PROJECT: Volta River Commodities

As part of the Cultural Heritage Informatics Initiative, Ryan Carty, a third-year PhD student in the History Department at Michigan State University, created the Volta River Commodities, a digital history project that focuses on trade statistics maintained by colonial officials stationed along the Volta River. Carty used commodity data obtained in the National Archives in Ghana to publish a website that “takes the first step in exploring that history by publishing the commodity database with contextual information.” The website includes historical information and a description of the documents used. A description of the data used is also available, which is downloadable.