Category Archives: research

The End (Or Project Reflections and Defending the Contract)

Century America, contract defense, Digital History, Hist 1914, project contracts, reflections, research, the great war

As I sit here typing this, I’m in the middle of making some edits on our site and I can’t believe my Century America experience is almost over. I’m graduating in a little over a week and soon I will be on to my next adventure. For now though, I have some school work to attend to and finish up.

Everytime I go onto our site to correct errors and make changes to our content, I feel extremely proud of the work Colm and I have accomplished this semester. It’s been stressful and frustrating at times, but it’s also been an incredibly rewarding experience and I’ve learned a lot about the world of digital history. It was great to get back into the archives and do hands on research, too.

When it all comes down to it, this journey was a trial and error process. I’m incredibly pleased with the way our site turned out, but the journey to get to this point involved straying from the contract and ultimately figuring out what do with the website that was in our best interest as a team with the amount of time we had. Initially, we were going have a “Highlights” and “Full Report” page. The home page would provide links to both pages and it would be the first thing viewers would see when they came to the site.

The “Highlights” page was initially meant to be a platform for people interested in learning about our research without having to read through the full report. It was going to allow people a quick run down of the material that wouldn’t necessarily be as enriching, but would be just as interesting. That page ended up involving into what we called our “Getting Started” page in our first website draft. All it had on it was a few key points from both the Stevens County section and the West Central School of Agriculture section, and a map. It transformed from a run down of the material to an introduction, and it was not being used effectively at all. With more time and a better understanding of digital technologies, I think we could have made an effective use of the “Highlights” page. However, after negative feedback from Drs. McClurken and Pearson and the rest of the class, we decided to scrape the page all together. The “Highlights” and “Full Report” pages were completely taken out and visitors are now immediately greeted with links to the Stevens County section and the West Central School section on the home page.

All in all, this makes much more sense and makes the whole website more accessible to viewers. I’m happy with the way it looks. It would have been neat to integrate a successful highlights page, but Colm and I may have been a bit in over our heads when we included that in the contract initially.

When it comes down to research, I felt like I got started on it later than I would have liked and I ended up having some setbacks along the way–my car wouldn’t start because of the cold here in Minnesota and I was unable to make it to the museum for a couple weeks, which I was worried would set my research back a lot. Fortunately, despite my worries, everything turned out okay. I am proud of all the sources I’ve gathered at both the Stevens County Historical Museum and the on- campus archives at UMM. We had put March 20 as the date that all research was to be completed, and I made sure to be done by then. That said, an opportunity–when the archivist on campus ended up coming across some relevant Morris Tribune articles from the time period–came up later. I took advantage of that opportunity because I wanted to see if there was any more useful information I could garner–which there was–and it was a rather small stack of newspaper copies in the first place.

In terms of general timeline things, I can’t speak for Colm on his research, since we did much of it separately, but I believe I upheld everything on the timeline quite well.

Division of labor remained the same, except Colm and I ended up working on the home page together–it was initially given to Colm as a task, but it just ended up working as a team effort. Colm chose, edited, and uploaded the pictures and I wrote the text.

Much of our project contract is built off of our idea of the “Highlights” and “Full Reports” pages, so it does look much different from what eventually resulted in the final project. Other than that, I believe I’ve upheld my side of the contract rather well. All the pages I said would be created for the WCSA side of the site were created and I’m really proud of the way they turned out. We did say we were going to use a commenting tool, however that didn’t happen–which I think is for the best, as I really like the way the site looks as it is and I fear comments would detract from that.

This project was quite the journey. It was an adventure to utilize digital media in class and in video conferencing into class every week. Technology glitches happened more than occasionally and they were just something we had to accept as a class–it always made for a much more interesting hour and fifteen minutes, that’s for sure! I had so much fun learning about the West Central School of Agriculture and I truly feel a stronger appreciation for UMM’s campus history now that I have all this knowledge about it from the Great War period. This journey wasn’t always easy and mistakes were made, but I’m incredibly proud of the website Colm and I have put together and I hope the citizens of Stevens County, as well as anyone who stumbles across it on the web, enjoys it too.

 

Errors Caught and Lessons Learned

Century America, Digital History, error, Hist 1914, historical research, mistakes, Morris Minnesota, research, research error, the great war, West Central School of Agriculture

Earlier today, when I came into work, my boss at the archives gave me some copies of old articles of the Morris Tribune from 1917-1919 that he had recently come across.

