Tag Archives: MHS

from the archives: historical games of telephone

26 Wednesday Oct 2011

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I don’t have the mental oomph this week for a thirty at thirty post, so I thought instead I’d offer you a little anecdote from the Reading Room of the Massachusetts Historical Society. It’s a fascinating example of how historical sources can be unreliable, and knowledge with think we all know turns out to be factually far more complicated than it appeared at first glance.

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Yesterday afternoon I took a call from a researcher who was looking to source a quotation about Horace Mann. The researcher gave the quote to me over the telephone as follows

Education really consists of a student on one end of a log and Horace Mann on the other end of the log.

The researcher wanted to find out who had said this. I took their contact information and this morning when I was in the Reading Room I spent some time digging around to see what I could find.


My first stop was the online version of Bartlett’s Quotations, to look up any familiar quotations with “Horace Mann” in or associated with them, since this was my one concrete lead. (The MHS does, in fact, hold a large collection of Horace Mann papers, but since this was a quotation ostensibly about Mann rather than by Mann, I set aside the possibility of wading into those waters until later. Turns out this was a good call!). Bartlett’s didn’t yield anything. So I decided to begin by verifying the wording of the quotation via that wonderfully inexact crowd-sourcing tool known as The Internet.


I navigated to Google.com and typed in “education really consists of a student on one end of a log” and hit search.


Yes, Librarians do it too, and yes sometimes it can actually be an incredibly powerful entry-point for research of this kind.


What I discovered from scanning the first page of results for this phrase was that it wasn’t Horace Mann whose name was most frequently associated with phrases along these lines, but a man named Mark Hopkins, who was the president of Williams College (Williamstown, Mass.) from 1836-1872.


Re-running my search with the “education…” phrase and “Mark Hopkins” took me to a Wikiquotes article on education, where the quotation is given as: “My definition of a University is Mark Hopkins at one end of a log and a student on the other,” and the attribution is described thus:

Tradition well established that James A. Garfield used the phrase at a New York Alumni Dinner in 1872. No such words are found, however. A letter of his, Jan., 1872, contains the same line of thought.

I now had a tentative identification for the individual named in the quotation as well as a possible identification for the individual who had spoken the words.

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A search in Google Books and the Internet Archive for various combinations of keywords from the above yielded some fascinating permutations of the elusive quote on education:


The January 1902 issue of the Western Journal of Education contains an address by one E.F. Adams in which he claims, “When President Garfield said that when Horace Mann was on one end of a log and himself on the other there was a university he expressed the spirit of the old education” (p. 18).


In a 1966 issue of the education magazine Phi Delta Kappan, Arthur H. Glogau again attributed the quotation to President Garfield and writes “Garfield once said that a rotten log, with Mark Hopkins on one end of it, and himself on the other, would be a university” (Vol 48, p. 404). The date for the quotation is given in this instance as 1885.

Mark Hopkins was one-time president of Williams College and apparently a former professor of Garfield’s. In a footnote concerning Hopkins in The Collected Prose of Robert Frost, the editor formulates the quote as: “The ideal college is Mark Hopkins on one end of a log and a student at the other” (p. 266).

Since none of these sources either quote Garfield directly or provide a citation to his own writing or speeches, I turned to our own catalog, ABIGAIL, and called for a biography of Garfield from our reference collection.

Unfortunately, this didn’t exactly clear up the mystery.

Robert Granfield Caldwell’s James A Garfield: A Party Chieftain (1931), attributes the quote to another secondary source, B.A. Hinsdale’s President Garfield and Education (1882), and phrases it: “Give me a log hut, with only a simple bench, Mark Hopkins on one end and I on the other, and you may have all the buildings, apparatus and libraries without him” (p. 185). 


