Category: Academy

Slavery in America: A sampling

By: Jonathan Wanzer ORCiD 0009-0004-9275-7410
Submitted on: April 5, 2025
Submitted to: Dr. Schultz – Liberty University
Course: HIST 701 Historical Professions
Chicago Citation:
Wanzer, Jonathan. “Slavery in America: A Sampling.” Historical Interpretations. Jonathan Wanzer, April 5, 2025. http://wanzer.org/2025/04/slavery-in-america-a-sampling/.

Preface

The topic of slavery in America is a topic charged with emotions, regardless of the perspective from which you view it. As an older guy, a descendant of Northern and Western European ancestry, I find this a complex topic to approach. However, it is a topic I have been paying more attention to in recent years. In a class on the Civil War a book by Charles B. Dew came to my attention, Apostles of Disunion.1 Dew’s book fanned the flames of inquiry urging me to look below the surface when researching subjects that have racial or ethnic discriminatory elements, be it aboriginal peoples, the enslaved, or any other opposing people groups. This post, aside from being a class assignment,2 addresses an important topic that should be better understood by every American, slavery in the American context. This post is only one narrow look at a complex topic.

Methodist Episcopal Church,
New Hampshire Conference 1844-45

The Minutes of the New Hampshire Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church for the year of 1844-45 provides a lot of information about the church at this time in a short 22 pages. It addresses topics from membership to finances, appointments, and obituaries. It also contains two position papers with resolutions on topics that would become very important to the country in the coming decades. The minutes contain position papers on Temperance and Slavery.

Division over the topic of slavery has been a part of political discourse in America since the debate over independence in the Second Continental Congress. Despite participation in the slave trade and many of the founding fathers owning slaves themselves, the north-south division on the subject has manifested in many ways ever since. One has been through the publishing of position papers, often by civic groups including those specifically focused on abolition, and in position papers and resolutions published by organizations in their charters and minutes from various organization-wide meetings, conventions, congresses, and conferences.

The Methodist Episcopal Church had, according to its 1844-45 Conference minutes, a Committee on Slavery that had “for several successive years past presented” their sentiments on slavery as “the great evil and sin of American Slavery.” Having restated their position several times already, but recognizing the importance of the matter they felt “duty bound” to again address slavery and make sure the church and world knew that “the slave in his bonds and deprivations has not lost our sympathy.”3 Following this with a commitment to abolishing the practice.

New Hampshire Methodists were not alone in this sentiment finding slavery a moral evil, offensive to God, and ruinous “to the best interests of the church and nation.” They further pronounced that the destiny of slavery was fixed, that the practice must die. Acknowledging that a schism was forming within the larger church, they were sure that Providence was on their side. The committee also predicted that a change was coming, that they would be “free from all connection” with the practice of slavery. To further state their position and to address the succession of southern churches they concluded the committee report with nine resolutions summarized here:

The committee resolved that the practice of slavery was a great evil. Traveling lecturers should denounce the practice of defending slavery through the pretext that it benefitted the slave. Through the secession of dissenting churches, they would be “ecclesiastically free from connection with this great evil.” If southern churches chose slavery over their alienation from the greater church, they should be pitied rather than deplored. Those in dissenting churches not holding slaves should join the northern churches in “spreading scriptural holiness.” The resolutions also included thanks to leadership supporting abolition and rebuking those dissenting and in favor of secession.

Conclusion

This division in the Methodist church over slavery took place a full fifteen years before the Secession Commissioners 4 took to the meetinghouses of the south and west to sow the seeds of secession in America. Slavery has been a part of American history since its inception. While the buying and selling of people is no longer legal, the underpinning concepts that allowed slavery to flourish are still with us. The concepts of us v. them and fear of the other, the dehumanization of the other, to refer to them as inferior, to justify abhorrent actions and inhumane treatment. This is evil.

  1. Charles B. Dew, Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War, Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2016. ↩︎
  2. Liberty University, HIST 701 Historical Professions: Module 3: Blog: American Christianity. ↩︎
  3. Methodist Episcopal Church, New Hampshire Conference, Minutes of the New Hampshire Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Vol. 1844-45, Boston, MA: D.H. Ela, 1845. Sabin Americana: History of the Americas, 1500-1926. Accessed April 5, 2025. 11-13. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CY0109925437/SABN?u=vic_liberty&sid=bookmark-SABN&xid=8aaaa08f&pg=1. ↩︎
  4. Dew, 2016. ↩︎

Experimental History

My current research is a historiographical pursuit to determine if Experimental History exists as a subfield of history. If it does exist, the research will seek out its methodologies and practices. If it does not already exist as a sub-field of history, the research will be to define working parameters and define appropriate methodologies. This will include acknowledging the similarities and differences between Experimental History and Experimental Archaeology.