Although I’ve considered myself formally done with my research for a few weeks now–I mean, our website is due next week–I was grateful that he thought of the project. I decided they might have some nice information in them to beef up my existing pages on the website. I never got around to looking at the newspapers when I did my initial research, though it probably would have been a good idea.

Good thing I decided to take a look, too: as I was looking through the articles related to the West Central School of Agriculture, I came across a glaring error in my research.

One of the articles reported that in 1917, 150 students were enrolled in the school, a thirty-five student increase from the previous year.

This was all fine and dandy until I realized I had documented and included on one of my website pages that there were 500 students by 1914. This could not be correct! The math did not add up. 500 in 1914 and 150 in 1917? No, that was impossible! The source I got the 500 number from was The Great War documentary created by the Stevens County Historical Society. I’m not sure if I wrote down the numbers wrong when I was watching the movie or if they reported inaccurate information in the film.

Regardless, I found myself freaking out because I didn’t want to be responsible for shoddy historical research! As I thought about it more, I realized that the small size of the campus couldn’t have even supported 500 students in 1914. The two residents halls weren’t big enough  (The Boys Dormitory, which is currently known as the upper-class residence hall, Spooner Hall, only houses up to 90 students today) and the few other ill-equipped buildings on campus in 1914 couldn’t have sustained such large numbers. As I found out by looking through more of the articles, by the 1918 school year, the school was in dire need of overflow housing with close to 200 students. Furthermore, the 1914 Moccasin, which I did look through early on in my research, had relatively small class sizes with nowhere near 500 students in the whole school. I should have been skeptical of the 500 number from the start.

I’m so glad I was able to look through these articles and catch this mistake. I haven’t changed it on the website yet, but I will soon.

I’m taking this as a lesson–to be more careful with my source information in the future and to question information that doesn’t seem right from the beginning. After all, this is a learning experience. Although I’ve done historical research before, I’m still learning. We all make mistakes and this is one I’m definitely going to keep in mind for the future.

 

 

Business as Usual

Century America, Digital History, Hist 1914, local history, minnesota, Minnesota History, Morris Minnesota, research, Stevens County, the great war, West Central School of Agriculture, World War I

Well, yeah, I guess.

Today I went to the museum in town to watch the World War I documentary that they made last year. Colm told me about it ages ago, though I forgot about it; he reminded me that it existed when we were both doing research over there on Friday.

I decided I might as well get around to watching it. Even though I’m focusing on the WCSA specifically, I figured it was a good idea to know what was going on in the county during the Great War period. I mean, the WCSA is apart of Stevens County…also, I figured I might find some useful information.

A lot of the information presented in the documentary was as I expected, just from my general knowledge of Minnesota history during the war and what I’ve been hearing from Colm about his research. I did find out a few useful things to add to my portion of the site. For one, the WCSA hosted a HUGE patriotic rally in August 1917 after the U.S. joined the war. There was a huge push for patriotism through Minnesota specifically with the Commission of Public safety, and a few local names associated with the Commission also had connections at the school. People from all over the county came and it was a big deal. Furthermore, I was made aware of Florence Hulett, the registered nurse at the WCSA before the war. A graduate of the University of Minnesota School of Nursing, she enlisted to serve overseas as a nurse once the U.S. joined the war. I’m going to get in touch with museum to see if they have a picture I could use for her on the site, since I would like to insert a little bit about her into the War narrative since she was a WCSA staff member.

Generally speaking, I’m glad I went to watch the documentary today. It gave me a bit more confidence as I dive into more writing tonight and I did discover some useful information. Really, I should have gone to watch it ages ago!

Now, on to more writing…

Research and Website Update

Century America, delay, Digital History, Hist 1914, minnesota, morris, museum, research, Research Updates, spring break, travel, updates, WCSA, Website

Hey all,

Since I wasn’t in class last week, I thought I’d take some time to update you on where the Morris group is on our site.

I admit that I haven’t done a whole lot lately. I went on a really amazing spring break trip and let me tell you, it was much needed. I was definitely feeling the mid-semester slump (especially because it’s senior year) and my road trip was a fantastic refresher. However, road trip with friends meant little time for school work. I didn’t bring my computer with me to keep my travel load lighter, so therefore didn’t have access to my school e-mail. I naturally didn’t get any research done.