This citation appears to lead us back to a 4 February 1879 speech by Garfield before the National Education Association, the full text of which is reproduced in the Hinsdale publication. You can read it online at the Internet Archive. In his NEA address, Garfield articulated the idea in this way:

If I could be taken back into boyhood to-day, and had all the libraries and apparatus of a university, with ordinary routine professors, offered me on the one hand, and on the other a great, luminous, rich-souled man, such as Dr. Hopkins was twenty years ago, in a tent in the woods alone, I should say, ‘Give me Dr. Hopkins for my college course, rather than any university with only routine professors’ (338).

So now I have four dates upon which this sentiment was supposedly expressed (1871, 1872, 1879, and 1885) and as many venues (New York Alumni dinner, private correspondence, NEA address, and an unknown context for the 1885 attribution). 


What I find fascinating about all of these “quotations” is the aspects of the story that remain roughly constant: the presence of Hopkins, the image of one mentor and one student in dialogue, the language of wood: a log, a log bench, a rotten log, a tent in the woods. My speculative guess, based on the information I have in front of me, is that this was a well-worn anecdote that James Garfield told about his former professor in a number of settings, and that the image was such a striking one to his contemporaries that it was picked up and repeated over time with slight variation, like that game of telephone you’re forced to play as a child at birthday parties where you whisper a message from ear to ear around the circle and see whether the end result bears any resemblance to the original phrase.

So there you have it: an hour or two in the life of a reference librarian. 

four years ago today: "something like the five stages of grief"

24 Monday Oct 2011

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Part of an ongoing series of posts highlighting primary source material from my first semester at Simmons during the fall of 2007.


From: Anna
To: Janet
Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2007 at 2:51 PM
Subject: Mid-week touchstone 

Dear Mum, 

I’m sitting at the Mass Historical Society desk for the afternoon. Being here reminds me of all those hours I spent in middle school doing “homework” in the Holland Museum lobby, waiting for tourists to appear :).

This is my second full day at the MHS. This morning, I was photocopying papers, I turn to the next paper, and what do I see? A letter from M. Cary Thomas — turn of the century woman scholar, educated at Johns Hopkins, founder of Bryn Mawr college — written in her own hand when she was president of Bryn Mawr! Oh. My. God. It’s so surreal just to find something like that, and know once she was holding it, and then find myself putting it on the photocopier!

at the front desk of the MHS (October 2008)

It’s strange and not at all comfortable (given my personality) to be a novice at this job. I have certain skills to draw on, of course, but there is so much to learn in terms of the conventions of an archives versus a bookstore or library or museum. Particularly, there is so much more need to monitor the documents, since they are moving around the building — rather than in stable exhibits — and are one-of-a-kind, extremely rare items. So I am learning new procedures as well as the usual learning of everyone’s names, and where the bathrooms are located, and how to use the email system, etc.

I am enjoying it, although it’s been a rough few days physically, which puts a damper on my mood. While usually my cycle isn’t particularly taxing, it can be a bad combination if I’m already weary (which is just the general state of things this fall . . . I know it will be got through, but annoying while it lasts). Headaches, which lead to Excedrin which leads to insomnia, etc. Yesterday, I intentionally drank coffee like a fiend in the afternoon to keep myself going through my book review assignment (more below), so today I’m feeling rather hung over (and it’s a long day, with class this evening from 6-9). Whine whine whine. 

I wrote this book review, which for some unknown reason (or reasons) I’ve been dragging my heels about for three weeks and absolutely panicked about finishing. I think it became a convenient locus for my anxieties. For a few days, I couldn’t even think about the project without panicking and/or falling asleep (which is my physical defense mechanism–I literally can’t stay awake). And then, it came down to last night, when I was pretty willing to just blurt on paper and print it out to turn in. I didn’t even really proof it. Oh, well. Not my finest scholarly hour, but I sort of feel like I can afford to have an off-semester as I’m getting adjusted. I can’t imagine (my own hubris, I know) that an “off” semester will be anything worse than “B” work. And I know my history class — where I put my best energy — will be a clear “A” (again, hubris) so I’m not too anxious in terms of keeping my scholarships. 

