History as Therapy: Reconstructing the Boston Bombings

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The last two weeks have been difficult ones here in Boston, from the immediate trauma and shock of the bombings, to false reports of arrests, to a manhunt and lockdown, and now to the re-opening of Boylston St. and the resolve of moving forward.

As I look back, I realize that not only are my memories of the actual event hazy and distorted, but my memories from the entire week of April 15 are a jumbled and foggy mess. Last Tuesday at Fitchburg State’s convocation, our Assistant VP of Academic Affairs and former chair of my department (with whom I share an appreciation for Survivor) asked me about the previous week’s episode. If you didn’t see it, it was an exciting one (immunity idols played! A major player blindsided!) At first, when Paul asked me about the episode, I had no memory of having watched it. Intellectually, I knew that I had, but the memories just weren’t coming. A few vague flashes darted through my brain, but that was it. Other similar experiences registered similar memory problems, which various sources explained to me was a symptom of post-trauma and should diminish with time.

Furthermore, as the week went on, the historian began to kick in. I needed details. I needed to find out what actually happened. I needed evidence — and clearly, I needed more evidence than what my memory was providing me.

The process of putting these details together, although they may not make for the most interesting reading, reveal the process by which historians reconstruct the past through evidence. It isn’t pretty, and sources don’t always neatly line up in succession to allow for an easy chronology of details. Here is the process I used, however imperfect. I am not yet at the place where I can put these details into a narrative. This post might be a bit of a mess, but so is the process of doing history. Perhaps outlining is the next step?

So to the sources I went, looking for answers. A few items needed to be clarified regarding my initial account. Things were not adding up in the story I was telling.

First, my location.

In the days afterwards, I told a number of people that we were “two blocks” from the explosion. This didn’t sound correct, but there was a part of me that didn’t want to face how close we were. But with my memories being unreliable, I had to look to evidence to reconstruct my location.

In my initial blog post, I captured some details about our location, but they are imprecise.

Detail 1:

We found a great spot right near the corner of Boylston and Gloucester St. where we could see the 26 mile marker and hang out the sign we had made.

So, near the corner.

Detail 2:

We felt the wave of the blast and smelled the smoke…as the crowd began to scream and run, I ran, too, pushing Leo in the stroller.

But close enough to feel and smell the bomb, and far enough from the corner to run straight (for what seemed like forever in the aftermath).

Detail 3:

I saw a nondescript door leading to businesses upstairs over Boylston, (I believe it was 883 Boylston St.), and headed for it. Other spectators dove into restaurants, but I didn’t want to be near any glass.

So we were past at least two restaurants, and far enough from 883 Boylston to have to run. Aha, and that photograph I took to document our location. Perhaps other photographs could provide some visual clues as to our exact location.

Photograph 1, taken at 2:29 PM.

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At first, I didn’t think there would be much to glean from this photograph about our location. The geotagging placed us across the street in the Prudential Center, so that was unreliable. Then I noticed the brick detail on the building behind my head and the bowed windows.

Using Google maps, I determined that we were in front of the building housing Eastern Mountain Sports and a Bank of America branch. Saturday, on Boylston St., I took this photo to corroborate my location.

IMG_3092As this photo demonstrates, there are only two possible locations in which we could have been standing — either on the far right on the right side of the Bank of America, or on the left, just to the side of the Eastern Mountain Sports sign.

From the following photo it is possible to discern that we were across from the Prudential Center Mall, but Hynes was still visible, suggesting that we were at the left location.

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Mapping this location along with the approximate location of the second bomb reveals we were about 1 block, or 400 feet, away. Revisiting Boylston St. also allowed me to confirm that it was not 883 Boylston, but rather 867 Boylston through which we escaped the street.

Second, the time frame.

My blog post is very fuzzy on timing and chronology. Note the lack of detail here:

I saw a nondescript door leading to businesses upstairs over Boylston, (I believe it was 883 Boylston St.), and headed for it. Other spectators dove into restaurants, but I didn’t want to be near any glass. I told Leo that we were going to find a hiding spot. I managed to text my husband and my brother that we were okay.

In the hallway, it was quiet, and I couldn’t get a signal on my phone to figure out what was happening.

I know I told a few people that we were in the hallway hiding for a few minutes, but it seemed like an incredibly long time that we were in there. Other details from my initial post also don’t help in reconstructing the timeline:

Outside people were running and crying. I managed to get a call through to my husband. I told him we were going to cross the Mass Ave bridge, and after a minute the phone service cut out. …As we approached the BU bridge I got cell service back (along with a deluge of text messages). I told my husband that we were headed toward the River Street bridge and that we would meet him on River towards Central Square.