Never fear, though! The museum has been yielding some wonderful sources for me in regards to the WCSA and I’m going to be finishing up research there this week. I’m excited for the last minute resources that I’ll be able to find and I’m confident I’ll have plenty of information to fill up my portion of the site.

Our site doesn’t have a whole lot on it yet, but the skeleton will be completed in the next couple days. I’m going to start writing up some text for the site this week and Colm and I will have all of our images uploaded to a shared online drive by Friday.

Spring break caused a bit of a delay for the Morris group and I do have a lot to catch up on, but now that I’m refreshed and ready to tackle the rest of the semester, I’m confident everything will work out smoothly and as planned.

Stay tuned for more soon!

Responding to Some Readings and Stuff

composition studies, digital learning, Hist 1914, pedagogy, Reading Responses, research, West Central School of Agriculture

For our class readings tomorrow, I was drawn into a piece on Writing History in the Digital Age that was similar in content to research I had done last semester in a composition studies course, research that I will be presenting in April at our Undergraduate Research Symposium on campus. Composition studies is fantastic, for the record, and everyone should take a comp studies class at some point. That’s just my two cents, though it’s beside the point. Anyways, what’s important is the research I completed in my class. My topic? To create a new, writing based pedagogy for lower-level history courses that focuses on developing critical thinking skills. The traditional introductory survey course in history is lecture based with little chance for writing or critical thinking and my proposed pedagogy incorporates both, utilizing writing as a tool to develop critical thinking skills, specifically those skills that are necessary for learning to think like a historian.

Naturally, with this in mind, I was drawn to the piece in Part 3 entitled, “Towards Teaching the Introductory History Course, Digitally.”

I read the first paragraph and immediately and excitedly thought, THAT SOUNDS LIKE MY UNDERSTANDING WRITING PROJECT PART II!!!!!!!! (I may have gotten a little too excited, there). But truthfully, just from the first paragraph, it did. I didn’t focus at all on incorporating digital learning into my new pedagogy, which makes sense as I was focusing more so on writing; with this essay, I was thrilled to start thinking about my own research a little differently, with the digital-based pedagogy presented here.

I was initially really intrigued by this essay because of the very obvious connections between it and my comp studies research. However, it more importantly got me thinking about the Century America class in a new way. I always knew what I was doing for this class was a wholly unique experience. Although I’ve done archival research before, I have zero experience with creating a website, besides the extremely user friendly wordpress.com, where my personal blog is located. But seriously, you don’t even need to worry about HTML over at wordpress.com, though you can if you want. So, though I’m thankful to have basic WordPress knowledge because of my personal blog, this whole building a website business is pretty daunting.

Generally speaking, I feel that we here in Hist 1914 are being exposed to the same pedagogical opportunities presented in Harbison and Waltzer’s essay, albeit a little differently: we are certainly being active as we write on our own blogs and prepare to create our own website. Bringing the ideas we discover in the processes of blogging and website planning to our virtual classroom adds for a much more enriching experience. In blogging, we are being social. We are encouraged to comment on each other’s blogs and we are engaging with the rest of the interweb on these public blogs. Because our blogs, and eventually websites, are public, we are being open with who we interact with and how we interact with them. We have learned about copyright and are aware of the procedures we must go through to abide copyright laws, in order to maintain successful public sites. Our sites will, undoubtedly, be media rich, as we incorporate and embed pictures, maps, and timelines into our project. There is certainly a lot of metacognition going on, as we actively consider the way are websites will be planned out and how we will arrange the layout and the pages to best convey our messages. Lastly, this is certainly one of the most immersive experiences I’ve personally had at the college level. As Harbison and Waltzer state, “The publishing environment enriches the class as a laboratory does in the hard sciences. It gives students hands-on experience with the skills of the historical trade, especially analyzing primary documents.” Not only are we learning how to become better historians in this class, but we are also learning a wide variety of technological skills that will undoubtedly help us later on in life, regardless of where our paths take us after college, in this world of increasingly technology that we are living in.

