Week Two

This week in Public History, we did two interesting and application-based activities. The first in class activity was based on chapter two of our text which discussed methods for reading and analyzing historical material. In class on Tuesday, we formed groups in order to piece together a quick presentation on the Cold War era using only the documents we were given in class. Each set of students had one document unique to them; it was very interesting to see how each of our presentations were colored and transformed by our unique document. We were not given rules on how or in which order we were to present the documents so everyone presented in a slightly different style. This exercise was interesting because it required us to pull on previous knowledge we had to fill in the historical gaps that the documents did not cover. I think as students, a lot of us are uncomfortable when we have to rely solely on our knowledge and the knowledge of others without the option to fact check ourselves. This exercise was a good lesson on getting outside of our comfort zone, having confidence in ourselves, and applying class concepts directly.

The second activity was a visit to Loyola’s archives which will be a crucial resource for our final project. We prepared for this visit by reading chapter four in our text. I really appreciated how the text introduced and explained concepts like representative and ethical collecting practices and deaccessioning through a series of real examples. Representative collecting was one of the things discussed during our visit to the archives, especially the way in which the history of students of color at Loyola has been obscured for a variety of reasons. I had never been to the archives before and I was amazed by the volume of documents and material that are managed by only two people Kathy Young and Ashley Howdeshell. As we read in the text, Kathy and Ashley told us about the decisions they have to make regarding what materials to keep and what is not pertinent to the documentation of Loyola’s history. The visit was very informative and I am looking forward to returning.