I had lunch with my friend Barbara today. We met in 1986 at a Star Trek movie. We were big Trek fans then, and accumulated a circle of friends who were, too. We had some great times. We have moved on, yet we fondly remember those days. Our friends have moved on with us, and we still keep in touch with the hard core.
Barbara is optimistic and a fountain of positive wisdom. She has encouraged me to keep a daily journal, even if only to write one sentence. So I'm going to do that. The journal will be hard copy, and sometimes I will record in there things that I wish to keep private. But I will also, from time to time, reprint here the entries that pertain to the subject of this blog: the journey of a historian-in-training.
The first entry will probably be tonight. Tomorrow is the day my husband and I lug a bunch of my stuff -- mostly books! -- to my new digs, in the home of a family friend, four hours south of where we make our home. I'm looking forward to the living arrangement, which is eminently suitable for both of us. Our friend has just painted the interior of her house, and is also going to install a new ceiling fan for me in my room. I saw the color she had in mind for my room, and I like it a lot.
I'm looking forward to the program in which I will be working on my master's degree. The Florida Studies program at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg is an interdisciplinary program, and in addition to history courses concentrating mainly on colonial Spanish Florida, I will take courses in other subjects which are related and which I think will enhance my research.
For instance, this term, in addition to a seminar in Early Florida and a seminar in Florida Politics Since World War II (which is required of all Florida Studies majors), I will be taking Geologic History of Florida. I think an understanding of the geology is important to my understanding of the soils of St. Augustine, which in turn is necessary to an understanding of what food crops would grow there!
Related to that will be a course or courses in the environment and environmental history of Florida. I have already had one course in Florida's environmental history at the University of North Florida. That course concentrated on the area of the St. Johns River, which includes St. Augustine. I had not anticipated the course would be so deeply relevant to my inquiries, but it surprised me.
I also anticipate taking a basic economics course, because part of my study of St. Augustine during the Second Spanish Period is to study the economy, possibly to find new material to bring out about that economy, from information I will be digging out of the East Florida Papers and other original documents.
My car is packed, and tomorrow we put the rest of my stuff -- including a bookcase, a file cabinet, and my office chair -- in my husband's F-150. This is going to be an adventure.
.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
What Kind of Historian Am I? - part 2
So in my last post on this topic, I declared that I am a "historicist" - that is, I hold to the idea that we must evaluate historical persons and events in terms of their own times, not our times.
The next "school" of history and historiography I identify with is called the Annales school, named after a group of French historians led by Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre, publishers of the Annales d'histoire economique et sociale (Annals of Economic and Social History). As with my historicism, I arrived at my congruence with the Annalistes by my own route, in thinking about why we do history and how we do history. I figure things out on my own; I do not seek out ideologies to identify with. In fact, I distrust and am highly suspicious of ideologies and ideologues.
The Annalistes got tired of the dominance of political and diplomatic history. There's more to it than that, they realized. They sought a holistic approach. They looked at the big picture. I like the big picture; too many people today are short-sighted, concentrating on minutiae, when they should step back and see the broader landscape. That broader landscape is what I am after in my study of history.
Annalistes like Fernand Braudel embarked on massive studies. Braudel produced a two-volume work, The Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, which encompassed political, social, economic, intellectual and geographic factors. This is the sort of thing I'm after in my study of St. Augustine, Florida, during the Second Spanish Period (1784-1821). There were political factors at play, such as repeated attempts by British colonists, and later by Americans, to take Florida from Spain; there were economic factors -- shortages of cold cash and staple goods; there were social factors -- the Catholic church, practices concerning marriage and child-rearing, for instance; there were geographic factors -- St. Augustine is bordered by rivers and a swamp, and the presence of the swamp produced public health problems. History, I have always been convinced, is a great deal more complex than we usually find it presented in books.
Basically, what I'm looking for is a Unified Field Theory of history!
.
The next "school" of history and historiography I identify with is called the Annales school, named after a group of French historians led by Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre, publishers of the Annales d'histoire economique et sociale (Annals of Economic and Social History). As with my historicism, I arrived at my congruence with the Annalistes by my own route, in thinking about why we do history and how we do history. I figure things out on my own; I do not seek out ideologies to identify with. In fact, I distrust and am highly suspicious of ideologies and ideologues.
