Historians,Supercomputing,and the U.S. Manuscript Census

Abstract

Though the supercomputing revolution has yet to have a significant impact on the humanities, it promises to do so in the near future. Technological improvements now make it possible to convert old records, such as U.S. manuscript census returns, to machine-readable form. This will allow historians and other social scientists to develop a better understanding of our nation's past. The use of supercomputers to further humanistic research will help reintegrate the scientific and humanistic communities, which will be a significant accomplishment in its own right. Hopefully the general public will also be able to participate in the supercomputmg revolution through humanistic endeavors like the U.S. census database project. Keywords: manuscript census, history supercomputmg, optical scanning, database.