So to my phone records to help reconstruct the timeline.

My phone records didn’t have the call to my husband when I thought of recording these, but his phone still maintained a record of our calls.

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I already know from the photograph I took in the alleyway that I emerged into the alley behind Boylston at 2:54 PM. At 2:56, two minutes later, I had a 1 minute conversation with my husband before cell service cut out.

In between this phone call, in which I told him we were going to the Mass Ave Bridge, and the next series of phone calls, I decided not to go over Mass Ave and instead headed for BU.

At 3:11 I began a series of calls to my husband, attempting to tell him that we were no longer going to the Mass Ave. bridge.

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My text messages revealed that I managed to get my text (as well as a post onto Facebook) out the few seconds after I came out into the alley way, as well as indicated that it was possible to text even when calls were not possible.

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Reconstructing the time line from these texts and calls, I can now see the timing of our walk and the process out of Boston.

2:54PM to 3:11PM: we walked from behind Boylston St., down Gloucester to Beacon St.

3:11 PM: we reached Mass Ave, and after seeing the number of people fleeing across the bridge I decided that using that route was not a wise decision. I then tried to call my husband and let him know that we were going to BU instead, but was unsuccessful.

3:34 PM: Phone service returned and I was able to tell my husband we were going to BU Bridge.

3:40 PM: because Leo wanted to walk on the path by the river we were not able to ascend to the BU Bridge without retracing our steps, and so I texted that we were going to continue to the River St. bridge (which I mistakenly said went towards Harvard in a later text message).

3:58 PM: A text from a friend indicated that text message service was unreliable, and that it was difficult for all messages to get out. Finally a message went through successfully, which also cataloged my location at the time of sending the text, close to the Central Square (River St.) bridge.

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4:41 PM: A text message with my brother recorded that I arrived home (along with my text message to him at 2:54PM that we were okay).

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Third, with the details emerging of the bombers and their pathway into the event, how close did we come to them, and at what time?

Given that the bombs detonated on the same side of the street we were standing, I knew it was possible that we had come into close proximity of the bombers. Photographs that emerged after the bombers’ capture revealed the truth.

The surveillance footage released showed that both bombers had come up Gloucester St. and walked up Boylston, meaning they had passed right behind us.

Watching CBS Sunday Morning on April 21, I captured this image (working on the proper citations. A close up of this image appears here.).

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This image corroborated several of my initial responses, though I was still cloudy on a few details.

The two bombers appear in this photo in front of 867 Boylston, in between two restaurants. A policeman stands in the road, patrolling the barricades. This image is taken west of my position, and time stamps on the surveillance footage reveal the timing to be 2:37 PM, after I took the photo of Leo and myself with our sign that documented our location. The policeman in the photo is the same that stood in front of us when the bombs went off, which also corroborates that the bombers walked right past us as they moved up Boylston St.

What’s missing?

I now have a sense of how far I was from the second bomb (my mom walked it with me and counted 250 steps). I now have a clear chronology and time frame for how long it took me to get off of Boylston, and when I made decisions about my route home and how and when I was able to communicate with others. Although it is still difficult to process, I also now have a sense of how close I came to the perpetrators of this terrible event.

What I’m missing are the memories of being on Boylston, of the faces and images of those who ran by me, of the sounds that are only muffled in my ears. I’m missing a sense of how many people were on Mass Ave., if they were upset, or even injured. Why does this matter? Why do I want to remember? Because I had a little boy with me who clearly remembers details about this. “The loud noise broke everything,” he says. “What am I made of that I don’t break” he asked my mom the other day. “What are people made of?” On top of that, there is the sheer disbelief and the enormity. For two weeks, images of something I experienced have been splashed across the news. Thirty seconds out of the hours upon hours that I have spent on Boylston seem to have shifted my world — how is that possible? Being able to talk to others who were there, to hear their experiences, would help make sense — if not sense of the motives or the loss, at least of the experience, that it happened and that others had similar and divergent reactions, all of which are valid.

This leads me to the next step in my process: big data. I have created a Google map on which people who were along the marathon route can record their location and tell their story, as well as post links to pictures. It’s a work in progress, but I hope to generate a crowdsourced database of the experiences of the Boston bombings, to create a historical record, one that can generate a sense of community out of that terrible day. Maybe, together we can find healing.

Please. Donate to the One Fund.

Our Boston Marathon 2013 Story

By Posted in Personal 6 Comments

Some blog posts you just don’t want to write, and this is one of them. I’m thankful to be writing it, that I’m able, and that for us, it all turned out okay. “Okay” is such a relative word, but it works.