The Annalistes got tired of the dominance of political and diplomatic history. There's more to it than that, they realized. They sought a holistic approach. They looked at the big picture. I like the big picture; too many people today are short-sighted, concentrating on minutiae, when they should step back and see the broader landscape. That broader landscape is what I am after in my study of history.
Annalistes like Fernand Braudel embarked on massive studies. Braudel produced a two-volume work, The Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, which encompassed political, social, economic, intellectual and geographic factors. This is the sort of thing I'm after in my study of St. Augustine, Florida, during the Second Spanish Period (1784-1821). There were political factors at play, such as repeated attempts by British colonists, and later by Americans, to take Florida from Spain; there were economic factors -- shortages of cold cash and staple goods; there were social factors -- the Catholic church, practices concerning marriage and child-rearing, for instance; there were geographic factors -- St. Augustine is bordered by rivers and a swamp, and the presence of the swamp produced public health problems. History, I have always been convinced, is a great deal more complex than we usually find it presented in books.
Basically, what I'm looking for is a Unified Field Theory of history!
.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
A Little Florida History: the Midwives' Song
Today I am going to relate a tale from my own childhood, which reveals a little Florida history from the mid-twentieth century.
My aunt, Elizabeth Reed, was a public health nurse and in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, Director of Health Information for the State Board of Health, as it was known in those days. Today it is the Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services.
In this capacity, she traveled around the state of Florida, making speeches, observing conditions, and otherwise gathering data on Florida public health. One experience she had was in the Florida panhandle, in Tallahassee, with a group of midwives who served the surrounding rural area, in the 1940s. There was a shortage of doctors in these rural areas, so these midwives were on the front lines in assuring safe childbirth. The state of Florida wanted to assure that they used the latest in aseptic practice (handwashing, sterilizing equipment, etc.).
These women were in the main not well-educated. The nurses who trained them used "visual aids," as in one meeting where the nurse was making the point that the infant mortality rate was still too high, and emphasizing the need for good aseptic practice. The nurse stood at the head of the group with a jar of beans, saying that for every bean in the jar, there had been a woman or child who died in childbirth as a result of carelessness on the part of a midwife or midwives.
Just then, two women entered the meeting late, and took seats in the back of the room. Another woman seated up front looked back and saw them. Then she turned forward again and said to the nurse who was training them, "You see Sister A---- what just come in? Two of them beans is hers!"
The ladies had a song they sang for what today would be called "team building." Here are the first two verses and the chorus. Unfortunately, I cannot remember the third verse.
The Midwives' Song
We midwives will help you
As your dearest friend,
For we are all midwives indeed!
We help build the nation,
Assistance we lend,
For we are all midwives indeed!
For we are all midwives, indeed! (Hallelujah!)
For we are all midwives, indeed!
We know what is right,
And we work day and night,
For we are all midwives, indeed!
There are babies in Heaven,
Who should be on Earth,
For we are all midwives, indeed!
They had no good midwife
Assist them in birth,
For we are all midwives, indeed!
For we are all midwives, indeed! (Hallelujah!)
For we are all midwives, indeed!
We know what is right,
And we work day and night,
For we are all midwives, indeed!
.
My aunt, Elizabeth Reed, was a public health nurse and in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, Director of Health Information for the State Board of Health, as it was known in those days. Today it is the Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services.
In this capacity, she traveled around the state of Florida, making speeches, observing conditions, and otherwise gathering data on Florida public health. One experience she had was in the Florida panhandle, in Tallahassee, with a group of midwives who served the surrounding rural area, in the 1940s. There was a shortage of doctors in these rural areas, so these midwives were on the front lines in assuring safe childbirth. The state of Florida wanted to assure that they used the latest in aseptic practice (handwashing, sterilizing equipment, etc.).
These women were in the main not well-educated. The nurses who trained them used "visual aids," as in one meeting where the nurse was making the point that the infant mortality rate was still too high, and emphasizing the need for good aseptic practice. The nurse stood at the head of the group with a jar of beans, saying that for every bean in the jar, there had been a woman or child who died in childbirth as a result of carelessness on the part of a midwife or midwives.