I was thinking last night (haha) that my approach to academic projects is something like the five stages of grief: (1) I have totally unrealistic self-expectations about what I can get done and what I want to get done (denial); (2) when it becomes clear that I’m not going to get my ideal project done, I start resenting the project and the professor, and castigating myself for the unrealistic expectations (anger); (3) I debate internally with myself over what sort of project that’s less-than-ideal I can get done, and maybe argue with the professor about altering the assignment (bargaining); (4) if none of these approaches work, it’s time to start despairing about the entire educational system and wondering what I’m doing there, and imagining I will never complete the assignment and probably drop out of school (depression); (5) finally, when I get tired of feeling crummy and/or it gets down to the wire, I finally give up on the ideal project altogether and just patch something together (acceptance). 

The book I had to review was actually quite interesting, so I’m not entirely clear why I got hung up about it. It was on the history of passports, and there’s lots to say about the history of identity papers, and how they relate to actual persons, and how they connect persons to governments. Part of my problem was no doubt lack of FOCUS, which is usually provided for smaller assignments by class discussion and course readings–but in this case the assignment was poorly written and I just got off on a muddled foot.

I think, in general, it’s been like pulling teeth intellectually to focus on abstract intellectual ideas right now, with so many external changes going on. I’ve never been good at focusing in the best circumstances, which for me means an utterly non-distracting environment (why I can’t study in libraries, ironically enough, since they’re not spaces I can take for granted and ignore). Well, right now, my whole world is a distracting environment! So I feel lucky when I manage to have a more or less coherent thought that’s defined enough to put into a short response paper :).

I had coffee with Hanna Monday night — her initiative!! — which was really good, I think, and have “dates” scheduled with both her and G for next week. I realized that, even though I treasure the alone-time, I can get too wrapped up in my own self-critical monologues re: my graduate work, etc., when I spend every moment I’m not in class or at work by myself. It’s easy for me to forget that fellow students can actually bolster my mood and energize me (as well as reminding me how unrealistic my expectations for my own work might be :)!) since 90% of the time, they aren’t very helpful. But a few well-chosen comrades can make a difference. 

Happily, my own well-chosen comrades (H and G) are going to be in the same history class next semester, and have convinced me to be in it as well . . . so hopefully the collaborative energy will be exponentially enhanced :). G is also taking oral history, which I will be doing as well, so I’m looking forward very much to the spring. I’ll probably panic when the time comes, and go through the predictable cycle (see above) anyway, but right now I can idealize things to my hearts content! 

I really hope you and Dad are able to make a trip to Boston in the spring. I’m already haphazardly collecting little things to do . . . eg the Wednesday morning art tour at the MHS, which I was given privately today, and very much enjoyed; and a visit to the Brookline Booksmith, my favorite independent bookstore so far . . . apart of course, from showing you my own spaces, and the museums and lovely parks that abound. Hm, and places to eat! I walked past a pub this afternoon called “The Foggy Goggle” which I think is just begging to be tried! 

I was asking Dad about filling my levothyroxin prescription online; I may at some point soon ask if you could pick up a refill at Model Drug (where my current prescription is), unless it seems easy to get a new prescription from Krayshak’s office. Dad says it shouldn’t be difficult to send it out here. And I’d reimburse you, of course. 

North Hall, Simmons Residential Campus

Tonight is the first game of the world series, so the neighborhood is going to be bustling! Since I’m on foot, I don’t anticipate much trouble, and I live just far enough away that the noise doesn’t wake me up (living on the res campus, I think, insulates me from the street just enough).

That’s about all the news around here . . . I’m going to sign off and see if I can catch up on a couple of other emails before the end of my shift, 

Love, 
Anna

30 @ 30: work and vocation [#9]

21 Wednesday Sep 2011

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If I had wanted to be a librarian all my life, I suppose this could have been a much shorter blog post (and maybe I’d have been able to finish it for last Wednesday)! But actually, the decision to become a professional librarian came relatively late in my exploration of possible vocations. Looking back, that fact seems sort of inexplicable. After all, I grew up living a scant 1.5 blocks from the local public library and applied for my first library card the moment I could sign print my name. I even volunteered there as a child, honing my alphabetization skills by re-shelving the chapter books in the middle-grade fiction section one afternoon a week. It was a great way to discover new authors.