I discovered this week that the term Experimental History has often applied to a philosophy applied to the study of Natural History in the 17th and 18th centuries by Francis Bacon who dubbed the philosophy “Natural and Experimental History.”1 Bacon’s use of this term has nothing to do with the practice and study of doing history as we think of it today. Searching for academic journal articles on JSTOR,2 the vast majority of search results for “Experimental History” refer to or relate to Bacon’s “Natural and Experimental History.”

A couple of relevant results did come up, one is an article in the journal The History Teacher, “A Pedagogical Trebuchet: A Case Study in Experimental History and History Pedagogy”3 from 2012 that utilizes Experimental History in the classroom to answer questions that would otherwise be unanswerable other than through hypothetical assertions.

My interpretation of Experimental History as a sub-field can, on the research end, help in producing improved tools and materials for Experiential Learning. Anyone who has worked with elementary school kids will likely have plenty of anecdotal experience with the potential of experiential learning. I came to my interpretation of what Experimental history could be through Experimental Archaeology, and one of the reasons I became interested in Experimental Archaeology was my own experience in experiential learning. This is how I learn best, through doing, and following that up with teaching someone else. The process of learning through experimentation and then turning around and teaching what you have learned through papers and presentations is the cornerstone and heart of Amateur Radio. The process works.

The idea behind Experimental History, in my interpretation, is for the researcher to engage in experiential learning, using experimentation along with traditional research to answer questions about the subject, and to apply the physicality of the experimentation and research contextually and physically to generate the resulting products of their research, which should include materials for pedagogical use. I am inclined toward producing products that can be applied in the public history sphere but are not limited to that environment. While the physicality of Experimental History can provide context to traditional outputs, that physicality shouldn’t be lost in the translation, Experimental History, as I interpret it, wants to bring the physicality to all interpretive environments, in the presentation, in the museum, and in the classroom.

This historiographical look at Experimental History and its applications in research and pedagogy is the foundation of my current work and is in its initial stage to understand what the literature is, if any, and to enumerate and evaluate the available sources if such sources exist. As literature emerges I will post it to a designated area of the site.

  1. Anstey, Peter R. “Locke, Bacon and Natural History.” Early Science and Medicine 7, no. 1 (2002): 65–92. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4130409. ↩︎
  2. https://www.jstor.org/ ↩︎
  3. Brice, Lee L., and Steven Catania. “A Pedagogical Trebuchet: A Case Study in Experimental History and History Pedagogy.” The History Teacher 46, no. 1 (2012): 67–84. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43264074. ↩︎

Benchmarking

I am just starting the second week of HIST 701 Historical Professions, and I am already finding the class interesting and challenging. This post will cover the interesting, I will do a second post on the challenging part shortly. One of this week’s assignments is a benchmarking assignment. I opted to look at graduate history programs here in Oregon, offered by institutions that report having graduate programs in history. Below is the paper submitted.

By: Jonathan Wanzer ORCiD 0009-0004-9275-7410
Submitted on: March 23, 2025
Submitted to: Dr. Schultz – Liberty University
Course: HIST 701 Historical Professions
Chicago Citation:
Wanzer, Jonathan. “Benchmarking Programs: History Programs at Universities in Oregon That Offer Graduate Degrees.” Paper. Historical Interpretations. Jonathan Wanzer, December 2, 2024. http://wanzer.org/2025/03/benchmarking/.

Benchmarking Programs: History Programs at Universities in Oregon That Offer Graduate Degrees

by Jonathan Wanzer
March 23, 2025
ORCID.org/0009-0004-9275-7410

This analysis focuses on degrees offered by colleges and universities with graduate programs in history in Oregon, the number of history degrees awarded in the 2022-2023 program year, and the percentage history degrees represent in the institution’s total degrees awarded. Data was collected from the National Center for Education Statistics, College Navigator website using the search parameters: Oregon, advanced degrees with the following Programs/Majors selected American History, General History, Public/Applied History.[1] The search results indicate that four Oregon universities offer advanced degrees in history. The Institutions indicated are; Oregon State University[2], Portland State University[3], University of Oregon[4], and Western Oregon University[5].

