Nick Sly is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at Michigan State University who received a Graduate Certificate in Digital Humanities in Fall 2023. He studies U.S. social and cultural history with an emphasis on education at the turn of the 19th century. His dissertation covers the controversies over textbooks and their adoption following the industry’s consolidation. Nick has worked on DH projects on the Dust Bowl in the 1930s, textbook author Harold Rugg controversy in 1941, and textbook author David Saville Muzzey controversy in the interwar period using textual analysis, mapping, and digital archiving tools. He used Voyant to compare textbook editions and Dust Bowl cultural texts, Neatline to map out migration during the Dust Bowl, and Omeka to create a digital archive of sources on Harold Rugg. He is currently a member of the DH@MSU Advisory Committee and slated to graduate in 2024.