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Still, “librarian” didn’t make the cut as consistently as a number of other options on the what-do-you-want-to-be-when-you-grow-up? list. As I was just relating to a friend recently, when I was a wee child under the age of ten my most ardent desire was to become an actress in musical theater — my very first vinyl record was the Broadway cast recording of Annie Get Your Gun and you bet your bottom dollar I knew every word.

I also considered “lighthouse keeper” after seeing Pete’s Dragon at an impressionable age.

As I’ve written about previously, I always felt comfortable caring for young people and for a long time assumed that parenting and perhaps some sort of professional social work occupation were in my future. When I hit puberty and became fascinated with pregnancy and childbirth, I considered midwifery (and later doula training) as a possible option. I still think about this — the doula/midwifery thing — as a possible second career, though right now our family can’t really handle my taking on one more new thing.

Perhaps the most abiding vocational dream I had growing up was a vision of becoming a writer of fiction. I figured I might combine this with being a bookshop owner — preferably a picturesque bookshop by the seaside, complete with the bookshop cat(s) or dog(s), and a small apartment above the shop in which to live.

me (circa 1993)

After I started volunteering at the local history museum as an adolescent, the bookseller/author dream was joined by the possibility of becoming a museum curator, or perhaps working at a living history site somewhere (the romance of this only increased by Nancy Bond’s novel Another Shore in which the protagonist is sucked back in time through working at a living history village). This was how I ended up taking History classes in addition to English and Women’s Studies classes in college — and ultimately discovering my love of research and scholarly writing — and how I ended up being encouraged to consider graduate school as an option.

For someone who’d waffled about even attending undergraduate classes, graduate school was an idea that I was both flattered by (I had an incredible group of faculty mentors) and resistant to.

Which is actually how I ended up in library school. Mostly because I really didn’t want to apply for PhD programs. I knew I didn’t want to teach and by the time I graduated from college in 2005 I was fairly sure I didn’t want to get into the business of independent book selling — I just don’t have the business head for it. A year and a half in corporate book selling at Barnes & Noble was enough to tell me I’d go mad in that environment. I was good at the customer service side of things, but hated the corporate pressure to compete internally over sales and memberships and all that crap. Just — no. I couldn’t be bothered. Which would have meant not moving beyond part-time sales clerk, no matter how well I knew the stock.

Librarianship (alongside continuing my studies in history) seemed like a good way to compromise on all of these competing interests without closing any doors for good on my research or feminist interests. And if my present-day occupation(s) — including this blog — are anything to go by, I’d say the gamble has by-and-large paid off when it comes to quality of life and work-life balance. I have a job that I find intellectually stimulating and socially responsible. I realize that one (a satisfying, respectably-compensated job) doesn’t automatically follow from the other (an MLS degree), but putting one foot in front of the other in that general direction brought me to Boston and eventually brought me here.

But what does it mean, to me specifically, to be at this point where I have a professional job? What do my career choices (at this point in my life) say about how I think about the labor we perform? And what we are called to contribute to the world? I don’t have any pat answers to those big meta questions. But I do have a few observations.

I grew up in a home where what people did as paid employment didn’t define them. My mother worked in preschool education and went to college for English and Architecture before leaving the workforce to pursue full-time parenting. My father took his (still current) position as a bookstore manager before completing his BA and has remained in that job throughout his career. While he actively pursues professional development and has re-invented the role of the bookstore (and bookstore manager) several times over, it has never been who he is any more than being a full-time parent has been who my mother is. I could also introduce them, variously, as “cyclist,” “cartographer,” “calligrapher,” “fiber artist,” “writer,” etc. While we children were encouraged to follow our passions and do what we love, we were also not required to turn those loves into money-making work.