So, not only does “Towards Teaching the Introductory History Course, Digitally,” have a lot in common with my comp studies research, but it also reinforces a lot of what we are learning in Hist 1914. Though I wouldn’t consider Hist 1914 to be an introductory course, these skills are invaluable to practice throughout the college experience. I’m thankful I’ve had the opportunity to learn from this course in that respect. I guess my extensive ramble about comp studies is my yay for liberal arts moment? I mean, I love making connections between classes! Okay, anyway, onward to the next point…

The other article I looked at was The Future of American History from Perspectives on History. Hochstadt focuses in on some really important aspects of the teaching of American History, how focusing in on historically underrepresented groups is imperative for fully understanding history as a whole. History cannot and should not be told from one perspective (i.e. the white, upper class male perspective). While not specifically related to digital history, I did appreciate this essay for reinforcing a lot of what I have been exposed to throughout my college education in history. The new pedagogies that are including the histories of this underrepresented groups are invaluable for the future of historical education. I thought a bit about how this article could help me in my own research for this class and thought about how, though the story of the WCSA during the World War I era isn’t necessarily the story of underrepresented individuals–unless you count the women students there–it is a story that is invaluable for further understanding the time period in its own right; in focusing my part of the website in on the WCSA, I am adding to an American History that is continually expanding as more information is being discovered and more perspectives are being shared and analyzed with the historical community.

And so ends my offering of reading response insights for the day.

Weather Setbacks and Research Advances

1910s, architecture, buildings, growing WCSA, minnesota winters, research, setbacks, WCSA, weather, World War I era

Drat Minnesota winters for ruining plans and pushing back research!

I was planning to be at the museum researching now. I went in on Friday and was so excited to go back today to look for more.

Alas, my car won’t start. And it’s too cold to walk. And even if it wasn’t too cold to walk, it closes at 5 and I would have barely had time to get anything done by the time I got there (I get out of class at 3:40).

Thankfully, I have materials to work with. I ended up spending my time on Friday going through a lot of pictures. Unfortunately, the majority of them weren’t helpful because the majority of them weren’t dated. There were many pictures from the 40s and 50s and it was obvious to distinguish those from the clothing students were wearing, and in some cases, the cars. However, I could not be certain if many of the pictures that I thought could work for my purposes came from the late 1910s or the early 1920s. With a lack of context, I’m not sure how useful they would be anyhow.

There were, however, a few pictures that turned out to be useful. Mainly, a few very important images of campus buildings. I could place even the pictures that weren’t dated of some of these buildings into the pre-war and war eras of the 1910s because many of them were larger copies of photos in The Moccasins from those years. Pictures with unpaved streets could be dated to the very early 1910s.

With these images, I started to think about my research in a different way–that is, not just focusing on the war itself and its impact on the WCSA, but the WCSA as its own entity.

The 1910s were years of building and expansion for the WCSA. The majority of the buildings that have become fundamental architecture round the UMM campus mall–the central outdoor meeting spot of campus (well, at least when it’s nice out) were built in the 1910s. These buildings that I take for granted as being part of the beauty of this campus that I love so much…this time period marks their beginnings. For the WCSA, they were signs of a bright future, a sign of progress as the campus transformed from a small school that lacked the appropriate resources to be considered a true agricultural school, to a formidable institution of agricultural learning in Western Minnesota. Camden Hall, which houses the division of the social sciences on the current UMM campus, and Spooner Hall, UMM’s upperclassmen residence hall, were built in 1912 and 1913 respectively as a girls dormitory and a boys dorimitory. Behmler Hall, which now houses all sorts of administrative offices (including the Chancellor’s offices) was built in 1918 as the WCSA dining hall, replacing an large farm-house style building from the Indian Boarding School days.

As cheesy as it might sound, I found myself connecting to these buildings even more after recognizing that they were built during this time period that I am researching. Never before have I stopped to consider the history of these buildings as closely as I am now.

While I’m excited to get back into the museum to see what else the museum archives have to offer–there are three big boxes in the archives that I can’t wait to explore–I’m really thrilled to add this bit of information regarding these buildings to my research. I’m kind of astounded that I didn’t realize that all these buildings were going up at this time in the first place. After all, I knew the general history of when the WCSA was founded and that many of the buildings on the current UMM campus went up in the decade or two after that. Sometimes the obvious isn’t so obvious, I guess. This general history, though, is exceptiaonlly important in understanding  the nature of the WCSA as a growing enttity during the war years of the 1910s.

