History 427
Fall, 2006
Professor Jules Tygiel
INTERNET RESEARCH ASSIGNMENT
Documents from the Library of Congress American Memory Page
Select one online archival collection from the list on my Online Archives page. Your topic must relate to events from 1916-45. The best set of online archives is available at the Library of Congress American Memory Website. Many of these documents involve the era that we are studying. The following is a list of titles in the American Memory collection though others may have been added recently.
California Gold: Northern California Folk Music from the Thirties.
The New Deal Stage: Selections from the Federal Theatre Project, 1935-1939
(not searchable at this time)
American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project,
1936-1940
America from the Great Depression to World War II: Photographs from the FSA and
OWI, ca. 1935-1945
Southern Mosaic: The John and Ruby Lomax 1939 Southern States Recording Trip
American Leaders Speak: Recordings from World War I and the 1920 Election
Prosperity and Thrift: The Coolidge Era and the Consumer Economy, 1921-1929
Voices from the Dust Bowl: the Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin Migrant Worker
Collection, 1940-1941
Frontline Diplomacy
Using documents from the American Memory Website for research, write a 12-15 page (3000-4000 word) paper on a topic of your choice discussing how that topic is reflected in one of these collections. You must include a historiographical section relating your findings to at least three books on your topic not assigned for this course. All graduate students are required to complete this assignment. The research may be carried out on your home computers if you have access to the World Wide Web or in any of the many campus laboratories that enable you to access the Internet. Please observe the submission deadlines for each stage of this project. This will help you to complete this assignment in a timely fashion. If you are having problems completing any stage of this assignment, please consult with me as soon as possible.
Be forewarned. Some of these collections are easier to use than others. While all have search engines that will help you to narrow down your topics, many of the collections consist primarily of images or recordings which are harder to manipulate for note taking and often more difficult to analyze. Do not select a collection that will make it impossible for you to complete this assignment.
One of the easiest of the collections to work with is The American Life Histories Web Page. The following instructions are based on The American Life Histories Page. If you wish to select one of the other options, please see me. The process will be the same, but you will have more difficulty taking notes and working with the sources.
The American Life Histories Web Page
The Library of Congress has placed 2900 manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project of the Works' Progress Administration online and provided a search engine which enables students and scholars to search these documents for particular topics or themes. According to the American Life Histories Web Page, "These life histories were written by the staff of the Folklore Project of the Federal Writers' Project for the U.S. Works Progress (later Work Projects) Administration (WPA) from 1936-1940. The Library of Congress collection includes 2,900 documents representing the work of over 300 writers from 24 states. Typically 2,000-15,000 words in length, the documents consist of drafts and revisions, varying in form from narrative to dialogue to report to case history. The histories describe the informant's family education, income, occupation, political views, religion and mores, medical needs, diet and miscellaneous observations."
You may link to this page through the History 427 web page or directly at http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/wpaintro/wpahome.html. It is a good idea the first time that you go to this page to read the information under the link, "About This Collection." You also should look at the link entitled "States," which gives you a breakdown on which states are represented (California, for example, is not included) and how many documents there are for each state.
Selecting a Topic (Deadline, October 5)
Depending on your creativity and imagination: there are almost an infinite number of topics that you may choose from to write about. You might select an individual from the 1930s: Franklin Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, Adolph Hitler; a political issue: the New Deal, social security, a specific New Deal agency, labor unions; a social issue: race relations, religion, immigration; or a cultural issue: radio, movies, sports. You might select a particular occupation, industry, or agricultural product: coal mining, cotton, wheat. Some topics will yield hundreds of items; others will produce only a few. In some cases it will be necessary to narrow down your search; in others you might have to expand it.
It is probably a good idea to experiment with the search engine and a variety of topics, before you select a final topic. Be sure to check out the link "Search Tips" located under the search panel for suggestions. If you come up with a relatively small number of references, you might think of alternative ways to phrase the topic (i.e., socialists and radicals for communists, or Mrs. Roosevelt for Eleanor Roosevelt). If you have a very large number of references you might narrow it down by specifying a specific state or some other qualifying phrase. Even if you have a large number of "hits," it may turn out that there is little valid material here for a paper and you may have to change topics. Since it is likely to take a while to select a good topic and you may have a few false starts, you would be wise to begin this assignment early in the semester. All students must select a topic by October 5. You may submit these topics via e-mail or in writing. Your proposal should include a discussion of the topic and a list of the Internet sources (the “hits”) that you will be using.
Collecting the Evidence (Deadline, November 16)
Once you have selected a topic and identified the relevant documents, you must collect and organize the data. Remember that everything in these files can be copied directly into a Word document. Have a Word document open while you are working on the American Life Histories Web Page. Highlight the information at the beginning of the WPA interview identifying the interviewee, date, etc. Select "Copy" on the Edit Menu. Use the Alt and Tab keys simultaneously to switch to the Word Document. Select "Paste" from the Edit Menu to paste it into your research notes.
Next, locate the relevant section of the interview for your subject. Use the "FIND" facility on your web browser to locate where in the interview the person discusses this subject. Highlight this section of the interview and copy it to your research notes in the Word document. Keep in mind that it will be necessary to understand the context in which the person is making these comments. Thus it will be necessary to read and, perhaps, copy larger sections of the interview. Also remember that a person may discuss this topic more than once in the same interview.
Writing the Paper
When all of the relevant information has been amassed it is necessary to write a paper summarizing the data. It is not sufficient to just list the quotations. You must analyze and evaluate them. You must develop a central theme and support that theme with examples from the interviews. Arrange the evidence in a logical fashion, discussing similar or related responses together. Avoid simply stringing quotes one after another or using mostly long block quotes. Be sure to identify clearly who is speaking. Relate your findings to the course readings wherever possible. Follow the guidelines in the handout, "Writing Papers."
In writing your papers keep in mind some of the limitations of these documents. This is not a random sample of the American population and is not representative of the views of all Americans. Do not over generalize or overstate your conclusions. The opinions of the interviewees are just that, opinions, not facts. Try to be alert to the biases and shortcomings of those you are quoting.
All papers must be annotated properly. You may use footnotes or endnotes, but not parenthetical references. The purpose of footnotes is to allow readers to find the materials that you are referring to. They must therefore be as explicit as possible. When referring to books please use the style outlined in any of the guides suggested in the handout, "Writing Papers." When referring to materials on the Internet, you must refer to the site where the materials are found. For example, documents taken from the American Life Histories, should be annotated as follows:
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/wpaintro/wpahome.html. You should also include the specific document title in the note. Do not use a search URL. Thus for a document entitled “Just Hanging Around,” the appropriate reference would be:
“Just Hanging Around,” http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/wpaintro/wpahome.html
The following reference, however, would be incorrect:
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?wpa:5:./temp/~ammem_VKZM::
If all of your documents come from the same data base, the following note would be adequate:
Unless otherwise indicated, all references are from, http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/wpaintro/wpahome.html.
Nonetheless, it is still necessary to indicate the document name in each subsequent footnote.
Research papers are due on the final day of class (December 14).