I believe in professional standards and ethics, but resist the hierarchy of professionalization. I’ve written about the issue of professionalization and one-ups-manship before on this blog (see here and here) and in a slightly different context over at Harpyness (see here). What it boils down to is that I value people’s knowledge and skill set, not their credentials — and I don’t trust the credentialing system to always give me accurate information about an individual’s abilities. I imagine this comes from being homeschooled. And to be frank, it also comes from having been through graduate school and seeing first-hand the work my fellow students were doing. Schooling doesn’t always equal expertise.

“Work” is not always synonymous with “vocation.” My job is to be a reference librarian. While I see that job as part of my vocation, it does not encompass it. I’m not precisely certain, at this juncture of my life, what my vocation is … but I believe I could pursue it in a number of different guises, librarian and blogger being only two of a myriad options.What’s my vocation? I was lying awake at 4am this morning trying to think about what aspects of my work I think of myself as being called to do in some sort of “I must do this or fail to thrive” sense. Writing and thinking about ideas certainly falls into that category. Cultivating and nurturing intimate relationships (sexual and non-sexual). Being conscious about the way my life choices effect others is another part of my answer to the question “how to live?” But none of this requires a particular type of job in order to pursue.

“Work” is also not separate from “life,” any more than “school” and “life” are mutually exclusive. Growing up outside of school, I find, has had an enduring effect on how I consider the dividing line between what I understand to be “work” and everything else. I don’t think that “work” and “play” have to be (or ideally should be) mutually exclusive categories. Nor do I think that “life” is something we should picture as being put on hold when we go to work. I realize that for the majority of paid employees, that is the reality — they aren’t allowed to be themselves in the workplace. But even when we work in shitty workplaces, that too is part of our lives rather than being something that puts our lives on hold.

While I do hold certain expectations that personal drama be kept from bleeding over into our workplace lives, I also don’t believe there are hard and fast rules about this. Sometimes shit happens, and sometimes it happens while we’re at work. While there are aspects of my non-work life I don’t feel interested in sharing with my colleagues (or really anyone outside my intimate circle), I also appreciate a workplace that recognizes I am a human being with a full life and interests that may fall outside of the scope of my job description.

At the same time, I don’t want work to be my life. I don’t want to be defined by my profession, and I don’t want my life to be dictated by it either. I’m lucky enough to have a boss that chastises me for checking my email at home (even if she does it herself), and who insists that I work my 35 hours/week and only that with rare exceptions (which are always acknowledged as exceptions). I appreciate that I can walk away from work at the end of the day and it doesn’t follow me home. I’m also grateful that there are times when my work is so interesting that I kinda wish I could take it home. But for the most part, I don’t. Because I want to make sure I leave room for my other (my vocational?) priorities.

So where am I headed from here? My bare minimum expectation for “success” as a worker is to have a job where I’m respected as a human being and as a laborer, a job that’s intellectually stimulating, fairly autonomously-directed (i.e. I have freedom to do my work independently), and a job that pays for good quality of life. I have that right now, which is a position of social privilege in these economic times. There are junctures when I wish we were a little more financially stable, or when I wish we had more discretionary income with which to travel or give gifts (see the upcoming installment “money”), but for now I am content.

Did I imagine this sort of work life when I was a child? Probably not (mostly because the internets were a thing of the future; I learned to use libraries when card catalogs were still, actually, card catalogs).

via

But I don’t think my child-self would be disappointed with where I’ve ended up thus far. Which I feel is about the highest form of praise I could ask for.

multimedia monday: archival conservation in action

01 Monday Aug 2011

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This is a bit of shameless workplace and colleague promotion!

The Massachusetts Historical Society has just released its second YouTube video, featuring our art curator Anne Bentley discussing the process of conserving Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia. It was directed and edited by my friend and colleague Heather Merrill.

