Friday, April 20, 2012

Clio's Daughter

Clio, of course, is the Muse of History.  I am a history student.  I have been accepted into the Master of Arts program of the Department of History at the University of North Florida, where in one week I will graduate with my second Bachelor of Arts degree, this one in history and Spanish.

My main area of study is St. Augustine, Florida, and its province of East Florida, during the Second Spanish Period (1784-1821).  I am currently engaged in a long-term research project I began as an undergraduate at UNF, with a grant from the Office of Undergraduate Research.  This project is recreating the family structure of St. Augustine during the Second Spanish Period, to analyze the relationships in the community at that time.

I wrote an undergraduate honors thesis on godparenthood in St. Augustine during this period, as a means of transmitting values within a family, and of transmitting influence and status from the elite downward.  It's an interesting study, and vastly incomplete because the sources for this particular period are wonderfully numerous.  There is a lot of research yet to be done.

So, as a historian-in-training, I am definitely Clio's daughter.

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