Oregon State University offers bachelor’s and master’s degree programs in history. In the program year, OSU awarded a total of 7,389 degrees, 5,829 bachelor’s, 1,140 master’s, and 420 doctorates. Of these, OSU awarded 59 bachelor’s and 4 master’s degrees in history, slightly over 1% and 0.35% respectively. A doctoral program in history is not available at OSU.

Portland State University offers bachelor’s and master’s degree programs in history. In the program year, PSU awarded a total of 5,621 degrees, 3,839 bachelor’s, 1,717 master’s, and 65 doctorates. Of these, PSU awarded 46 bachelor’s, and 4 master’s degrees in history, just under 1.2% and 0.23% respectively. A doctoral program is not available in history at PSU.

University of Oregon offers bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degree programs in history. In the program year, UO awarded a total of 5,441 degrees, 4,089 bachelor’s, 968 master’s, and 65 doctorates. Of these, UO awarded 59 bachelor’s, 1 master’s, and 1 doctorate in history, just over 1.4%, 0.10%, and 0.26%, respectively. UO is the only institution offering a doctorate in history in Oregon.

Western Oregon University only offers a bachelor’s degree program in history. In the program year, WOU awarded a total of 1,031 degrees, 855 bachelor’s and 176 master’s degrees. WOU does not offer doctorates in any field. Of the degrees WOU awarded, only 8 bachelor’s degrees were awarded in history, slightly over 0.93% of bachelor’s degrees.

The cumulative total of degrees awarded, bachelor and above, awarded in Oregon by institutions offering advanced degrees in the program year was 19,482 of those, 182 were in history, 172 bachelor’s degrees, 9 master’s degrees, and 1 doctorate, less than 0.01% of degrees awarded by Oregon institutions that offer advanced degrees. Just 10 of the 19,482 degrees were graduate or doctoral degrees.[6]

Oregon universities offer many graduate programs in business, medicine, and physical sciences, both residential and online. When it comes to the history or public history fields for history majors, particularly graduate degree programs the state’s universities do not provide much of an offering. Furthermore, all the programs in this study are residential, there are no graduate-level programs in history available online from Oregon’s universities. This is surprising in one sense considering the state’s many active historical societies and important museums. While this is disappointing for anyone seeking a graduate degree in Oregon, it is not that surprising. Anecdotally, a prior nationwide search for online graduate programs in history provided limited results, and only one online doctoral program was located in the United States, Liberty University’s online doctorate.[7]

APPENDIX

History Program Completions & Program Percentage of Institutional Total Awards[8]

UniversityDegree Level Degrees AwardedHistory % of Total
Oregon State UniversityUndergradHistory591.0122%
Univ. Total5829 
GraduateHistory40.3509%
Univ. Total1140 
DoctoralHistory *00.0000%
Univ. Total420 
 
Portland State UniversityUndergradHistory461.1982%
Univ. Total3839 
GraduateHistory40.2330%
Univ. Total1717 
DoctoralHistory *00.0000%
Univ. Total65 
 
University of OregonUndergradHistory591.4429%
Univ. Total4089 
GraduateHistory10.1033%
Univ. Total968 
DoctoralHistory10.2604%
Univ. Total384 
 
Western Oregon UniversityUndergraduateHistory80.9357%
Univ. Total855 
GraduateHistory *00.0000%
Univ. Total176 
Doctoral †History00.0000%
Univ. Total0 

Table 1. Data from College Navigator

* No history degree is offered at this level
† No doctoral programs available

[1] “College Navigator,” accessed March 23, 2025,  https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?s=OR&p=54.0102+54.0105+54.0101&l=94.

[2] “Oregon State University,” accessed March 23, 2025, https://oregonstate.edu/.

[3] “Portland State University,” accessed March 23, 2025, https://www.pdx.edu/.

[4] “University of Oregon,” accessed March 23, 2025, https://www.uoregon.edu/.

[5] “Western Oregon University,” accessed March 23, 2025, https://wou.edu/

[6] See Table 1 in the appendix

[7] Author conducted a search of U.S. colleges and universities in the summer of 2024 looking for online doctoral history programs.