Yesterday I took my almost-4-year old and 7 month old to Natick with some friends to watch the runners. A friend of mine from high school was running, and I thought it would be fun for Leo, and also get him used to a race because I am training for the Boston Run to Remember in May. We had a great time watching the runners, and Leo thought giving them high fives was the best. He was very excited to have a one on one trip with mama to the finish line to go see more runners and see them “win the race.”

Here are some of our Natick photos:

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After leaving Natick, we dropped my daughter and our car off in Kendall Square with my husband, and Leo and I walked over the Mass Ave bridge towards Boylston. The magnolias on Comm Ave were fantastic. We found a great spot right near the corner of Boylston and Gloucester St. where we could see the 26 mile marker and hang out the sign we had made.

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Then the first explosion happened. The crowd became silent. Leo was in his stroller, and I turned him away from where the sound had come from. The cop standing in front of the barrier put his hand on his gun and stood his ground.

People milled for a few seconds, confused, before the second explosion. We felt the wave of the blast and smelled the smoke. Someone yelled, “they blew up a building!,” and as the crowd began to scream and run, I ran, too, pushing Leo in the stroller.

I didn’t know if there was another, perhaps closer, blast about to happen. I knew that potentially more people would be heading our way, and I didn’t want to be on Boylston St. I saw a nondescript door leading to businesses upstairs over Boylston, (I believe it was 883 Boylston St.), and headed for it. Other spectators dove into restaurants, but I didn’t want to be near any glass. I told Leo that we were going to find a hiding spot. I managed to text my husband and my brother that we were okay.

In the hallway, it was quiet, and I couldn’t get a signal on my phone to figure out what was happening. At the back of the building I peeked out and saw that there was a loading dock down some stairs.

Although I probably could have hefted the stroller and Leo, I wanted to keep him as close to me as possible so that if there was another blast I could shield him. Or, more generally, I just wanted to have his hand in mine. He kept saying, “that was a loud noise, mama,” and that there was a monster in the ground “firing” at people.

We left the stroller in the hallway and I walked with Leo into the alley behind Boylston. I took a picture when we emerged in case I forgot what building we had come from, hoping that my phone would geotag the photo so I could remember the location, or that the scenery would help me find it again.

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Outside people were running and crying. I managed to get a call through to my husband. I told him we were going to cross the Mass Ave bridge, and after a minute the phone service cut out.

When I got to Mass Ave I was not comfortable with how many people were going over the bridge, and so I decided to continue down to Bay State Road towards the BU History department, where maybe I could find a phone and call my husband.

Along the way, Leo told everyone we passed that there was a loud noise. But he kept walking.

We went in to 226 Bay State Road and took a break in the seminar room, had some water, and went pee (in a toilet, not in the seminar room).

Back outside we continued along Bay State Road, and Leo declared he wanted to walk by the river. We went over the pedestrian bridge to the bike path. As we approached the BU bridge I got cell service back (along with a deluge of text messages). I told my husband that we were headed toward the River Street bridge and that we would meet him on River towards Central Square.

Leo began to tire a bit and so I carried him intermittently. When we crossed to the Cambridge side of River Street he wanted to walk again so he could look for his Dad. We finally reached him and my daughter. In the car I began to feel the physical effects of our walk as well as the shock. I talked to my Dad, who relayed the details of what had happened as they were being reported then. At home, I was finally able to talk to my mom, who had been in an appointment.

Later that night I scrawled off a note to my online class students that I might be a bit delayed in responding to emails, or in grading their papers. Both their class and my Honors class are discussing World War II this week. Today’s class is on the home front, and in this discussion I use some personal letters from my family to help us think about the experience of the war and to introduce the idea of how we create historical memory. I am so happy to be discussing this today.

I was pretty tired and perhaps a bit delirious when I wrote this to my online students: “There are many sad and scary stories in history, but if we look with an educated eye history can also teach us about humanity and the beauty, joy, and fellowship that comes with the human experience. History helps connect us.”

I’m grateful for my family and to live in a city and country that I love, to be a historian and to have a job that I love.

Words are not flowing so easily today, but I felt I should get this out. I’m thankful that Leo and I were not closer, but so incredibly sad and so very angry that others were not as lucky as us.

I’m going to go do some data entry. Or something.

 

Evernote as Archival Tool: Photographs Edition

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I used digital photography for about half of my archival research for my dissertation; the central collection for my research at the Tennessee State Library and Archives did not allow digital photography.