A further bonus? Colm and I are free to put up any of the pictures from the museum up on our website as long as we credit them for the images. I’m pretty thrilled about that. :)

Now I just need to make sure I can get my car jumped by Friday…I’ll have the whole afternoon free for research and don’t want it to go to waist because my car wont start!

Chugging Along

admissions materials, Century America, exciting, Hist 1914, mn, morris, museum, new findings, research, the great war, West Central School of Agriculture, World War I,

Research is rollling along. I meant to call the museum on Friday, but ended up getting busy with something else and completely forgot. I finally remembered to call them yesterday and ended up having to leave a message for them. I’m going to try again tomorrow and hopefully I’ll be able to get in touch with someone. Last spring when I was doing my honors capstone project, which focused on the early day of Morris in the 1880s, I got in touch with a woman who knew an extensive amount about Morris’ history. She moved to Morris in the 1950’s and has been involved with the museum for quite some time. I’m thinking she might be a good resource to talk about the war with. If not her, I’m sure there are other older folks in the area who would love to share their knowledge; the museum will be a great resource for that, since there seems to be a pretty tight community of older folks there who are passionate about local history.

At the archives, I keep finding more and more useful information in the ledger book from the West Central School of Agriculture.

Yesterday, I was looking through pamphlets that were sent out to prospective students during the summer and fall of 1918. The term didn’t start until October, so these pamphlets range from July to September. Just as college admissions teams do today, these pamphlets were meant to persuade prospective students and parents of all the benefits of the West Central School of Agriculture, what makes it better than other colleges. An emphasis was placed on the modernity of the campus–new facilities that made learning the most enriching experience possible–and the excellent faculty and staff.

More importantly for my interests, there was a huge focus placed on the importance of agriculture in a war-torn world that needed food, and an emphasis on the benefits of education to support the war effort. I am so excited about these, since much of what I had been finding so far in relationship to the WCSA has been about the Spanish Influenza. The Influenza sources are great materials and I’m looking forward to using them, but I was really looking forward to finding information regarding how the war affected the WCSA. Now I am, and that’s great!

That’s research news for me so far. Heading back into the archives tomorrow and I NEED to call the museum. I’ve been so excited about my archives findings that the museum kind of slipped my mind after I wasn’t able to get through to them yesterday. Note to self: c’mon Britta, get your act together and call that museum!

In other news, I continue to be highly amused by all the spam I’ve been getting for this site. My most favorite one of late? Yes! Finally someone writes about best dating sites. Oh, man they hit it right on the nail. That’s exactly the purpose of this blog…

Research 3

Mount Empire, Musings, research, UVA-Wise

Hello World

I got to explore a entirely new archives and visit a new college in my area!

I arranged with my advisor ages ago to go to Mount Empire Community College and Friday I was finally able to drive over there. I was happy to find that it only took me about twenty minutes. So I can go there more often and not have to worry about ranging gas costs.

Once I arrived there and found my way to the library. (I was hopeless lost for a good bit until I found the Human Resource Department, who nicely pointed me in the right direction). I entered to find that Mount Empire’s library was structured a lot different then UVA-Wise. For one, they have mental detectors. For another, the lighting is kinda of mysterious and old-age.

I waltzed my way over to the front desk and was able to find a student aide who got the main librarian. When he (the main librarian) heard what I was there about—the Wise Historical Society artifacts; he lead me to two very very big filing cabinets and a microfilm room.

He sounded apologetic when he told me I’d have to look through most of the files piece by piece. As he had no idea what all they had acquired. I however assured him, that I wasn’t bothered. I would just have to make sure to come back several times to see what all I could find. He was able to tell me that before I put anything up on Dakota and I’s future site, we would need to get permission from the Wise County Historical Society as they still retained the copyright to all the files. So that was helpful and reassuring.

Yesterday I only got through two drawers. But I was able to find some bonds  awarded to a company in Wise in 1911 and a directory of Historical Societies in Wise County. I wrote the societies down and took pictures of the bonds.

I was happy with those finds. Even if I’m not sure how to work the bonds into the website. At least it showed me that the Wise Historical Society does have some things from the time Dakota and I are looking into.

Thought next time he is coming too, so we can cover ground faster.

Until next time.

