'Reclaiming Venus' through ArcGIS Story Maps

Maya Smith, Faculty, French and Italian Studies

In 2014, I rented a room in New York City from septuagenarian Alvenia Bridges for the summer. Soon after moving in, Alvenia offered me tea, which gave me the chance to ask her about her name on Mick Jagger's (1985) platinum "She's the Boss" album hanging up in her living room. She told me an incredible story about her time as personal business liaison to Mick Jagger before launching into her career as a model and deejay in late 1960s Italy. This moment of cordial chitchat morphed into nightly sessions of storytelling that I audiorecorded so her voice could be preserved. In collaboration with Alvenia and with the support of a Simpson Center Digital Humanities Fellowship, I have created a virtual walking tour through ArcGIS Story Map as a companion piece to our ethnographic memoir, Reclaiming Venus: The Many Lives of Alvenia Bridges. This presentation will showcase our Story Map, which includes excerpts from our interviews, photographs of various memorabilia and locations, and an interactive map of Manhattan. It will also discuss the process of creating this digital humanities project.