I liked using the camera, although I did develop a strange crick in my neck. But it gave me an invaluable record of the sources that has been useful in the revision of the manuscript. In pursuing new research for the revision, I visited a new collection, and decided that I would use Evernote to record my digital pictures. I had already used Evernote to take notes in collections that did not allow digital photography and found it to be useful. I found that adding pictures to the notes built on the usefulness of Evernote as an archival tool.

I did this for three main reasons that stem from the problems I encountered with digital photography. Here are the problems and they ways that Evernote would, I hope, address them, and some added benefits I discovered along the way.

  •  Problem #1: Multiple page documents became unwieldy to organize and re-read. I found myself getting a bit lost in the files and in switching back and forth between pages.

Evernote Solution: Using the camera feature within a note, I could take and add multiple photos to the same note, thus keeping multiple page documents together.

evernote phone

Added benefit: If you so choose, Evernote can sync with your calendar and create automatic headings for the notes. So when I went to the Joseph Martin Papers at Stonehill College, I entered that as an event from 9-5 in my calendar, and it automatically generated the headings for the notes I took. It saved some time and allowed me to bulk tag them and reorganize the notes later. Since the images themselves contained the citation information, it wasn’t necessary to put in the box/folder number for each note.

Evernote1

  • Problem #2: Flagging documents for later became a problem, as I found it cumbersome to record notes separately from the photos of the documents themselves. I tried recording notes by file, box number, and aggregating them at the end of the day, but that just created more documents to sort back through when trying to find a particular thought.

Evernote Solution: I could record initial thoughts about a document in the note itself or tag the note with a topic, individual, or issue so as to find it later when writing about a particular subject.

Additionally, for those of us working with modern sources, particularly typewritten documents, Evernote’s built in OCR syncing allows for searching the images themselves. Of course, this requires that all images be synced with their server, requiring a subscription to Evernote’s service. Syncing notes also makes research available on multiple devices, including mobile devices. No need to upload photos from camera to computer, especially if you can sync through your archive’s wi-fi connection.

This tool is not without pitfalls, of course. Storing photos in one application like this makes me nervous; I don’t like relying on one type of program for all my needs. I always print out hard copies of my research, which though easier and more organized with Evernote, isn’t without its problems. Images sometimes split across printed pages, and the images aren’t always of the best quality. I’m sure there are some issues that I’m not anticipating or have not yet encountered, so if anyone wants to throw me a heads up, that would be greatly appreciated. Does anyone use Evernote in the archives?

 

The Dreaded Blackboard Discussion: Incorporating Videos in Online Learning

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This semester I am teaching Modern America: 1920-1945 in an online format. I’ve been teaching online for about three years now, and each time I offer a course I employ a new discussion structure and assignment system, always searching for better ways to impart more skills to my students.I’m no fan of the Blackboard Discussion Board. Not only does Blackboard’s interface look like it was designed by Soviet missile engineers in 1979, I find the hierarchical and clunky structure of the discussion board itself flawed.However, until my survey next semester, other than a brief flirtation with Wikispaces and the former Coursekit (now Lore), I have not ventured into alternative formats, preferring not to mess with additional log-ins with online only classes.
In an attempt to create a bit more of an interesting and personal environment this semester was to embed videos of historians discussing topics from the reading to help frame each week’s discussion. For example, I used Michael Flamm’s video from the Gilder Lehrman center to broach the discussion of consumer culture in the 1920s. I also have been recording a mini lecture in response to the issues that come up in the week’s discussion, as well as provide tips on how to improve discussion, etc.
One of the more successful incorporations was that of John Fea’s “Virtual Office Hours” in the introductory discussion for the semester. For the first discussion, I had students watch his two posts on the uses of history and the past as a foreign country, and asked them to reflect on these perspectives in reaction to essays that established some of the themes of the course (Colin Gordon, ed., Major Problems in American History, 1920-1945).
Here is the discussion prompt:
Watch the following videos and read the assigned essays. How do you link Fea’s discussion of the uses of history to the kinds of themes we can expect to encounter in this course? What do the essay authors suggest will be the most important themes? Can you identify any others? What themes suggest a “useable past” and what themes are more of a “foreign country” to you? What other reflections and expectations do you have based on these sources?

At first, students had a bit of trouble linking these ideas usually covered in methods courses, in which, like others who enjoyed the series, I initially thought about using the videos. Some students discussed the historical developments as if they were useful at the time — i.e. women achieving the right to vote was useful and shapes our current world. Indeed, some showed an unwillingness to interpret the past, reflecting a common view among undergraduates that the past is fixed, consisting of a series of facts to be memorized, not as something with which they can interact.