-Victoria

Present Findings—

Multiple Newspaper Articles. (From UVA-Wise Library microfilm).

Photos of soldiers (From Dickenson County Historical Society)

Photos from Looking Back at Wise County The Early Years

Information from The Heritage of Wise Volume One and Volume Two

Photo of the memorial featured from Dickenson Memorial High School

Booklet about Wise County during World War One

Booklet about Dickenson County during World War One

Pictures of a Bond from 1911

Future Research—

More research on Mount Empire and the Wise Historical Society artifacts

UVA-Wise special collections

Napoleon Hill Foundation (Sent email; still waiting for a conformation)

Big Stone Gap Public Library

Russell County

Lee County

Washington County

South-west Virginia Museum

Old Dickenson County Newspapers (Microfilm from Library of Virginia)

Microfilm of the muster roll of Wise County from the Library of Virginia

Questionnaires of soldiers from the Library of Virginia

Research 2

Dickenson County, Musings, research

Hello World.

Sorry for not getting back to you sooner, things have been chaotic here. What with snow and classes along with ROTC events. But I have finally found some time to update you guys on what has been going on in relation to my research.

So last Wednesday, Dakota and I went to the Dickenson Historical Society. I arrived there with high hopes since I had found a booklet detailing Dickenson County’s involvement with the war written by a historian who had started the Dickenson Historical Society.

When first entering the place, I was at first awed by the amount of pictures on the walls of numerous soldiers of different eras. Then I was awed by the pleasant surprise that the women I had previously only been in telephone contact with, was the co-owner of the historical society.

She greeted me and we got to work. Through her I was able to get the names of some old newspapers that she knew for a fact were located at the Library of Virginia on microfilm. I’m going to arrange to have those sent to me tomorrow.

I was also able to see her first hand research on the Dickenson Memorial Plaque of World War One. She was even kind enough to allow me to copy the photos of the soldiers who were featured. Below their stories were short snippets of their lives which will be wonderful to put on the website.

Besides, newspapers and monuments, I was able to catch a glimpse of books that may be of help in our search. Including…wait for it, The Heritage of Dickenson County Volume One (Where does that seem similar…humm).  Other books were Pine Straws: A Collection of Appalachian Stories and The Pioneer Book.

So all in all, I was very happy with the Dickenson Historical Society and its patrons. I want to place a thank you on this blog to them and all the others that have supported Dakota and I so far in our research.

Next Stop- Mount Empire College                                                                                                 (As long as the roads stay good and don’t slick up with ice)

Thanks for reading. Until next time.

-Victoria

Present Findings—

Multiple Newspaper Articles. (From UVA-Wise Library microfilm).

Photos of soldiers (From Dickenson County Historical Society)

Photos from Looking Back at Wise County The Early Years

Information from The Heritage of Wise Volume One and Volume Two

Photo of the memorial featured from Dickenson Memorial High School

Booklet about Wise County during World War One

Booklet about Dickenson County during World War One

Future Research—

Mount Empire and the Wise Historical Society artifacts located there.

UVA-Wise special collections

Napoleon Hill Foundation (Sent email; waiting for conformation)

Big Stone Gap Public Library

Russell County

Lee County

Washington County

South-west Virginia Museum

Old Dickenson County Newspapers (Microfilm from Library of Virginia)

Microfilm of the muster roll of Wise County from the Library of Virginia

Questionnaires of soldiers from the Library of Virginia

 

Research Musings and Updates

campus history, Hist 1914, Musings, research, UMM, updates, WCSA,

I’ve been meaning to write this post for about a week.

I meant to write up a post last week after some exciting findings at the archives, however I realized I forgot to copy the files of all the items I had scanned into the computer there to my jump drive.

Although I could have gone ahead and written a post regardless, I wanted to reference some of the materials for a more detailed post so decided to wait until I had them copied to my computer.

This week got busy and so here I am, finally finding time today.

Last Friday was my most exciting day at the archives. I finally felt like I was getting somewhere in my research after a few visits of dead ends and frustration.

Although I feel very fortunate that I am able to get into the archives after hours, the negative side of that is not having any guidance. UMM’s archive is divided into two seconds–the history of UMM and the West Central Minnesota Historical Research Section area. I know the UMM section pretty well since those are the materials I work with as an student archives worker. However, since UMM was founded in 1960, those materials aren’t going to be be useful to me. It is the West Central Minnesota Historical Research Section area that I’m most interested in and it also happens to be the area that I know nothing about.

