The project will be led by Kelly Karst and executed with a group of 2-4 graduate level students. Staff members will likely be responsible for more than one task depending on subject knowledge and technical expertise.

Project Manager: Kelly Karst be in charge of project management while also working on the project website.

Digital Cartographer: Carla Ordonez with experience with ArcGIS will lead the development of the layered map based on the data collected by the staff. Leonard Santos will provide support.
Photographer(s): Leonard Santos will take original photographs of the carousels and choose one to represent each carousel on the digital map.
Data collection and analyst: Carla Ordonez will collect data on:
- Where carousels are located in New York City including GIS information, the textual address, contact information, website, fee structure, and visitor policies.
- Income levels across New York City based on data collected from NYC Open Data and/or NYC Population Fact Finder.
  - This information will need to be extracted from the larger data sets available on these platforms.
- All information will be consolidated into a spreadsheet provided to the digital cartographer(s).
Field workers: All staff members will visit and/or call/email carousels to determine information such as their fee structures and visitor policies.
Website Developer: Leonard Santos and Kelly Karst will create the structure of the website and embed the digital map on the site and upload text to be included in an about section and essay on recommendations for future carousel development. They will also incorporate means for visitors to the site to contribute comments.
Copy Editor: All staff will be responsible for writing copy for their deliverables as well as any needed communiques for emailing carousel staff for information as well as to potential media for dissemination.
Social media: Julissa Russo will be responsible for creating and maintaining the social media account. This includes creating content and creating an organizer of the content to post. Social media accounts includes Instagram and potentially TikTok.

Final Product and Dissemination

The final product will be a digital map hosted on CUNY’s Academic Commons WordPress website. Efforts will be made to reach out to potential audience members and media outlets for dissemination. New York City family centered websites and social media platforms such as Brooklyn Bridge Parents, Park Slope Parents, Mommy Poppins will be asked to include the carousel in upcoming newsletters, website features, and/or social media posts. The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation will be contacted to similarly consider adding our map to sites for carousels they currently manage. We will also include our commentary on recommendations for future carousel considerations for possible use in advocacy for city budget planning. Major developers and development project coordinators may also be contacted to request consideration for new carousels in areas determined to have a gap in carousels with large densities of households with children. Potential outreach may include reaching out to carousel, digital humanities, and/or mapping experts for guidance and building enthusiasm for the project.

The social media lead will create an individual social media space that will highlight all carousels. Content will be created based on the information gathered about each carousel. The social media account will direct the audience back to our main website.

Future projects could include a history of each carousel with research essays conducted by students interested in contributing. A foreseeable challenge will be maintaining an up to date website when fee structures or visitor policies change, or if a carousel closes, or if happily, a new carousel opens.

Works Cited

Bagli, Charles V. “Battery Park To Try Again With Offering To Developers.” New York Times, 16 Jan. 2003.

Bartash-Dawley, Linda. Carouseling New York: A History. Self-published, 2013.

Beck, Helen, Berney, Rachel, Kirk, Brian, Yocom, Ken P. “Building Equity into Public Park and Recreation Service Investment: A Review of Public Agency Approaches.” Landscape and Urban Planning, vol. 247, 2024, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2024.105069.

Fitzsimmons, E. “New York City Approves a Plan to Create 80,000 New Homes”, New York Times, 5 Dec. 2024.

Risam, Roopika and Gil, Alex. “Introduction: The Questions of Minimal Computing.” Digital Humanities Quarterly Vol 16, no. 2, 2022.

Ronderos, N., Jones, C. “The Impact of Hudson River Park on Property Values.” Regional Play Association, October 2008, https://rpa.org/work/reports/the-impact-of-hudson-river-park-on-property-values

Rosin & Associates. “Brooklyn Bridge Park Assessment Analysis.” 2016, https://thebha.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/2.1.2_PIER_6_ASSESSMENT_ANALYSIS.pdf

Sullivan, William C., Chang, Chun-Yen. “Mental Health and the Built Environment. In: Dannenberg, Andrew L. Making Healthy Places : Designing and Building for Health, Well-Being, and Sustainability. Island Press/Center for Resource Economics, 2011, https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-036-1.

Protected: Personal Journal #1

Tasha Personal Log: Week 1 – Rolling the Snowball

Well, that’s week 1 done! I’ll admit, it was harder than I thought it would be. I feel like when I proposed this project, I felt like I had quite a bit figured out, that it would be simple and straightforward. Research, figure out the back-end based on the results, figure out the front-end based on the back-end table. Show the WBENA our progress along the way, and put one foot in front of the other. Of course, once the project was green-lit, I realized that it wouldn’t be nearly so objective. There was quite a bit that I hadn’t fully figured out yet, including but not limited to:

What’s the scope of the website beyond this semester?
How can we ensure the themes of this project are properly represented?
Are we sure about the name?
Are we sure about the software?
What plan do you have for disagreements other than “negotiate”?

As such, calling the first meeting was tricky for me. Since it was the first meeting, and we had more introspective matters to discuss, I wasn’t always sure where to start. I went through our (very helpful!) feedback and at times struggled to come up with actionable items (or concise conversation) for some of the more reflective items. I definitely felt the weight of everything to come and, frankly, feared that I was falling behind, which is not great when you’re the project lead.

