Nick Ford 471

When searching for these websites it became very obvious to me that there are some sites that are set up by scholars and that have the intention of them being used as a medium to find sources and other meaningful things and there are sites that exist to try and give a general explanation of a very large slew of events and dont present this information in an easy-to-use way or one that is easy to understand.

Good #1 – http://www.besthistorysites.net/

Run by Ed Tech Teacher, inc. this site uses an amazingly simple and easy to use format. The site exists mainly to provide links to other sites that will offer information to history sites on almost any subject. The thing I love about this site is the set up. It is very clean, very concise and, most importantly it just works. The sites that are linked are almost all scholarly databases many of which are full of digitized primary sources. I found that this site could be seen as very useful as a way to look at the way a nice site looks and functions.

Good #2 – http://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Main_Page

This is an online database of primary sources from WWI run by BYU’s Library.  This site, which is a wiki, uses presents good information in an easy-to-use way and shows things in a format that many understand. While the wiki format makes it lose some creditability at first glance I think that after thinking a deeper look one will see that the information listed there in is very good. While this site does not look beautiful i think it shows something important about the way a history web site should work. The information is good, it is there, and it is easy for the reader to get too.

The Bad – http://americancivilwar.com/

This website is completely awful. It looks terrible. The format just makes my head want to explode, and it would be even worse if I actually came here trying to find something that would help me. There arent really any sources listed, and when they are most simply say “Library of Congress” which is extremely vague. This website shows everything that is bad and can go wrong with a history website. You are constantly having products pushed in your face to try and buy that are somewhat related to your topic, but arent you there for information in the first place? This site should be a template of what we dont want.

I found Payne’s Bibliographic Essay to be very focused in it’s approach to picking apart the current idea of the civil rights movement that is held by most people. The King centric idea of the movement which is largely taught and is part of the social construction of the movement is one that can be seen as very problematic when viewed by historians. It has been changing, as shown in the article, that a shift has been made to focusing on the grassroots movements that inspired leaders like King, and that it was much earlier when the movement started. The movement did not start with Rosa Parks, or Dr. King, it came decades before them with ordinary people who stood up and fought for what they believed. While all of this may be true, is it really possible to change any of this misconception that King WAS the movement in flesh and blood. The fact is that much of this has been imprinted on the minds of thousands of Americans, including myself before attending college. While as a historian I view this as a sad fact that most people do not recognize the countless other men and women who deserve much of the credit I find what James Farmer was quoted in the article as saying very true. He is quoted saying:

“I think that knowledge of the past is vital but historical knowledge is not an end in itself. The more we learn about the past, the more we must recognize that we learn about it in order to bring a more humane society into being in this country. Otherwise, historical knowledge is meaningless.”

That quote shows what we are really trying to do here, and what we must do as historians. We must look into what these ordinary people did in order to pull out some broader meaning and truth for our entire country not just simple facts that are recorded in a book for all of academia to see. While it is important that these things be known, the true importance is the furthering of our society and the common truth that we find in our past.

I found it highly interesting that of all of the historical movements that would have large numbers of sources that are oral history, the Civil Rights Movement is highly documented. The numbers of archives that have been compiled surprised me. I guess I had never thought about where most of the sources on the movement came from but after reading the article the fact that oral history sources are very popular makes very good sense. Considering the nature or movements being not necessarily perfectly fitting into our popular idea of a constructed narrative. I also found it interesting how the article also pointed out the problems that are involved with using oral history sources as sources, such as how people tend to centralize themselves in events which they did not take such a central role in. I think that it is nice to see that an article which endorses oral histories as a primary source in historical thought criticize them in the same article.

Reading the articles the overwhelming theme that came through in them to me was how much he meant to the community and the people who were around him. In the article which talks about his death it becomes very obvious that it was known that he was largely forgotten or omitted from the civil rights movement narrative as it has been remembered in the collective conscience with most people seeing Martin Luther King Jr. as being the main leader and driving force behind the movement. His importance to people shows through in these articles even if it is only in a momentary view into the past. Another thing that came through in the articles I read was, that most of the recognition that he received later in his life was viewed as “too little too late.”

Three important things to know:

1. Farmer died at the age of 79

2. He knew that he had been neglected from the conversation of the movement and felt left out.

3. Much of the things that did come about came too late in Farmer’s mind.

Questions:

1. Did Farmer ever mention his feelings on much of his recognition for the things he did associated with the Civil rights movement coming late in his life?

