I have decided to start a YouTube series about various people who lived during the Civil War, but focusing only on their lives prior the the start of the war. We walk about these historical figures & label them based on who they were during the war, with little footnotes about their lives afterwards. But what I've found in all of my learning & research over the years is that the people they become during the war is often shaped by who they were before. Many people's lives are drastically changed from the war, and who they were before & who they are after can sometimes be two very different people. Take Ulysses S. Grant, a man who had pretty much failed at civilian life, working for his father in Galena, Illinois, before the war; after the war, a four-star General, hero, and a key leader who helped the Union win. Two very different people, right? But it helps to know who he was before, so one can then better understand his progression to greatness.
I was inspired by my visit to Auburn, New York this past May and decided to start the series with the legendary Harriet Tubman.
Harriet is worthy of the praise & attention she gets, but in my research I found that there was a lot of misinformation out there when it comes to her pre-war life. I always find it fascinating when we have someone as accomplished as Harriet, as her accomplishments stand on their own merits. Why, as a society, do we feel the need to exaggerate? I think that takes away from all she has truly accomplished, like it wasn't good enough when it clearly is.
When you talk about lives prior to 1860, the biggest challenge is the lack of photos. So, this I decided to use ChatGPT to make watercolor illustrations for the various stories I tell about Harriet. I wrote the entire script, and then piece by piece provided that to the AI image generator, along with very detailed descriptions about what I envisioned. It started out a little rough, but by the end AI knew exactly what I wanted. So, while many of the images used were from AI (and my detailed instructions), please know that this is still the final product from a human. The script (which I wrote entirely based on my own knowledge), the voice, the images created at my instruction, the editing...it's all me. I'm human.
I hope you enjoy, and let me know who you'd like to see next in the "Life Before the Civil War" series in the comments.
I was inspired by my visit to Auburn, New York this past May and decided to start the series with the legendary Harriet Tubman.
Harriet is worthy of the praise & attention she gets, but in my research I found that there was a lot of misinformation out there when it comes to her pre-war life. I always find it fascinating when we have someone as accomplished as Harriet, as her accomplishments stand on their own merits. Why, as a society, do we feel the need to exaggerate? I think that takes away from all she has truly accomplished, like it wasn't good enough when it clearly is.
When you talk about lives prior to 1860, the biggest challenge is the lack of photos. So, this I decided to use ChatGPT to make watercolor illustrations for the various stories I tell about Harriet. I wrote the entire script, and then piece by piece provided that to the AI image generator, along with very detailed descriptions about what I envisioned. It started out a little rough, but by the end AI knew exactly what I wanted. So, while many of the images used were from AI (and my detailed instructions), please know that this is still the final product from a human. The script (which I wrote entirely based on my own knowledge), the voice, the images created at my instruction, the editing...it's all me. I'm human.
I hope you enjoy, and let me know who you'd like to see next in the "Life Before the Civil War" series in the comments.
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