[8] “College Navigator”

Bibliography

My last class for the M.A. in public history starts next week and runs for the 8-week D subterm. The course is HIST 706 Digital History which as you will see is somewhat ironic. I have been working with the topic for some time doing digitization projects, digital archiving, database development, and working with metadata structures to make digital objects findable, and accessible. I have burned more than a few cycles on the elements of digital archives like accessioning, cataloging, and preservation of the digital media as well as the metadata to keep it useful and locatable. This was much of what I did for my independent research over the summer preparing for this term.

HIST 706 became available to access yesterday. My usual ritual the week before a term is to prep my OneNote file for the class with all of the readings and assignments with as much of the course info available as possible and start getting resources ready. I usually have all of the textbooks well before this period, and after reading the syllabus and assignments I usually have a list of additional textbooks to order. Yesterday was no exception, OneNote was prepped and the five books specifically mentioned in the syllabus that were not on the book list were ordered. Surprisingly, all of the books ordered should arrive before the end of the first week. The day after the course posts I start watching course videos, synthesizing assignment instructions, and reviewing rubrics. The week four video caught me off guard.

The video for week four is a lecture by Matthew G. Kirschenbaum The Transformissions of the Archive. The lecture is interesting in and of itself, but it impacted me in a personal and unexpected way. I have been struggling with narrowing my field for my doctorate. Not surprising considering how broad my interests usually are and my proclivity for diving head first down deep rabbit holes. This video managed to focus my attention on synthesizing a concept I am well aware of with a genre of research interests. The concept of metadata, and my interests in books and documents, paper, ink, graphology, paleography, codicology, printmaking, bookbinding, and paper conservation. In a word… bibliography.

A couple of hours online have revealed very little on the practice of bibliography, lots on the writing of bibliographies, but sparse on the former. I located several books that look like they may be useful on Amazon and saved them in a list, 15 to be precise, and ordered 3 others. It will take some research on the field to determine what studies I will need to look further into. As for education, the closest I can find are MLA programs with an available focus on special collections and preservation. While I would like to add an MLA to my education profile, I don’t have the time right now but it could be added at some point in the future along with a master’s in conservation. For now, I’ll take on the research on the practice of bibliography and see where it takes me.

Until next time,
~Jon Wanzer

Paper Conservation Survey Results

Before going into the survey results from the Professional Opportunities Analysis project due today, I wanted to touch on the other two projects I covered in the last post. First, the media archive pilot project is moving forward. I have the framework of the website done on a local server and now I am working on the functionality aspects so I can start setting up the tables in the database. As for the documentary edition, I stopped by the museum and met with the principals, and after a review of the materials previously mentioned, it is clear that that project is a non-starter. However, they are interested in working on a doc ed of some kind with me. For now, they, and I will keep an eye out for good candidates for a doc ed, and other project possibilities were also discussed. I did make it clear that I was interested in opportunities to publish. More to come as the opportunities present.

Now on to the Survey

The Assignment

“In general, the goal of this assignment is for students to explore opportunities available within the fields of public history. Students should choose one opportunity to focus on for this assignment, and as long as you make the case that this opportunity fits for a historian as a professional opportunity it will work. There is no length minimum or maximum for this assignment. Instead students should focus on choosing one opportunity related to their field and then analyze how they might be able to engage this opportunity as part of their growth as a historian.”[1]

A Survey of New England Paper Conservators

Introduction

Preservation of documents, documentary editing, document interpretation, reproduction of documents for exhibit, handwritten document analysis and interpretation, and a variety of printing press processes are all related areas of practice that interest me and are important to consider. Among these history and public history related fields, paper conservation is one that stands out. With some experience in library book repair, several bookbinding projects, and rebinding projects completed with more awaiting attention, this is a specific field of interest and would be an important area to develop greater proficiency, expanding my abilities as I am exposed to more historically important documents and a broader array of document types in the museum environment. As relocation to the New England area in the near future is desired and likely, it is prudent to consider the field of paper conservation in the New England area. As no local practitioners of paper conservation have been located or field academics within a reasonable distance, a more clinical approach using a survey to gather data was chosen to explore the field of paper conservation primarily looking at the current demographics of conservators in the geographical area and their impression of the state of the field with regard to the education of candidates for entry into the field.