However, some students began to create some interesting connections. They also seemed to engage thoughtfully with the videos, even if they hadn’t fully digested the ideas. When it came to consumerism, the videos helped shape their analysis by linking Flamm’s statements about the role of consumption in identity and the uses of history — several students began to think more historically about consumption and identity and changes and continuity. I found it useful to have information delivered in different formats in the online setting. Students seem to be better able to differentiate points of view from a video and a reading, rather than reading two historical essays and comparing them — though this may not be an issue in the bricks-and-mortar classroom, it helps in an online setting to create a more dynamic environment.

Elsewhere in the course I have been incorporating video lectures to summarize the key points of their discussions and to provide tips based on what went wrong. This last week I experimented with Slide Rocket EDU, which proved to be a more useful interface than a youtube video, and it also provides the ability to take polls of the students and provides more useful feedback about viewers.

I can envision assigning these talks before a class begins so that students have some fodder for discussion on the first day. The more personal delivery of this kind of methods discussion is also useful, along with the accessibility of the ideas delivered, and certainly the video on “how historians think” could potentially shape in class and written analysis.

I’m curious how others have incorporated video into their online formats, and, more generally, what discussion forum alternatives to Blackboard are more dynamic and user-friendly?

Apostates: Grace Lumpkin

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While conducting research for my dissertation in the Donald Davidson papers at Vanderbilt, I ran across a reference to Grace Lumpkin.

I wasn’t surprised at the first reference, given that I had written a paper in graduate school about Lumpkin and other radical writers who penned novels about southern textile strikes. Perhaps I had known of her political transformation, chronicled in her 1962 book Full Circle, in which she denounces the evils of communism, but I had forgotten.

One reference to Lumpkin appeared in Allen Tate’s letters to Davidson, referring to a scandal in 1936. Lumpkin had interviewed editor Seward Collins, and his statements made it appear that the Agrarians and he were in agreement–even when it came to Collins’ anti-semitic and Fascist views. Lumpkin directly accused Agrarians as harboring Fascist views. As Tate biographer Thomas Underwood put it, “Lumpkin’s accusations put the Agrarians on full-scale battle alert.” (Thomas Underwood, Allen Tate: Orphan of the South, Princeton, 2000, p240).

Tate wrote Davidson, “I’ve written Miss Lumpkin a letter pointing out to her that we don’t subscribe to all of Collins’ views, and that we’d rather have our real views attacked.” (Tate to Davidson, 23 February 1936. Donald Davidson Papers, Vanderbilt University Special Collections, Box 14, Folder 1). Fair enough, it seemed from the correspondence; though all southerners, Lumpkin, Tate and Davidson existed on separate sides of a cultural and political divide.

Yet further reading in Davidson’s papers revealed that not only had Lumpkin undergone a political transformation — which I had forgotten, if I’d ever realized in the first place. Not only that, but Davidson’s writings suggested that her views trended towards his cultural traditionalism, and also embraced the kind of depiction of the South’s conservatism Davidson  wrote of in National Review in 1960 (Davidson, “The New South and the Conservative Tradition” NR 9 (10 September 1960). Davidson wrote SSIC executive vice president and public relations director Thurman Sensing about a letter he received from Lumpkin in support. (See my forthcoming book, Dead as Dixie, for more on Davidson’s relationship with the SSIC!)

Davidson told, ”In the Twenties she was very, very radical, about as far to the Left as one can go, if my recollection is correct. Now she writes me…heartily supporting the article and saying, in effect, that she has recanted and that now her position is about like the one I advance.” (Davidson to Sensing, 26 September 1960, Davidson Papers, Box 3 Folder 22).

Iiiiiiiiiiiiinteresting.

I dug more into Lumpkin’s shift, and couldn’t find too much, given that I would need to get my hands on her political autobiography (at the time there were no copies on Amazon, but I’ve recently ordered on and hope to be reading it soon). I made a note for myself and put it on the back burner.

As I revised my manuscript, I began to roll Lumpkin’s transformation around in my mind, and the seeds of a new research project grew (along with some others, but that’s another story). Lumpkin’s political shift matched well with the narratives of other disaffected Leftists, a la Sidney Hook–turned off by Stalinism and who moved towards the right. Her perspective as a southerner certainly intrigued me, but so too did the idea of a political apostate.

I began compiling a list of well known apostates, and realized that there could be questions answered about the nature of political transformation, historically. What do these personal stories of apostasy reveal about political change in the twentieth century? Are they driven by personal circumstances, shifts in one’s individual ideology or values? Does context and events sway more than intellectual currents, or vice versa? How do individuals explain their transformation — did their political brethren abandon them, or did they renounce their former associations? Is this a supremely individual process, or can these people reveal deeper insight into historical evolutions of partisan and political transformations? As our political culture evolves, do single issues push conversion, shifting regional identities, religious revelation?