You can view the digital version of Thomas Jefferson’s manuscript (which Anne talks about in the video) online at the Thomas Jefferson Papers Electronic Archive.

from the archive: round-up of beehive posts

08 Wednesday Jun 2011

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Seth Eastman on Dighton Rock
Courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society

Putting up the Picture of Jesus web video on Monday made me realize it’s been a while since I posted links to The Beehive, the official blog of the MHS, where I post occasionally on our shenanigans there as independent research library librarians. So here goes:

While not written by me, I’d like to share a post written by Laura Prieto, my thesis adviser and current research fellow at the MHS on some of the gems she has found during her time in the reading room: Research Fellow Finds More Than She is Looking for in Sarah Louisa Guild’s Diary.

And finally, Digital Projects Coordinator Nancy Heywood offers an historical perspective on tornadoes in Massachusetts, in light of last week’s storm system which brought with it funnel clouds and caused four deaths across the state: Tornado Strikes Worcester County in 1953.

Follow The Beehive directly if you’re interested in more frequent updates on the goings-on of a bustling library and archive. School may be out for the summer, meaning a break for students and teachers alike, but that usually signals the beginning of our busy season as vacationing genealogists, academics, research fellows, and casual visitors, descend to get the type of history fix that just isn’t available via Masterpiece Classics!

multimedia monday: photograph of jesus

06 Monday Jun 2011

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It’s been awhile since I posted a multimedia Monday post. This one is courtesy of my friend Heather, who is a former colleague at the MHS and now works in documentary film-making. While at the MHS, she worked on processing image permission requests (a job I now handle), so when she saw this film she figured it had my name all over it. I particularly love the stop-motion animation approach the film-maker used.

I can’t say I’ve received a request for a photograph of Jesus … yet. But I’ve only been working on image permissions for five months, so I figure it’s only a matter of time.

You can read more about the context in which the film was made on Vimeo.

from the archives: fun with reenactment photography

14 Thursday Apr 2011

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Some things never change.

This passed week at the MHS, some colleagues and I posed for mock Victorian daguerreotype photographs to promote our new photography exhibit on the blog. Here I am with my awesome boss, Elaine:

Anna (standing) and Elaine (seated)
at the MHS, April 2011

(The shawls are courtesy of Hanna‘s mom Linda.)

When I sent the blog post to my mother she responded by digging out these photographs, circa. 1988, when we created our own mock portrait studio and spent an afternoon posing for Edwardian-era black and white photographs.

Yes, before you ask, we were indeed that sort of homeschooling family.

Anna (age 7)
Brian (age 4)
Maggie (age 1)

from the archives: links round-up

15 Tuesday Mar 2011

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MHS (front view)

I’ve done a handful of posts for the Beehive recently about activities going on at the MHS and I thought I’d share them here for interested readers.

In February, we welcomed our third new library assistant of the year, Dan Hinchen, a former MHS intern. Thanks to the speed with which our new folks are learning, the library staff will be a well-oiled machine by the time our busy summer season rolls around.

I was lucky enough to recieve an advance review copy of Neil Miller’s book Banned in Boston, which tells the story of the New England Watch & Ward Society — a privately-funded organization that, throughout the early 20th century, had tacit permission from local, state, and federal officials to police “obscenity” throughout the Northeast.  Some of Miller’s primary sources are held here at the Society and I wrote a post about one of those collections, the Godfrey Lowell Cabot papers. I’m also planning a future Object of the Month display around one of the items in this collection I didn’t talk about: the deposition of a woman named Nellie Keefe who describes being sexually assaulted by a doctor whom she had sought out to treat her “nerves.”

I attended two brown bag lunch talks during the first week of March. The first was a presentation by staff from the Adams papers about the Adams family’s response to the French Revolution. The second was delivered by short-term fellow Mary Kelley, from the University of Michigan, who discussed her current research into how reading and writing practices operated to mediate kinship and friendship ties in the Early Republic. Post link to come in the next “from the archives” installment (since I was dilatory in writing it up).