The Survey

A 10-question survey was developed to focus on 5 demographic questions and 5 opinion questions on the state of the field regarding new entrants into paper conservation, what education the respondents felt candidates should have, and whether or not the academy was producing sufficiently qualified candidates in sufficient numbers. The survey was sent to members of the American Institute for Conservation who identified as Paper Conservators, specifically in books, and documents, and practiced in New England. This provided a narrow scope in field and geographic boundaries and resulted in a pool of 115 conservators invited to participate in the survey. The survey was hosted by SurveyMonkey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/H2TJLVR.
The survey was closed on September 21.

The respondent Pool

The first round of invitations consisted of conservators of Connecticut (22), Maine (5), New Hampshire (5), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (4). Once responses subsided a second round of invitations was sent out to conservators in Massachusetts (75) which provided some limited information on the differences in areas of high and low professional density. The total size of the pool was 115 potential respondents.

Questions & Responses

To simplify the report of responses, an interpretation of the results will accompany each question and statistical data and an overall interpretation of the results will serve as the conclusion.

Demographic Questions

Question 1: In what sphere do you practice paper conservation?

One option that was not originally in the answer options was the possibility of a respondent practicing in both spheres. This possibility was subsequently added to the results.

With the additional category, the respondents were nearly equal in private practice and institutional service. Significantly, the first round respondents were predominantly private practice while the second round respondents were predominantly institutional. This is an example of the rationale for the presumption of an effect of higher professional density later in the survey.

Question 2: What kind of institution? (skip if private practice)

In response to this question, there were two areas that were not originally considered and subsequently added, the hybrid library/museum, and nonprofit conservation organization. Fields that received no responses were municipal government, small local museums, university or research libraries, and undergraduate education libraries.

Not surprisingly, museums and academic institutions placed strongly. What was surprising was the representation of nonprofit conservancy. This again seems to have been in part due to professional density.

Question 3: In your private practice who do you contract with? (skip if institutional)

For this question, there were two unexpected categories, auction house/gallery, and historical society. All other categories had at least one respondent. Both additional categories were from round two respondents.

Aside from the two additional categories, the breakdown of private practitioners was predominantly what was expected with a vast majority of respondents including museums of all sizes, academic institutions, and private individuals.

Question 4: Did you train academically to be a conservator?

An added category to this question was a degree or certificate in bookbinding. As the categories used to locate practitioners included document and book conservators as well as general paper conservators, this should have been anticipated. One category was not selected, working on a degree in conservation while working in the field.

One surprise for this question was the lack of any respondents for “working on a degree in conservation while working in the field,” that a conservator would start with an apprenticeship or internship and then progress to a degree while working in the field was expected.

Question 5: How long have you been in the conservation field?

No respondents for less than 5 years or 11-15 years.

From a data standpoint, the experience embodied in responses from a pool of practitioners in the field for predominantly more than 15 years is good. The lack of practitioners less than 5 years is a little disconcerting.

State of the field questions

Upon reflection on the responses, the survey should have included an additional comment option rather than another answer. The additional data was of good quality and should have been encouraged positively in the survey design.

Question 6: There are enough trained candidates for entry-level conservator positions.

There were no responses for strongly disagree.

Respondents had comments that should be considered. One expressed a shortage in paper art conservators and noted that a majority gravitate to libraries and archives. Another noted with the narrow nature of the field and the longevity of practitioners as seen in the demographics makes entry into the field difficult. They also indicated that entry-level positions, thus lower paying positions, could last many years while the now seasoned practitioner waits for an opening to move up. It is worth noting that these comments were from second round respondents which begs the question, is this more of a high density issue, or is it field wide?

Question 7: The academy is sufficiently preparing candidates for employment in the field.

There were no responses for strongly agree.

The responses to this question clearly lean from center to agree.

Question 8: Enough institutions are providing conservation-specific education.

All segments were included.

This question has an even response on both sides from the center. One respondent commented, “while there are limited institutions for education, there are also limited opportunities for a career. It would be nice to have more people have access but if there are not enough jobs, that creates a new problem. The field is very small, requires a significant amount of training, and has a high level of competition so you get highly qualified or over qualified candidates, and the pay does not reflect the effort and expected education/experience needed to enter the field.”

Question 9: Specialization in the field has outpaced the academy training provided for degrees.

This question received no strong response in either direction.

This question appears to be irrelevant to a majority of respondents. This is likely due to the already specialized nature of paper conservation.

Question 10: A candidate for work in the field should have at least…

An addition was made to the potential paths to paper conservation which should have been anticipated. The only path not selected was an undergraduate degree in a related field.

A requisite graduate degree in conservation was the major response by far.