My list, which is still evolving, includes Richard Weaver, John Dos Passos, Norman Podhoretz, and a few other likely suspects. However, I’m also trying to push outside a list of “usual suspects” and look at less traditionally “political” figures — Eugene Genovese and Garry Wills have been suggested to me, and I’d like to look into other public intellectuals, media figures, and beyond. My goal is to take a biographical approach to begin to unravel some of my preliminary questions and to develop further, more sophisticated research questions.

Who else would make a good subject?

 

Paper Topic: Searching for a Google News Archive Search Replacement

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I recently decided to resurrect an old assignment that used the now-defunct Google News Archive search. This assignment was greatly successful because it not only data-mined historical newspapers for search terms, but students could easily locate sources to provide examples for how different terminology appeared over the years.

Here is the original assignment (trimmed):

 In this paper, it will be your job to make use of the Google News Archive search (http://news.google.com/archivesearch). …After selecting your term and generating a search and a timeline, next you must then explain and contextualize the timeline in a paper of 3-4 pages (approx. 1000-1200 words). You have a number of choices here:

1.) You may choose to explain the timeline’s change over time. For example, you might identify two or three “peaks” of the occurrence of the term you chose, and construct an argument for why the term peaked in these two eras, explaining what differences occurred between the two periods. What was different about each context? What issues remained the same, or unresolved?

2.) You may also choose to explain a single moment on the graph. Perhaps the peak of a certain term represents an important historical moment, where an idea or movement had special resonance.

3.) You can also be creative — perhaps there is another approach you feel is useful to explain the timeline you have discovered.

Whatever approach you choose, you MUST MAKE AN ARGUMENT It is not enough to DESCRIBE the timeline, you must also EXPLAIN WHAT IS SIGNIFICANT about it. What is going on behind the numbers? Why did people care? What changes and continuities are significant? How do historical discussion of familiar terms differ from present discourses? In making your argument (in the body of your paper), select two or three articles to help demonstrate your case. Your only sources should be the articles themselves (which will serve as your PRIMARY SOURCES), and sources from class (lecture notes, textbooks, other assigned readings). It is not necessary for you to conduct other research: I’m most interested in seeing how you contextualize these historical documents and debates, and demonstrate change/continuity over time. Remember: you have license to be creative with this assignment, but your paper MUST HAVE A THESIS.

Some terms to help get you thinking:

Labor; Anarchist; Suffrage; Liberal; Conservative; Nuclear; détente; Slum; Civil Rights; Sunbelt; White Flight; Black Power; Chicano; Feminism; Abortion; Religious Right; Debt; Income Tax; Suburbs; Immigration; Socialism; Negro/African American; Segregation/desegregation; Progressive

The assignment yielded some interesting papers. One student looked at the word “hippy,” while another examined “ghetto.” All the papers included the graph of their results, and other than the papers that were merely descriptive (i.e. they described the graph and the thesis essentially explained that the term increased in usage, without explaining why), I received some creative responses. The “ghetto” paper, for example, traced how the word shifted from international sources in the 1930s to describe America’s urban crisis in the 1960s and 1970s. Generally speaking, the old Google News Archive Search provided a useful way to show students that language is not static, and that terms we use on a regular basis are shaped by historical events and understandings.

So I recently found a post at edwired.org reminding me of the Google Ngram tool that rolled out before the demise of Google News Archive Search, which has vastly more potential (and a much easier name). News that the data behind the search has improved made me look again. While my students won’t be examining the intricacies of grammar, they might be intrigued by the ability to overlap word usage in one graph, which could help produce more complex and nuanced arguments.

I tried this with a few searches based on popular ones from student papers:

hippy/hippie and beatnik:

hippie

Negro/Afro-American/African American:

NegroAfroAmericanngram

Even on their own each of these graphs could produce a worthwhile student paper. It might be worth including certain contextual terms like “juvenile delinquent” or other Cold War culture related terminology to help students think about the context in which these word shifts occurred when it came to youth rebellion. In the second graph, certainly some history of these words would have to accompany the graphs because students wouldn’t have examples readily available in the search results to contextualize the data for them, as newspaper articles helped with in the first instance.

