Feed on
Posts
Comments

I have learned a lot from 299. Namely, research skills, how to be dedicated to a topic, proper writing and citation style, how to blog, what a lit review is, etc. I’ve also improved my writing quality, editing skills and speech delivery. This class has definitely prepared me for 485, and (somewhat) helped me narrow down my list of topics. Plus, it’s been fun getting to know everyone!

We did it!

Wasn’t it great to send off that final paper? Good luck to everyone on their speeches!

Wow.

This xc thing was much more than I bargained for. I was a little surprised at the format; in some ways I think that having people read quotes added, and in some ways it detracted from the presentation. Same goes for the interspersion of music, although I really wanted to sing all the verses of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. I liked how they opened with the theme of silence, and ended with it. The talk made a full loop, and provided a very interesting synopsis of John Washington’s life. I thought they did a good job describing the Fredericksburg that Washington lived in, and his personal characteristics that led to his success. It’s interesting that he married a free Black woman in a Black church by a White pastor. I was really glad that Blight then talked about his perspective: how he came to write the book/ become involved with the project. The caliber of his speaking style is something we can only aspire to. I was really impressed with him. Moreover, all I can say is that Ruth Washington is a force to be reckoned with. I feel very fortunate to have heard both his descendants speak! It was definitely worth going!

I am 1-2/3 done with my paper. I went from having no thesis, to having two. This could be a problem. Does anyone else feel as though they are going crazy with work right now??

I’ve kind of enjoyed reading Foner’s edited collection. Some of the chapters and really poorly written, but some are very engrossing. I’ve liked being able to critique them, both in terms of the “newness” of the history, and how much they resemble a lit review. I actually think this book could be a good resource, and I plan on keeping it.
Also, I’ll be going down to the Library of Virginia for a second time tomorrow. It’s not a bad drive down there (disregarding the craziness of downtown Richmond), and it’s a really nice facility. As hard as it’s been reading 6 months worth of newspaper articles, this library makes it a little less painless. Keep it in mind for your thesis research-they’ve got a lot!

1987, Born in Washington D.C.
1987-1996 Lived in N.W. Washington, attended preschool through 3rd grade at Layfette Elementary. Met my best friend Claire in 1st grade.
Started horseback riding when I was 7.
The summer before 4th grade my family moved to Bethesda, Maryland.
4th-12th grades in Montgomery County, MD school system.
Summer before 8th and 9th grade, worked at the National Zoo.
Summer before 10th grade, interned for the Council Spokesman, Montgomery County Council.
Got my first horse in 9th grade, sold him in 11th grade.
Started competing in dressage, 9th grade.
Had a longterm boyfriend, from when I was 16 to 19.
Studied abroad in Germany, travelled to Paris and Holland, summer before sophomore year at UMW.
Started UMW in 2005, going from Historic Pres. to PoliSci to History.
Entered the M.Ed. program 2nd semester freshman year.
Visited Claire while she was studying at Oxford, spring break, sophomore year. Claire also got engaged just a week before I came to visit (the wedding’s next summer!!)
Worked at Glacier National Park in Montana summer before junior year.
Met my boyfriend, Filip, (who’s from Slovakia) at Glacier.
Wrote this post (thanks Elle!)

This was really hard to do as a brief blog post. I realize it isn’t all chronological, rather I organized it by topic. When I was thinking about one topic it would lead me to another, so that’s why it’s kind of scattered. Also I noted it was easier for me to recall events based on my grade in school, or how old I was, rather than an actual year. Mainly I included events that I consider important and that really stick out in my memory. Of course there is a lot more I could add about my family, etc., but this is just a brief outline.
Chronology is central to historical narratives. Unlike mine, most chonologies are useful in determining dates of specific events. The best primary historical narratives are organized chronologically and are accurate. Those ones are what we hope for in our sources.

Frustration.