Well, I shouldn’t say that. Through my days there researching, I’ve gotten to know what’s there pretty well. I was basically told I could look through whatever I want to, so I’ve been rifling through a lot of materials at my leisure and having some hits but also a lot of misses.

My best finds have been in the WCSA yearbooks, particularly the 1919 yearbook.

The 1919 Moccasin (the title of the WCSA yearbook) is filled to the brim with so much information. It felt like the jackpot in really allowing me to gauge student feelings during this time period.

I had been getting really frustrated because the 1917 and 1918 yearbooks yielded nothing war-related. I was astounded that the students didn’t have anything to say about the war during those years when I’m sure it affected them quite a lot, at least indirectly, out here on the prairie. The Minnesota Commission of Public Safety was ruthless in promoting patriotism and in weeding out the supposed “traitors” throughout Minnesota in order to set them straight. The Non Partisan League–a well-known political organization that exhibited anti-war sentiments–was also really active out here in this section of Minnesota also. I would not be surprised if the Commission of Public Safety and the NPL butted heads out here on this side of the prairie.

Upon realizing that the Moccasin went to print in February, it made sense to me that the 1917 yearbook yielded no information about the war. War wasn’t declared until April, after all.

The 1918 yearbook though, puzzled me. Then again, as a college student, I’ve found it’s really easy to become disconnected to the outside world while focusing on my studies and such. Perhaps the WCSA students had a similar experience when the war was going on. Or maybe, they were too caught up in digesting all the changes that the war brought to them at home that they chose not to concentrate on it in the yearbook because it was just too much. Of course, this is all speculation and I’m not really sure either way.

What distinguished the 1919 yearbook from 1917 and 1918 was not only the content, but also the nature of that content. The 1919 yearbook had a really nice memorial to the WCSA students–past and present–who fought in the war, as well as a short history of what the WCSA students were up to during the war.

The majority of the content that I was interested in, though, focused on the the Spanish influenza. There were numerous references to how the influenza affected the student population–the influenza reached Western Minnesota in the fall of 1919, which pushed back the beginning of the semester; football season wasn’t able to happen that year, and it got the year off to a bit of jarring start for the WCSA students.

The most interesting part of the 1919 Moccasin, though, was an abundance of quips and cartoons that made light of the influenza.

We do this all the time today. A terrible thing happens and we use humor to help us cope with the horribleness. Well, the WCSA students were doing this too; responding to this terrible influenza epidemic in the aftermath of an extremely influential war with a humor that at first seemed a little out of place to me–until I remembered that humor can sometimes be an extremely effective way of coping.

Here are some examples:

1919 Flu comic 2

All on account of ‘fluenza

 

 

1919 quips

“Perhaps his nose doesn’t fit the mask”

 

1919 last will

“Earl Leaf….All the flu makes worn by us during the epidemic”

I love how these little quips and cartoons say so much about the WCSA students at the time. Then again, this might just be the sense of humor of the editors showing, but I do get the sense that the editors were made an effort to include all students in the yearbook in some way, shape or form. Regardless, it does give a glimpse into the way some of the students reacted to the influenza, at least.

Furthermore, in really delving into the content of this yearbook, I felt as if I got to know the WCSA class of 1919 a little bit more. My favorite party of history is those personal stories, and I was really able to get an idea of some of the student’s stories while going through this yearbook.

I still have a lot more to look through in the archives. I am currently sifting through oral histories; yesterday I found an oral history from a World War I veteran and I hope to find some more regarding the war during the home front.

I am eager to find more WCSA materials regarding the war, since that is what I realized I’m really interested in for this project. The campus archivist has a really great source that he intends to get to me one of these days, though he can’t seem to locate it at the moment. I really hope he does soon, since, from my understanding at least, it seems to be a collection of recollections from WCSA students during the war period.

I haven’t talked to Colm in a little bit, though I intend to sometime this weekend in order to get an idea of where he is at research-wise. Getting to the museum is still on my list of things to do, but I want to make sure I don’t go through anything he’s already looked through when I get there.

Next week I intend to dive further into the archives and hopefully the archivist will have a better idea of the whereabouts of that source by then!