Which, of course, leads me to my first Lesson of the Week (TM) – You’re on a team for a reason! It’s easy to get lost in what lies ahead and feel like you should have done more, but being a project lead does not mean that you’re a monolith who needs to have absolutely everything figured out. I reminded myself that we had all done so much this week, coming together, setting up our communication methods, getting organized, finding people to add to our networks, starting our official correspondence with Teryn and the WBENA, submitting edits, formulating agreements, the list goes on. Bandurapedia (keep an eye out for the new name) was only theoretical last week – now it has a release date and has begun pre-production! I’m grateful for everyone on my team for their skills, energy, and perspectives. We’ve still got a lot ahead of us, but we’ve made great first steps. And I remind myself that part of being on a team is trusting your teammates to talk to you rather than fretting over start of project anxieties.

And hey, now that we’ve started, I feel better about calling future meetings. Newton’s first law, right? A team in motion will stay in motion, even if we hit logistical bumps along the way.

I’m also very excited as tomorrow night right after class we are having our first official project discussion with the WBENA board! It’s all becoming so real.

And so it begins. . .

Lesson from Week 1 – Personal Blog Post

Meeting with the team was super helpful this week, it was really nice to touch base, finish up some items from class, and to get to know the team a bit better.

We were able to work out the details of our group and discussed future times to meet. Kelly got us organized and using tools like google drive to set up notes, project proposal, and other files all in one place. With her agenda for the meeting with hit many of the points in Rockwell’s quick guide to working in teams.

Without looking into this week’s readings, our team hit some of the advice given. Getting to know each other, team building, and laying the groundwork on how we will make tough decisions. The readings tied nicely into our first personal blog posts. It was cool to read the process of One Week One Tool and their day to day. It was a reminder that the importance of the class is the process of creating a tool, the team building, and the skills we will learn along the way, not necessarily the product that comes out of this class.

I am looking forward to getting to know my team better, to dive into the work of the project, and to continue to learn from our professor, my other classmates, and the digital fellows throughout the semester.

Personal Journal Entry – 2/10/2025

This week we voted on which projects we would make this semester. I’m interested in archiving and digital exhibits, so I was initially drawn to Tasha’s proposal “Bandurapedia” and thrilled when a group started to coalesce around the project. I am taking on a researcher/outreach co-role with Lini. I’m looking forward to learning some development and UX skills from shadowing Alex and Tasha.

In our first zoom meeting at the end of last week we tossed around new names for the project, discussed how to revise the proposal, and the collaborators agreement. I volunteered to start looking for a professor or doctoral student who could advise us. There is a professor in the CUNY Grad Center’s Ethnomusicology department who I thought could be a good fit, but her area of expertise is South Eastern Europe, which does not include Ukraine. Lini reached out to a friend who recommended we connect with a Bard professor – Dr. Sonevytsky, who specializes in post-Soviet Ukraine and music. This is a great recommendation and based on her bio I think it’d be a really exciting opportunity for us if we get to talk to her. I am anxious to reach out to her – I am sure she’s very busy with her own projects, course load, etc. and since she is outside of our institution I feel like even more of an imposition. I have drafted an email to her that I want to go over with my teammates. I thought that my outreach skills were fairly strong, but I am finding this email intimidating and feeling frustrated by my lack of confidence. Too vulnerable?

Right now we’re keeping a shared google drive and communicating via signal. From this weeks reading/resources I hope we can add a project management tool like Trello or Asana to our arsenal. I feel a sense of anxious anticipation as we begin this project. Ultimately, I’m really excited to be working with Alex, Lini, and Tasha and I can’t wait to grow and learn alongside them this semester.

Personal Blog #1 – The Beginning

The process of finalizing three projects from six strong pitches was not easy, but there was a helpful air of generosity and a sense of community in the room. There was no time to dwell on the outcome as we immediately settled into our groups and in project Bandurapedia we had a quick yet fruitful discussion on roles and responsibilities. I took on the role of one of the two researchers and I will also help create content for outreach as well as shadow the Frontend/Backend programmers to satiate my interest in coding. The team agreed to share weekly reporting responsibilities by making individual entries to a shared document so the project manager had the information available for compilation. Given that each member will be taking on multiple roles, it is crucial to find ways to share the load as evenly as possible so we can meet the timelines we set ourselves.

In the past week, we set up communication channels (Signal/ google drive folders), had our first meeting over zoom and set up action items to address the proposal feedback, revision process, platform selection and collaborative agreement. We discussed options for an alternate project name since Bandurapedia indicated a larger scope than the project’s current focus on the Women’s Bandura Ensemble of North America. This also brought us to one of the major dependencies of the project that requires WBENA approval for all the content, a known risk that is acceptable considering the project’s determination to feature the community’s voice and build trust in the spirit of the slow archives approach. To mitigate the risk to the extent possible, we decided to work on an agreement with WBENA to assure transparency through the cycle, settle on conflict resolution strategies and seek early approval of prepared wireframes of the webpages. We have also set up our introductory meeting with WBENA.

The stage is now set for revising the proposal, finalizing roles and getting the show on the road. We have a long way to go, but we are coming together as a team. The team members are enthusiastic, positive, generous and there is a heartening spirit of collaboration and cooperation. The start is reassuring.

Recommended reading: One of the readings from the Politics and DH course proposes an ethical visualization workflow that could be useful to all three projects. The advice to follow an ethical approach towards data collection, curation and visualization is explained through the comparison of two projects. The approach advocating for transparency to convey the veracity of the data sources and due care to avoid biases could be particularly beneficial to the GDPW project and data normalization suggestions could be useful to consider for the carousel project if they decide to go ahead with recommending geographical areas for new carousels.