Just then, two women entered the meeting late, and took seats in the back of the room. Another woman seated up front looked back and saw them. Then she turned forward again and said to the nurse who was training them, "You see Sister A---- what just come in? Two of them beans is hers!"
The ladies had a song they sang for what today would be called "team building." Here are the first two verses and the chorus. Unfortunately, I cannot remember the third verse.
The Midwives' Song
We midwives will help you
As your dearest friend,
For we are all midwives indeed!
We help build the nation,
Assistance we lend,
For we are all midwives indeed!
For we are all midwives, indeed! (Hallelujah!)
For we are all midwives, indeed!
We know what is right,
And we work day and night,
For we are all midwives, indeed!
There are babies in Heaven,
Who should be on Earth,
For we are all midwives, indeed!
They had no good midwife
Assist them in birth,
For we are all midwives, indeed!
For we are all midwives, indeed! (Hallelujah!)
For we are all midwives, indeed!
We know what is right,
And we work day and night,
For we are all midwives, indeed!
.
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
What kind of historian am I?
That's a question I am spending some time this summer thinking about. I am reading a book on historiography - the study of writing about history. It is Caroline Hoefferle's The Essential Historiographic Reader, in which the author describes the various "schools" of historigraphy by discussing their history and development. She starts with the Greeks and Romans and moves forward right up to the 21st century.
Some of the schools of historiography do not impress me, and many of them have been discredited by time and historical events - so history affects itself. However, I have found out that I am, for one thing, a "historicist." This school tells us we must examine the past on its own terms. I have long been critical of "presentism" - judging the past by the standards of the present. I have felt that the only fair way to examine history is to examine it in terms of its times. Sure, these days we are convinced (well, most of us . . . ) that slavery was and is an evil. But when we are talking about ancient Rome and its system of slavery, when we are talking about the events before and during the Civil War and about the causes of that war, we need to put ourselves in the ethos of those time periods. Unless we do that, we cannot understand what the concept of slavery meant to those people, or to certain segments of the people, at that time, which means we cannot have a firm understanding of how these conditions came to exist in the first place.
Or, take the case of Prohibition, the era of the Volstead Act (1919-1933) in the U.S. Nowadays, we are convinced that the Volstead Act was a mistake, a stupid law that did nothing to curb or eliminate excessive drinking, drunkenness, and the social toll they exact, and did everything to give rise to the modern specter of organized crime. But when we want to examine the roots of the Volstead Act, the conditions and social movements that led up to its passage, we have to place ourselves in that time period, using the social and emotional tools that they people of the time had available. We cannot look at it through 21st century eyes and give an accurate and reliable account of how it came about.
I arrived at this viewpoint through reading and thinking about history, and about how I would go about doing it. So, okay, I'm a historicist. And schools of historiography are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
I have several other books on historiography that I am going to plow through in the next several months. I will post again on my explorations into what kind of historian I am.
.
Some of the schools of historiography do not impress me, and many of them have been discredited by time and historical events - so history affects itself. However, I have found out that I am, for one thing, a "historicist." This school tells us we must examine the past on its own terms. I have long been critical of "presentism" - judging the past by the standards of the present. I have felt that the only fair way to examine history is to examine it in terms of its times. Sure, these days we are convinced (well, most of us . . . ) that slavery was and is an evil. But when we are talking about ancient Rome and its system of slavery, when we are talking about the events before and during the Civil War and about the causes of that war, we need to put ourselves in the ethos of those time periods. Unless we do that, we cannot understand what the concept of slavery meant to those people, or to certain segments of the people, at that time, which means we cannot have a firm understanding of how these conditions came to exist in the first place.
Or, take the case of Prohibition, the era of the Volstead Act (1919-1933) in the U.S. Nowadays, we are convinced that the Volstead Act was a mistake, a stupid law that did nothing to curb or eliminate excessive drinking, drunkenness, and the social toll they exact, and did everything to give rise to the modern specter of organized crime. But when we want to examine the roots of the Volstead Act, the conditions and social movements that led up to its passage, we have to place ourselves in that time period, using the social and emotional tools that they people of the time had available. We cannot look at it through 21st century eyes and give an accurate and reliable account of how it came about.