As Mary Kelley was leaving us, another short-term fellow, Brian Gratton, arrived from Arizona State University to begin his work on Senator Henry Cabot Lodge and immigration restriction during the early twentieth century. Watch for a write-up of his brown bag discussion in the next round-up.

from the archives: the 1920s culture war

08 Tuesday Feb 2011

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Over at the Massachusetts Historical Society website, the object of the month for February 2011 is an item I selected and wrote up. The object is a letter from a conservative Nebraska clergyman to an anticommunist, antifeminist political activist who lived in Massachusetts. Reverand Birmingham wrote Margaret Robinson in hopes that the two might work together to combat the evils of women’s higher education:

In May of 1923, conservative evangelical minister, author, and lecturer Thomas M. C. Birmingham saw a brief announcement in an Omaha newspaper, describing a lecture given by Margaret C. Robinson, president of the Massachusetts Public Interests League, on the “radical propaganda” Robinson and her fellow activists believed was being disseminated in women’s colleges.

Professors at women’s colleges such as Bryn Mawr, Smith, and Wellesley, Robinson argued, were turning “wholesome American girl[s]” away from patriotism and the Constitution, preaching “Communist sex standards,” calling the literal truth of the Bible into question, and exposing young women to the theories of Freud and Marx.  As a result, unsuspecting parents sent their daughters off to college and watched in horror as their child was transformed into “an undesirable type of citizen.”

This message resonated with Birmingham, who wrote to Robinson, suggesting that the two activists might find “mutual helpfulness” in an alliance to “stamp out radicalism.”

You can read the rest of my write-up and a full transcript of the two-page letter over at the MHS object of the month page.

The MHS is known for its 18th and 19th Century American holdings, and it has long had a reputation for holding documents related to the New England elite. Part of what I’m trying to bring to my work as a reference librarian is greater knowledge of the ways in which the MHS collections can inform research in less-obvious areas (i.e. my own areas of interest!) such as the history of sexuality, the history of gender, history of activism (left, right, and center) and 20th-century subjects. 

I picked this letter a few months ago to research and write up because I think it’s valuable to remember that folks like those in the Tea Party movement are not the first populist conservative activists to wrestle with their more progressive adversaries over what it means to be an American and what exactly constitutes American values. I’m also fascinated by antifeminist women and how they understand themselves in relation to gender and women’s rights movements. Female activists who campaigned against feminism while deploying tactics and rhetoric similar to their feminist contemporaries can further our understanding of how individuals understand their own gender identity and how gender roles relate to the state and social order.

Anyway. Hop on over to the MHS website and check out the whole thing.

from the archives: reflections on month-the-first

03 Thursday Feb 2011

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I’ve been in my new position at the Massachusetts Historical Society for about a month now, and things are still a mix of old and new. In part because I’m still part of the library staff, and the substantial (and most important!) part of my job hasn’t changed: I spend my days helping patrons find the stuff that will help meet, in the jargon of the library science world, their “information needs.” You can read about some of the folks we’ve had in this month over at The Beehive (the MHS blog):

Local Researcher Uses MHS to Populate Wikipedia Pages | 2011-01-28

Our Youngest Researcher | 2011-01-14

Alexander Kluger Presents at Brown Bag Lunch | 2011-01-13

Welcome Short-term Fellow Mary Kelley | 2011-01-12

In addition to my regular duties, I am now the coordinator of the image permissions requests that (surprisingly often!) come in from researchers who are seeking to reproduce photographs, artifacts, documents, maps, etc., in their soon-to-be-published books, articles, online websites, and exhibitions. Soon, I’ll be taking on the the citation permissions as well (when folks write simply to quote an unpublished document rather than visually reproduce it).

For the month February, we’re looking forward to welcoming two new staff members onto the library team, part-time library assistants who will be taking on the responsibilities I held as a part-timer myself. We’re looking forward to being fully-staffed again after six weeks of being down two staff members. More to come as the adventure continues!