Summary & Conclusion

The field of paper conservation is a narrow space to begin with, the addition of a relatively small geographical boundary further limited the pool of potential respondents. A one week time allotment for respondents to reply, and the nature of cold-calling the invitation limited the responses from the pool still further. The survey did get a 15.6% response rate which is reasonable for a survey. Generally speaking, surveys usually get 10% response rates +/- 3% so this was respectable.

Demographically respondents were evenly split between institutional and private practice with a majority working in academic or medium to large museum environments and an equally strong showing of nonprofit conservation organizations. Private practice responses were predominantly academic institutions and museums with a strong showing for private individual clients. Most respondents had a degree in conservation and had been in practice for over 20 years.

With regard to the state of the field in educational preparedness of candidates, most respondents felt there were enough candidates to fill positions in the field, and few disagreed. A majority of respondents agree that candidates are prepared for employment, presuming they enter the field with a graduate degree in conservation, and while the number of institutions offering this training is small, it produces enough candidates. The responses indicate that the field is so narrow to begin with that there is no sense specialization has outpaced training.

If you are interested in paper conservation as a career, plan on needing a master’s in conservation. Once completed be prepared to be in an entry level position for a while. If you can find an apprenticeship while in school jump on it and get the bench skills in while working on the academics. Paper conservation is a very narrow field within conservation an already narrow field. People who enter this line of work and stick with it stay there for decades.

For me personally, institutional or academic conservation as a career is a non-starter. I am too far along in life with too many obligations and too far down my educational path. This does not preclude private practice in the future presuming I continue in public history and build my skills with credible training in conservation, which is very likely to happen. I prefer to live in lower density environments and this is conducive to opportunities in private practice with small museums and history associations. The key is to continue with conservation specific training and practice.

[1] Professional Opportunities Analysis Assignment Instructions, Module 5, HIST 705, Local History, Liberty University, Lynchburg, VA, Fall 2024.

Pilot Project and More

The intention was to post last month but the workload for school has been heavier than expected. The pilot project included in the last post, building an organization’s media archive has been going well. One of the first determinations was that Omeka would not be the platform solution for the project. Omeka is a fine platform, but it is too complex for the organizations environment, personnel, the single media type, and the minimal metadata needs. In this case a simpler PHP/HTML front end for a small database will be more effective and easier to train the organization’s staff on if they decide to continue with the project after the pilot program is completed in December. As of today, the server is built, the platform software (a Linux system with Apache, MariaDB, and PHP [a LAMP server]) is installed, now it’s time to work on the database tables and a simple front end. This will likely be the main daily activity well into October.

In the Local History / Public History class, the next assignment is to analyze an occupation in the field/sub-field of interest, paper conservation was the choice I made as this is an area of great interest to me. Without any local practitioners or local educational resources the decision was made to dive in with a survey of practitioners. The survey is very narrow demographically and geographically, as well as being specific to paper conservation for books and documents, it is limited to the New England area. I would like to relocate to Maine in the near future so the geographic location made sense. Due to the narrow confines imposed, there was a total pool of 115 practitioners invited. As of this writing, there have been 16 respondents, 13.9%, which is pretty good. The hope is to have as close as possible to a 30% response which is asking a lot. Anyone having done a survey by cold-emailing professionals in a field knows anything above 10% is a good response. There are a few more days before the paper needs to be written so we shall see how close I get. The survey has 5 demographic questions and 5 questions on the education of new candidates to the field. SurveyMonkey was used because I have used that tool in the past. The results that have come in have provided an idea for a more detailed research project, an expanded version of this paper, that could make for an interesting journal article. SurveyMonkey is out of the question for an expanded research project, however, they have gotten far more expensive than is practical. Poking around a bit, I found a survey platform that can be added to an existing website and was easy to install and get started. The platform still needs to be explored and learned. This platform could make conducting survey research in a way that fits my workflow and reduces time to process and publish without spending a lot of money for what should be basic feature sets much easier.

Including the two projects above, a collection management system and a research project on paper conservators, there is also a documentary edition project that may move forward. On a recent visit to the local museum, while talking with one of the collections staff about another project for class, they brought up a journal they saw in one of the archive spaces that sounded like it would make a good candidate for a documentary edition for publication. An interest in pursuing this project has been expressed, as of yet no response, however, an in-person follow up will be forthcoming as this would be an enjoyable project and a solid CV / portfolio builder.

