About
This site was created in winter 2022 as a final project for Hacking the Humanities, a Digital Arts and Humanities course at Carleton College.
The Authors
MJ Fielder-Jellsey; Alejandro Gonzalez; Kelly Hanna; Alistair Pattison; Mikai Tilton
Processes
Using the various sources Carleton offered in its archives, we were able to collect and date a number of events that defined the tunnels’ creation and personalization. In addition, we amassed a large number of pictures, both from physical archives and from the digital archives, as well as from some anonymous sources who provided additional photography of the tunnels. Using the photographs we had, we composed a timeline that included information about the tunnels as well as their use and cultural impact during their long and complex history. The timeline for this project was made using Time Graphics.
The map was reconstructed from interviews of people with firsthand knowledge, consultation of historical blueprints, and scouring of newspaper articles with descriptions of the tunnels’ locations. The annotations were done with ThingLink.
The photos were gathered from a variety of sources and are available for download with more specific source information below. We also made cropping, angle, and lighting adjustments to many of the photos:
The site was built with WordPress (with a few custom elements) and the theme Sheen.
Sources
The majority of resources for this project are from the Carleton College Archives, including their curated digital collections, searchable online database, and the physical archives in Gould Library. We also extensively used the archives of the Carletonian, which dates back to before the the construction of Carleton’s tunnel system. We used the very sophisticated method of manually searching through every file which contained the word “tunnel”. To save future researchers the pain of doing the same, we have collected what we believe to be relevant articles in a publicly available Google Drive folder. The folder also contains dozens of photos not featured on this website, an editable copy of our map overlayed with building floor plans, and other archival documents.
Other sources include interviews with current and former students and our own primary research (although perhaps a more accurate term is snooping). We would like to thank Professor David Lefkowitz and archivist Nat Wilson for their gracious support and valuable information during the creation of this project.