2. Did Farmer ever talk about his lack of inclusion in the narrative of the Civil Rights Movement?

I found this section of the book to be much more interesting than the first part was. I think in this section of the book we really found out the kind of individual Farmer was. This section really helped, at least in my point of view, to show Farmer as a strong and passionate individual who stood up for what he believed in and fought for it in the face of complete adversity. He also showed that he was a man who had a strong sense of what the thought was right and he stuck too it. He showed great bravery and great leadership, something that all who read this could take as an example. Probably the most interesting part of this reading to me was learning about Farmer’s relationship with Malcom X. The section about the debate between the two of them really sparked my interest realizing the great orator that Malcom X was and the great debater that Farmer is known as. I think this section of the book also showed more of the man Farmer was and less of where the influences came from.

Questions?

1. What was your interaction with Farmer while he was at UMW?

2. Do you feel Farmer had an effect on you during his time here?

3. What do you think Farmer’s legacy is at the university?

4. What do you feel Farmer’s biggest contribution to the world was?

5. What do you feel was Farmer’s biggest contribution to UMW?

So far the book has been an intersting, eye opening, but someone strange read. A large amount i feel is important but there are large amounts of information that is very much matter of fact and not very important to a reader who is looking for a history of the civil rights movement. On the other side of the coin i feel it is a great oral history example because he is so matter of fact in the writing. It allows the reader a view into how his life actually was and what his thought process and thinking was. It has also given me a better view into Farmer’s importance in the civil rights movement as a whole. I feel ignorant in admitting so but until attending this university I had never heard of James Farmer. I think this book has gone a long way to show the importance of a man who didnt seem to get much notice in my education prior to UMW.

Today’s reading provided a new perspective on oral history that I had never really thought of before.  I had never really thought that oral history could actually be seen as more reliable due to the fact that different accounts differ from each other. The theory that was stated in the article that it actually helps us to determine what is the actual event opens a new view of oral history to me. It also helps me to understand what is the “historical conversation” even more that I did before. By looking at multiple oral sources of people who were or might have been at an event will help us to better understand what happened and also helps us to better understand how the collective history was constructed. As stated in the article using multiple different oral history sources also helps us to understand what history the people at the time were trying to construct as well. That in my opinion helps me to view the oral histories that we are constructing in a different way. What history are we trying to construct as we do our interviews? Do we have any motives behind the way we portray the people’s words that we take down? I think these are questions that are necessary to ask when we look at becoming historians and as people conducting oral history interviews. Should be interesting to look at my interview after I do it through this frame.

I would say the thing that stuck me most about this week’s reading would be chapter 5 of Yow dealing with basically all the things we can get in trouble for. Now I’m not going to pretend like I know of knew much about the legal system, but wow, the amount of things that people can get you on just from doing an interview with them was a little astonishing to me. After reading this it has made me positive that I am going to be using a release form of some kind for doing my interview and I am interviewing my own grandmother. I think it shows a little something about our society too, the amount of copyright laws and the amount of things that you can be sued for. I don’t really know if that means anything but it really made me wonder. While I know that the reading did not give an extremely over-arching idea of what can happen or how to stop it, lets just say it has scared me into being a believer of getting a signature regardless of who I am interviewing.

Probably one of the biggest things I took away from the transcript was the need be on your toes when you interview somebody. Throughout the entirety of the interview the interviewer had to constantly keep switching around from different directions to try and get the information that they wanted. I think I took a way from it a deeper understanding of the amount preparation that needs to go into doing an interview. Before reading this I had been considering it but I guess to some extent the amount which I was going to have to do seemed a little lighter. Another I think this transcript showed is how you have to make sure you are staying somewhat on topic so that you can get the information you need from the person you are interviewing. This type of thing seems like something that will come a little more naturally when we actually do the interviews but only time will tell.

The reading for this week out of Recording Oral History by Valerie Yow helped to further cement in my opinion that oral history is just as much a legitimate source as anything that we consider a primary source. All sources come with their own set of biases and as historians in training we have come to realize that. Oral history gains an advantage over other sources in my opinion, based off this reading, because it shows something that just reading something out of a book can tell you. The narrative that comes from a person speaking does something more to press the point home to the reader who is trying to construct a better vision of the past. What I found the most interesting about the entire reading was the second chapter of Yow, which focused on memory. I found all the facts about how we as humans remember things as fascinating. I somehow find it hard to believe that when I am forty though that I am going to remember more about these years of my life than I will the most recent 3. I guess that’s why our parents always said it would be the best years of our lives maybe.

Moving on to the reading by Bunch-Lyons, I found it really interesting that the moves that were made in this period were not as quick and impulsive as I was made to think they were in my high school education. I guess looking back now I should have realized that from common sense but it didn’t really stick. Also, drawing from the Yow reading, it is interesting to see the different motivations for moving between males and females just like how we remember things differently sometimes.