I have a couple of concerns. One is that the results are divorced from the data; it would be difficult for students to envision the sources, and the variety of sources, from which the data derived. Since they would not be engaging in linguistics or the kinds of text mining and sophisticated results produced by digital miners like Dan Cohen, I’m considering limiting the number of possible phrases and search terms so as to provide a more guided experience — it would cut down on the creative responses, but might serve to elevate the products received.

Another concern I have is the multiple possibilities of such an inquiry. I’m thinking that with so many possibilities at their fingertips, and without the documents themselves to consult, students would get too lost in searching for possible terms. The solution to this, I’m thinking, will be to set up their inquiry more as a guided research project where I provide a few search options, plus some supplementary primary and secondary sources for them to consult.

So the question is, what would be some useful terms to search for in a class focusing on the United States 1945 – present? Does anyone have experience with successful searches that yield interesting results?

Whither the Survey (broadly speaking)?

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I’ve been spending a lot of time, along with others, thinking about innovative ways to tackle the survey. I teach the second half of the US survey (the version at my institution starts in 1877), and I can’t imagine the problems I face are all that different from those instructors face across institutions. Coverage or uncoverage? Textbook and lecture; themes and primary sources; question based format?

Personally, I have found myself vacillating quite a lot, as my recent post on Scavenging the Survey demonstrates. On the one hand, I like lecturing. I think I’m good at it (though maybe I just like to think that way). I like being able to present students with a well structured, reasoned argument that gives them a new perspective on what their textbook reading might otherwise indicate. I also enjoy discussing primary documents, pulling them apart, getting students to understand how we piece together evidence from the past.

Yet these pedagogical approaches to The Survey, in my case, US 1877-present, lead me to another question about the structure of curriculum. Aren’t surveys inherently flawed in their structure? As Jonathan Rees points out at The Historical Society blog, the to-the-present courses keep getting bigger, and at some point something has got to go. Of course, those of us offering a survey of 125 or so years of events have it easy; consider the amusement park ride through world history that begins at the dawn of time to the 1500s. My colleagues teaching World Civilizations would likely point and laugh at my angst. But aren’t there other issues with these courses that go beyond my shenanigans to try and make it to the present?

As a College Board study published in 2005 by the AHA suggests, from course offerings to themes covered to exam structure, the study “demonstrate[s] remarkable stability and uniformity in the design and structure of the U.S. and European history introductory courses.” Indeed, Robert Townsend concludes, “There was little shift in chronological and topical breakout of the courses from past survey data collected in the 1990s, and faculty tended to agree on the major chronological and topical subdivisions.” We historians seem to be pretty set in our ways, no?

I’ve been looking at the way history departments structure their introductory courses. A few have done away with the survey structure surveyed by the College Board that I describe above (I’m compiling a list, which includes Carnegie Mellon and a few others) and replace them with thematic courses. Most offer some variation of the same: World Civ I, II, and II, US I and II. My alma mater of Vanderbilt University broke their US survey into four chronological parts offered at the introductory level, and added a joint major in Economics and History where students take history of American Enterprise. Their extensive offerings of focused introductory level courses have expanded, though the structure is not radically different from when I was an undergraduate.

Is the time coming when we will be rethinking and doing away with this structure? If we are to sell the importance of the humanities and the study of history — even if we radically restructure these classes and their approach — it seems we have some heavy lifting to do. If non-history majors only take one or two history courses in college, are there better ways to structure, and perhaps more significantly, market these courses? I offer this not just as a thought in the ongoing conversation about how to battle (or coexist) with MOOCs, but as a way to rethink introductory history courses in general.

If given the keys to the Chancellor’s office and all the compliance in the world: how would you restructure these courses? What would they look like? Assuming a blank slate, how would you structure and market introductory history courses to convince non-majors that history ain’t so bad, and to lure in new majors across concentrations?

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Reading: All in the Family at s-usih.org

Over at the US Intellectual History Blog I have been perusing the ongoing conversation regarding Robert O. Self‘s recent book, All in the Family: The Realignment of American Democracy Since the 1960s. I heard Self discuss this book at a recent APHI Seminar and have appreciated his insertion of family and gender into the historiography of the transformation of modern liberalism and, as Self argues, the transition from “breadwinner liberalism” to “breadwinner conservatism.” As Chris Ramsey’s original review explains, “By incorporating gender and sexuality with the traditional political and economic narratives of the modern United States history, All in the Familyis a welcome addition a growing body of scholarship that challenges the notion of the postwar conservative revival as a mere backlash to the social welfare state and civil rights.”