I arrived at this viewpoint through reading and thinking about history, and about how I would go about doing it. So, okay, I'm a historicist. And schools of historiography are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
I have several other books on historiography that I am going to plow through in the next several months. I will post again on my explorations into what kind of historian I am.
.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Hurry up and wait
So I have my application in to the University of South Florida St. Petersburg. My transcripts have been ordered. I've mailed off my request for a waiver of the GRE. I've indicated who I want letters of recommendation from. I've submitted a letter of intent (why do I want to get into the Florida Studies program?), and I've sent a writing sample.
Now it is time to sit patiently and wait, something I'm completely incapable of! So I'll be itching and climbing the walls until I hear. And so it goes.
.
Now it is time to sit patiently and wait, something I'm completely incapable of! So I'll be itching and climbing the walls until I hear. And so it goes.
.
Saturday, April 28, 2012
All Graduated
Yesterday was graduation day at the University of North Florida. It was a lot of "hurry up and wait," so it reminded me of having been in the Coast Guard!
But the "hurry up and wait" was made bearable by friends giving good wishes and making happy talk, and by making acquaintances in the hallway where we were waiting, and just having a good time. (Read "Six Degrees of Karen Rhodes," today's entry in my blog Karen About Genealogy to see how connections worked yesterday).
Finally, the time came to line up and filter into the arena floor, where quite comfortable (thank goodness!) folding chairs awaited us. I was in the last row, but that made me visible to my family, and they got lots of pictures. The young man sitting to my right, Ray, had acquired his 5-year-old son from grandma and grandpa, sitting nearby in the audience, and held him on his lap for most of the ceremony. The lad was quite well-behaved, and Ray took him on stage with him.
After being photographed by three photographers as I came off the stage, I was waylaid by a friend who gave me a big hug. We exchanged congratulations. Moving down the aisle back to the seats, I was ambushed by three professors and given big hugs. One professor admonished me that I need more degrees (this is my fourth college degree, and my second Bachelor of Arts). I said I was working on it!
Another professor accosted me before I got back to the row. Then it was time for the recessional, and it was all done.
So my time at UNF passes into memory. It was fun! It was challenging. It was an experience I would not trade for all of anyone's money. I may have received my Phi Beta Kappa key at Florida State University in 1969, but I feel like I earned it at UNF in the last four years.
Stay tuned for the further adventures of a historian-in-training. Next step: Get my application in to the University of South Florida St. Petersburg.
.
But the "hurry up and wait" was made bearable by friends giving good wishes and making happy talk, and by making acquaintances in the hallway where we were waiting, and just having a good time. (Read "Six Degrees of Karen Rhodes," today's entry in my blog Karen About Genealogy to see how connections worked yesterday).
Finally, the time came to line up and filter into the arena floor, where quite comfortable (thank goodness!) folding chairs awaited us. I was in the last row, but that made me visible to my family, and they got lots of pictures. The young man sitting to my right, Ray, had acquired his 5-year-old son from grandma and grandpa, sitting nearby in the audience, and held him on his lap for most of the ceremony. The lad was quite well-behaved, and Ray took him on stage with him.
After being photographed by three photographers as I came off the stage, I was waylaid by a friend who gave me a big hug. We exchanged congratulations. Moving down the aisle back to the seats, I was ambushed by three professors and given big hugs. One professor admonished me that I need more degrees (this is my fourth college degree, and my second Bachelor of Arts). I said I was working on it!
Another professor accosted me before I got back to the row. Then it was time for the recessional, and it was all done.
So my time at UNF passes into memory. It was fun! It was challenging. It was an experience I would not trade for all of anyone's money. I may have received my Phi Beta Kappa key at Florida State University in 1969, but I feel like I earned it at UNF in the last four years.
Stay tuned for the further adventures of a historian-in-training. Next step: Get my application in to the University of South Florida St. Petersburg.
.
Monday, April 23, 2012
DEE-fense!
Happy to report that I lived through the defense. My husband accompanied me, for moral support. Also, it's part of the entertainment, and one thing I do is keep him entertained.
Before the session started, we talked to Dr. David Sheffler, the medievalist in the history department. He was the other member of my thesis committee. Undergraduate honors theses need only 2 committee members. I asked Dr. Sheffler if he was prepared with his rubber hose, and he did let me know that the department had outlawed waterboarding last month.