I’m having a little trouble with my research right now, due to ILLs. Apparently there is only one holding for the newspaper I need, and right now I am without it. Because I’m using this newspaper as my primary source, I have to read through each edition, which is quite painstaking. But without having gone through all of it in the time period I am examining, there is not much I can do.

Truth.

The first paragraph is 100% true. I did go to the Colts game, but I didn’t get upgraded seats, unfortunately.

This summer in Montana I hiked the Highline Trail and climbed Mt. Gould with some friends. Once we had gone the six miles to Mt. Gould and begun climbing, Molly and I got separated from the three others. They were way ahead of us, and the last time we saw them, they were tiny specks that were barely audible to us. We continued to climb up scree fields, washed-out river beds and along rock faces until about 5 pm. The sky turned an ominous dark shade, and the smoke from nearby forest fires gave the sunset a foreboding appearance. Molly and I decided we should start going back down, seeing that it took us at least two hours to get to where we were. Despite almost getting cliffed out (stranded) on the mountain, we finally made it down just as it began to thunder. We hiked the 6 miles back to Logan’s Pass in just over an hour, despite mountain goats blocking the trail for a good 15 minutes. When we finally reached the visitor’s center, we still had no idea what had happened to our three friends.

This summer I went to a Colt’s preseason game. It was my first time at the RCA Dome, and my first time seeing them live. I was filled with anticipation waiting for the Colts to run out of their tunnel; the countdown showed about 15 minutes left until kickoff. As I was looking around at the stadium and all the people, an annoucement came on the loudspeaker. One of the announcers said that they were about to choose “the luckiest fans of the game”, which they explained meant that you would get to move to front row seats behind the Colts’ bench. Well, I almost passed out when I heard my dad’s name announced! The camera zoomed in on us, and ushers came over to take us to our upgraded seats. I was so stunned and excited that the only words I could utter to my dad were, “I can’t believe this!”. It was an increible experience, even though they didn’t win. What counts is that I got a picture of Peyton Manning, Adam Vinatieri and Tony Dungy all in the same shot.

The thesis of this essay by Linda Gordon is that women’s history has evolved over the course of U.S. history. That is, the study of women’s history has not always been widely accepted and the viewpoints of women have changed dramatically. Gordon’s essay is a mix of her own ideas, backed by the scholarship of others. She begins by explaining the history of women’s history: from a lack thereof, to the education of women allowing for publication by women, to journalists writing about women’s history with the women’s rights movement in the early 1900s. This essay is organized by topic or category, for example: gender, feminism, women’s work, class and race. Within each of these, she presents new ideas and the authors that were responsible for introducing new scholarship. Gordon offers many new topics and shifts in the field of women’s history. All her sources are secondary, and mainly books. For many of them, she provides insight into why an idea or change in viewing an aspect of women’s history came about when it did. She also identifies several holes in the field; some of them are broad and some she cites as gaps in a particular work. For example, while discussing Barbara Welter’s book, Gordon suggests that maternalism could have been included (page 263). As the different topics in women’s history are laid out, Gordon shows the chain reaction of how scholarship appeared, and how one book triggered another. This essay provides a good analysis of the scholarship in the field of U.S. women’s history.

Older Posts »
https://amandashumaker.umwblogs.org/
amandashumaker.umwblogs.org
crawl=CC-MAIN-2022-49
26146
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:L66K2SJQDKXJBP3T2OFDJWDSJFUIBYRA
<urn:uuid:b35b36b5-85fb-4fcb-8e15-e5749c4ba1b0>
2022-12-08T02:36:35Z
51.81.60.147
application/xhtml+xml
sha1:PIBHKAX2VTYYOVPRUJTXEOVVP6M3Q6KZ
<urn:uuid:074347fb-48e5-4379-82f0-f4e19e96db78>
https://amandashumaker.umwblogs.org/
response
<urn:uuid:48ad97da-74f4-45dd-bfff-bb717f5c2e44>
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2022-49
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for November/December 2022
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-67-67-149
software: Apache Nutch 1.19 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 1.4-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: https://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/