Until next time,
~Jon

Edited 21 SEP 2024

One Semester Away

I applied to the Ph.D. History program at Liberty University and was accepted. I received the welcome letter by post yesterday so it is official, I start the doctoral program in January. I am waiting for a grade from the historical filmmaking class to be posted, hopfully over the weekend, to close out the Spring semester. There are three classes left for my M.A. in Public History which I will take in the fall. Registration for the Fall semester opens in two weeks, once registered, I can submitt my application for graduation. My head has been burried in the books for so long it’s a little weird thinking I am a doctoral student with two master’s degrees, well, one and almost a second. It feels like I was just finishing my bachelor’s last term. Three and a half more years if all goes acording to plan, I am looking forward to it though.

My area of interest is the Industrial Revolution, as has been clearly stated in every post so far, and while the IR is a large topic, my specific interests in it are somewhat narrow, but they cover expansive territory within the topic and field. It sounds and is contradictory, which is part of my delema. There are some subdivisions in the field that I find interesting and more narrow, The Gilded Age and Progressive Era (GAPE). These areas wholly overlap the time period of the IR but they carry different connotations and focus leaning more into the social and political than the technical that is generally associated with the IR. There is also a stronger tie to the litterature of the period due to the growth of social justice movements which are represented in the period literature. Thus far I have found two associations with academic journals in my specific areas of interest, the Society for Industrial Archeology [sic.] and the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. The first issue of The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era arrived a couple of days ago and I am looking forward to reading it this week. Already I have some ideas that center around the saterical social commentary illustrations of the period. I am hoping to make some connections and find inspiration for my dissertation in the one of these journals, or one of the other primary history journals as I get closer to that phase.

April Flowers

Not a good start but consistant, it’s been less than 6 months since my last post. At some point I do want to stick to a consistant frequency in blog posts, I’m not sure what that frequency will be, but the desire is there. I have been busy of course with gradschool and considering life’s progress. All things considered, I am in a relativly good place and making progress in the contemplation of which of many possible paths to follow. Since removing myself from volunteer obligations, I hanen’t realy been involved in anything outside of school and home. The academy has been my world since August 2023. So, lets dig into some details.

My B.S. in Religion took longer than it should have, 2018-2021. I stepped up my game for the M.A. in History and completed it in four terms, 2021-2023 amidst some distractions early on. The M.A. in Public History started in the spring 2024 term and will be completed in the fall of 2024. I am almost half way through the second master’s now, just three more weeks to go. Off loading the mass of volunteer work helped tremendously in finishing the first M.A. and diving right into the second. With three more classes to go, I am raring to get these knocked out by the end of the year. An Internship, a Local Historical Research class, and a Digital History class are what is left to complete.

As I plan for the next phase, I need to start narrowing my interests in the field, at least for the dissertation phase of the doctoral path. Yes, the decision to pursue a terminal degree in history has been made, more or less… ??? Yes, I know, is it a yes or is it a no, the variable is employment. I am activly looking for a remote adjunct in history position at the undergraduate level. If I can find one that requires less than 20 hours a week I should be able to take that on and work on the Ph.D.. In broad terms, Industrial Revolution (IR) technologies is a vast span of material to cover, far too broad for a dissertation. Trying to narrow the scope has been dificult since I haven’t had the time do any in depth reading or research to narrow things down to a tight topic. My other academic interests skirt history proper so they also play into the process. Political science, industrial archaeology, experimental archaeology, and experimental history all have a place in the field.

Along with the lack of time to attack the mountain of reading material to find a narrow topic for a dissertation, I also have some academic challenges. I am a slow reader. I read for context and understanding. I have a tendancy to wander on concepts in the reading, and when I come across a word I am not familiar with I look it up. When there is reference to a person, movement, or concept I am not familiar with, I need to divert my attention to understand the context. This can slow things to a frustratingly glacial pace.

As an example, I am currently indulging my political science and history interests on fascism in America and Europe toward the end of the IR. Klemperer’s The Language of the Third Reich1 is literally about the contextual language of the Reich, which is German. I don’t speek or read Greman. I can work out some of the pronunciations and word forms but I want to have at least a cursery understanding of the proper pronunciation, structure, and context so that when these words come up in research in various texts, and they do, frequently, I want to grasp the actual meaning. German words appear in English translations mainly because linguisticly German creates compound words that translate to sentenses in English, with meaning often beyond the litteral translation. This matter is compounded by the context of when the expanded word came into common use, when common meaning changed, or when it left common usage.