Kidding aside, we began the session. Dr. J. Michael Francis, one of the latinamericanists in the department, and the department chair, came in and we started after I introduced my husband.
They began by asking me how I had come up with the idea of my thesis -- that is, that godparenthood in St. Augustine, Florida, during the Second Spanish Period served as a vehicle for the transmission of values, influence and status -- how I developed it, and what methodologies and sources I had used. That was not difficult.
Then they -- particularly Dr. Francis, as he is more familiar with the location, though his period is the 16th century rather than the late eighteenth and early nineteenth that I'm working in -- asked more penetrating questions, which I was also able to respond to. The idea is not, as some may think (and some may experience) to tear the thesis and the argument to shreds, but to bring up the questions that the material may demand. They both said there was a lot of meat in my paper, which generated lots of questions. And the questions were not necessarily designed to challenge either my thesis or my argument, though some were. There were plenty of questions which dealt with collateral study opportunities which may arise naturally out of the material I am uncovering.
I am breaking new ground, and this is an important part of a thesis. If I can complete some of my project -- enough to really show something about godparenthood, or enough to enable a really practical, useful population picture of St. Augustine to be derived -- in three years, in time for the 450th anniversary of St. Augustine's founding, Dr. Francis said I'll be "the golden girl." It could put me very much in demand for making presentations. That would be great. So I have to groom some aspect of this same project for my master's thesis, so I can advance the work just that much more.
I also need to spend the summer not only reading, but also transcribing and translating original documents, either from the East Florida Papers, which are available locally on microfilm, or from actual documents held by the Florida State Archives. I plan an archives visit this summer. Next summer, with some of Dr. Francis's travel money for students in the Florida Studies Program at the University of South Florida at St. Petersburg (pending my acceptance there), I hope to go to Washington, D.C., to work with the originals of the East Florida Papers, for those portions which do not show up well on microfilm.
It is going to be a busy two years!
.
Before the session started, we talked to Dr. David Sheffler, the medievalist in the history department. He was the other member of my thesis committee. Undergraduate honors theses need only 2 committee members. I asked Dr. Sheffler if he was prepared with his rubber hose, and he did let me know that the department had outlawed waterboarding last month.
Kidding aside, we began the session. Dr. J. Michael Francis, one of the latinamericanists in the department, and the department chair, came in and we started after I introduced my husband.
They began by asking me how I had come up with the idea of my thesis -- that is, that godparenthood in St. Augustine, Florida, during the Second Spanish Period served as a vehicle for the transmission of values, influence and status -- how I developed it, and what methodologies and sources I had used. That was not difficult.
Then they -- particularly Dr. Francis, as he is more familiar with the location, though his period is the 16th century rather than the late eighteenth and early nineteenth that I'm working in -- asked more penetrating questions, which I was also able to respond to. The idea is not, as some may think (and some may experience) to tear the thesis and the argument to shreds, but to bring up the questions that the material may demand. They both said there was a lot of meat in my paper, which generated lots of questions. And the questions were not necessarily designed to challenge either my thesis or my argument, though some were. There were plenty of questions which dealt with collateral study opportunities which may arise naturally out of the material I am uncovering.
I am breaking new ground, and this is an important part of a thesis. If I can complete some of my project -- enough to really show something about godparenthood, or enough to enable a really practical, useful population picture of St. Augustine to be derived -- in three years, in time for the 450th anniversary of St. Augustine's founding, Dr. Francis said I'll be "the golden girl." It could put me very much in demand for making presentations. That would be great. So I have to groom some aspect of this same project for my master's thesis, so I can advance the work just that much more.
I also need to spend the summer not only reading, but also transcribing and translating original documents, either from the East Florida Papers, which are available locally on microfilm, or from actual documents held by the Florida State Archives. I plan an archives visit this summer. Next summer, with some of Dr. Francis's travel money for students in the Florida Studies Program at the University of South Florida at St. Petersburg (pending my acceptance there), I hope to go to Washington, D.C., to work with the originals of the East Florida Papers, for those portions which do not show up well on microfilm.
It is going to be a busy two years!
.
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