The conversation raises many central historical questions with vigorous debate, while also engaging with larger questions including: the underlying intersection of postwar politics with the tensions between positive and negative rights advocacy; the role of market interactions in shaping family structures and internal dynamics, in addition to how historical actors looked to the market for solutions to or escape from social realities, particularly when little extrinsic finality emerged as a result of activism; as well as the transformation of political culture since the Great Society and our own social and moral relations to such changes.

I appreciate Professor Shannon’s  comment that such a debate breaks through what is often an “echo chamber for one particular perspective,” particularly when it comes to modern liberalism. I also heartily endorse Professor Self’s statement in his response post regarding the change, and indeed the fleeting moment of “breadwinner liberalism.” “Stuff comes apart,” he writes. “I am more surprised historically by things that persist, by things that last. Both the coming apart and the persistence require explanation; they require a narrative that makes them legible to the present.” I for one am still digesting the arguments made in this exchange, both from a historical perspective and regarding current political and social debates.

Check it out:

Most recent article: Shannon Responds to Self | s-usih.org.

All posts: Robert O. Self’s All in the Family

Introducing: Scavenging the Survey

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All across university campuses, conversations about how to best teach the U.S. or other types of surveys continue. Particularly with the rapidly developing world of online education and MOOCs, universities struggle to maintain relevance and competitiveness. Competitiveness in the humanities means being able to demonstrate how a liberal arts education can help students better navigate an information-saturated landscape through skill development and critical thinking.

With factual information at our fingertips (even if some of it may be flawed), how can the history survey continue to be of use to students? Anyone can find out when, where, and how the railroad strikes of 1877 took place, or even engage with Malcolm X’s speeches–they can even find many of them online, something I was not able to do even in my graduate level study.

While teaching my own surveys, I have decided that among the most important offerings of face-to-face education is the ability to collaborate and the requirement that students think, write, and communicate on their feet. Spontaneous and informed conversation builds communication skills — if students learn how to think on their feet, articulate their views based on reading and research, and can do so effectively and efficiently, isn’t that a pretty good marker of an educated person? Better yet, if they can learn, research, converse, then collaborate and produce an intelligent, researched product, they have a record of success on which to build.

With these goals in mind, I brainstormed the concept of Scavenging the Survey. In this version of the US survey (1877-present), students will experience a “flipped” classroom in a new way. They will read the textbook and complete content-based quizzes outside of class so that they are familiar with the context (or they can re-familiarize themselves). Class time then builds upon the benefits of face-to-face learning. Each week, working in groups, I assign students a scavenger hunt-like task that builds a particular historical skill. The hunt asks them to digest the material they read, coming to a consensus as a group about what interested them, sparked debate, or seemed the most significant.

For example, a weekly task could ask them to find three primary sources related to the events that most intrigued them that week. Some other ideas include:

  • Finding a book on their chosen topic in the library and summarizing its thesis
  • Searching for an academic article and reporting the kind of results they get, along with a summary of three articles that look the most promising for future research
  • Compiling a list of reputable online sources for an event, person, or historical development
  • Build a report of how an event received coverage in contemporary newspapers, using online databases like the Historical New York Times

These are perhaps the most obvious, straightforward options, good for the first few weeks to build (or rebuild) students’ skills in historical research.

Beyond that, the course will ask students to use their knowledge of history to compile, evaluate, and interpret sources from both online and physical repositories.

For example, I envision asking students to evaluate a blog post that refers to historical events. They might review an op-ed’s invocation of past events to make a point about current political, economic, social, or cultural realities. They could even take to the streets or halls of the university, in search of a physical reminder of the past.

The scavenging would take place during the first class meeting of the week. I would embed myself with a group or two each week, or move among groups to guide and answer questions.

The second class period each week would be dedicated to writing. Each group will then produce two blog posts:

  1. A coherent recounting and analysis of their scavenger hunt findings: this is the formal reporting of their historical thinking and sources. They will need proper citations, links to sources or images, and clear analytical writing.
  2. A report on their process for the week. In other words, they would produce both historical scholarship as well as a report on their successes and failures. What searches yielded dead ends? How hard or easy was it to find sources? Did they hit dead ends, or were they overwhelmed by results? The process posts not only will keep them honest, but make students conscious of how they conduct their research and historical inquiry.

In particular, I’m looking for ways to help students develop a sense of change over time. I might assign a thematic development to each group — one group might be tasked with looking at the growth of the executive, another with cultural developments. I plan to switch up the groups at least twice during the semester, meaning the themes would also switch. Students will also be required to comment and evaluate other groups’ postings. See more on the Weekly Process here.

This is just the beginning, and I’m in search of as many ideas as I can find for when I implement this model in Fall 2013. Any thoughts? Has anyone employed this type of history detective work at the survey level?