Volk [people]2 is the stating point for a plethera of other words, Volkswagen, is people’s car in a general context. In the context of 1930s Germany, volk means folk which has a nuanced context that might not be understand without a German language background as well as the period context of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei [National Socialist German Workers’ Party]. Thus in a 1938 text with Volkswagen, the car of the folk takes on a different context and meaning. This is only one of many words in the volk family which were used to great effect in propaganda and the building of a fictional “historical” Nordic narrative.

I have a number of books on the shelf waiting to be read. Most can be placed into one of four main categories. Late-19th to mid-20th century fiction which is important for contextual interpretation, the civil rights movement and elements there of, facsism and democracies, and architecture. A broad swath of topics but they all relate to history and public history. There is also a backlog of more reading material on my wishlist. This is another of the reading issues, so many things to read but I have to keep my time reserved for academic works first. This will be even more critical in the second phase of the doctoral path, the comprehensives. Anything tangential will have to wait at least until the dissertation phase.

If I do manage to find the unicorn of employment over this summer or fall I will need to start considering a dissertation question and thesis, I will also need to start thinking about publish or parish. There are a number of forms to consider, journal articles, papers, reviews, books, and documentaries. These will also benefit from a narrowing of the field. As I get closer to a question and thesis, I should be able to take some of the impractical side topics uncovered in the dissertation research and pursue them for publication. Time to start looking at journal submission criteria.

Until next time,
~Jon Wanzer, M.A.

  1. Victor Klemperer, The Language of the Tird Reich, London, UK: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013. ↩︎
  2. Klemperer, 30. ↩︎

Things to come

You may have noticed, there is not much content here. My attention has been directed elsewhere, mainly with postgraduate studies. There are 14 days left (December 15, 2023) in my last class for my M.A. in History program, however, it dosn’t end there. A second M.A. in Public History starts in January and thanks to some advanced planning, completion of the second master’s will be in December of 2024. It will be head down and full-steam ahead to get the public history degree completed on time. The month between the fall and spring semesters will be dedicated to planning what happens next. One of the top items to be concidered is whether or not to pursue a terminal degree, if so, what major concentration, and where. I will be looking for degree related work throughout 2024 and will revisit the terminal degree question over the summer.

Degree antics aside, this post is an opportunity to ask myself a few questions about this website that will be reviewed over the winter break; what is this site for, what are its intentions and voice? Will it be a historically focused personal blog or a research publication and portfolio site? There is also the question of research focus which is important if pursuit of a terminal degree is the path forward.

While my primary area of historical focus has remained constant, subsets and concentrations have been flexible. The chronological period has remained relativly fixed to the Industrial Revolution about 1830 to 1939, though the roots of the Industrial Revolution in the U.S. go back to 1790 and Samual Slater’s cotton mill (1790-1808)1 and the Pawtucket labor strike of 1824.2 In the U.K. the first sparks of the Industrial Revolution can be seen as early as the 1760s with James Hargreaves invention of the Spinning Jenny3 (pat. 1770) and James Watt’s improved steam engine4 (pat. 1769). Topically, my interests are centered around the technologies of power, communications, and transportation. Other period considerations include the social and political aspects that allowed industrialization to take root in the first place, topics like social class mobility, international commerce, dependant economies, monopolies, workers rights, and social justice were all developing during this period. Any investigation into the topics above will quickly show how interconnected they all are.

These are questions to explore during the December/January break.

Until then,
~Jon

  1. Gary Kulik, “Factory Discipline in the New Nation: Almy, Brown & Slater and the First Cotton-Mill Workers, 1790-1808,” The Massachusetts Review 28, no. 1 (1987): 164–84. ↩︎
  2. Gary Kulik, “Pawtucket Village and the Strike of 1824: The Origins of Class Conflict in Rhode Island,” Radical History Review 1978, no. 17 (May 1, 1978): 5–38. ↩︎
  3. Charlotte Moy, “Who Invented The Spinning Jenny?,” The Economic Historian, January 30, 2023, https://economic-historian.com/2022/07/spinning-jenny/ ↩︎
  4. “Industrial Revolution Timeline,” Britanica, accessed December 1, 2023, https://www.britannica.com/summary/Industrial-Revolution-Timeline ↩︎