particular and universal -- how they relate to our final exhibit

In Nearby History we read two chapters: 'Research, Writing, and Leaving a Record' and 'Linking the Particular and the Universal.' From the first chapter, I found a few things that I thought related to our public history final project, although most of them were more helpful for when I consider my research plan for my undergraduate thesis. I appreciated the emphasis on organization and back-up files, simply because those are two things that I don't excel at when I am researching. The authors suggest different methods of organizing notes and research as well as explain how to leave your work behind in archives, libraries, or other types of repositories. I think for the exhibit project, a folder or binder as well as a google document between our group would be sufficient for notes, but for larger papers like my thesis, I plan to use color coded index cards for categorizing sources  and their citations along with a 3 ring binder for drafts, peer-reviews, hand-written and typed notes along with anything else that I need.

The second chapter, 'Linking the Particular and the Universal' was especially helpful as I consider our final project. For the exhibit, we plan on juxtaposing particular pieces of Goshen history with broad American cultural movements. This chapter speaks almost directly to what we plan on doing. By considering the 'new social history,' academic and public historians can come together to research and give a voice to the marginalized people in society. The authors cited a few paragraphs worth of studies, and there were two that interested me. First, was Philip J. Greven Jr.'s Four Generations: Population, land and Family in Colonial Andover, Massachusetts where he "used vital, town probate and deed records to determine family characteristics and land-ownership patterns (235)." This is exactly what our house history project and our final project entail!  The second part I liked was an acknowledgement that Native-American communities are indeed worthwhile to study and deserve a detailed investigation concerning European displacement (237).

In the latter half of the chapter, the authors address the authors address issues of geography and community as well as social-economics, especially in relation to immigration. They address also institutions, postmodernism, and the importance of family history to local history. Our final exhibit project will hopefully be a combination of the small, local, 'new social' history with the broad American history. I believe that 'new social history' has been the combining factor between public historians and academic historians. While they may approach it with a different viewpoint, the understanding that the marginalized and underrepresented people deserve a part of history is a step in the right direction for the grand scheme of human history.  It will be really interesting to see how little Goshen relates to big America. I'm excited to pursue our project further.