National History Day and the Power of Place: Researching the History of Your State Or Community
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Dustin Meeker National History Day and the Power of Place: Researching the History of Your State or Community hile serving as a judge at history at the state competition. Upon Downloaded from the 2011 Maryland His- returning to Allegany County with Wtory Day competition in the prize in hand, she received an addi- junior individual exhibits category, I tional honor from the staff at the encountered a strangely familiar but Queen City Transportation Museum, unconventionally shaped exhibit. As I who asked to exhibit her project in the http://maghis.oxfordjournals.org/ approached the table on which the pro- museum’s gallery (1). ject sat, I quickly recognized that the Each year, hundreds of thou- exhibit was in the form of an obelisk sands of secondary students (grades mile marker from the National Road, six through twelve) from across the the first major highway in the United United States participate in National States. Unlike the stationary tri-fold History Day (NHD), a competition in exhibit boards, the obelisk rotated in which students, working individually a full circle, with each of its four sides or in small groups develop a research revealing an element of the exhibit and project on a topic of their choice that advancing part of the student’s thesis. relates to a designated overarching at University of Colorado on October 13, 2014 During the judges’ interview, I learned theme. Students can choose from sev- that Isabella Pannone, the Washing- eral interpretive media to present their ton Middle School eighth-grader who research and thesis statements: papers, developed the project—“The Debate exhibits, documentaries, websites, and over the National Road: The First living history performances. Any topic Road that America Built and the Road from the dawn of human history to that Built America”—chose this topic the twenty-first century is fair game, because she lived along the National assuming the participant can frame it Road in Allegany County in western within the annual theme. When choos- Maryland and was curious about the ing a research topic, some participants, road’s origins. like the Allegany middle schooler I Isabella explained that the mark- encountered at Maryland History Day, ers that her exhibit modeled dotted look to familiar landscapes, historic the landscape in one-mile intervals sites, and cultural institutions for along the road that she traveled daily, inspiration, and explore the history of yet most people in her town gave little their state or community. thought to the road’s historical signifi- Figure 1. Originally constructed in the early nineteenth century as part As an educator and archivist at the cance (Figure 1). Her curiosity led her of the National Road, from Cumberland, Maryland to Wheeling, Virginia, Maryland Historical Society (MdHS), to research the origins of the National this milestone marks the distance to both ends of the nation’s first high- I interpret Maryland’s rich history way, as well as to nearby Frostburg, Maryland. Working as a National Road and its impact on the politics History Day judge, the author was impressed by a student’s project on a and work to connect the public to and economy of the young American western Maryland milestone, which illustrated the value of studying U.S. the objects, documents, and historic republic. She visited multiple historic history through a local or regional lens, as well as the benefits of visiting sites that represent the state’s past. sites and museums to access relevant local archives and museums to enhance research possibilities. (Courtesy One of my principal constituencies sources, and she photographed the of Christopher Busta-Peck; Photograph by Christopher Busta-Peck) is secondary students and social stud- physical remnants of the road’s early ies teachers. I especially enjoy my history in Allegany County. This student’s efforts in diligently research- role in supporting National History Day and working with teachers ing an institution critical to the economic development of her com- and students who choose to explore topics of state and local history munity and her state earned a special prize for a project on Maryland using resources at MdHS. In this article, by sharing my experiences OAH Magazine of History, Vol. 26, No. 3, pp. 19–23 doi: 10.1093/oahmag/oas022 © The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Organization of American Historians. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected] connecting NHD participants to local and regional resources at collections reading room is experiential learning that cannot be repli- MdHS, I hope to encourage teachers and public historians to engage cated in the virtual world, regardless of the sophistication or depth of students in the study of state and local history and to investigate digital archives. In most cases, an institution’s digital collections are national or global events through a regional or local lens. This a mere fraction of the physical sources in its archival holdings. For approach can provide students with valuable research experiences instance, a student researching the civil rights movement in Maryland that they otherwise may not have if their topic limits them to pub- in the MdHS’s digital archives will find several dramatic images of lished or Web-based sources. Students investigating elements of activists picketing outside of Baltimore’s Ford’s Theater. However, the their state or community’s history often have the opportunity to work researcher can supplement these images by accessing dozens of other with physical archival collections at research institutions, engage in photographs of the event and oral history interviews with participants, fieldwork or exploration at historic sites, and conduct oral history available in physical form at the MdHS’s library and archives. interviews with community members. These experiences comple- When students engage in archival research, they acquire skills and ment and enhance research in digital archives and conventional knowledge that are applicable in both higher education and the work- libraries while exposing students to a greater diversity of sources place: navigating a library’s online catalog and collections databases; and perspectives as well as fostering relationships with community articulating their project’s purposes, needs, and research questions to members. archivists and librarians; exhibiting proper reading room etiquette; and sifting through often imposing manuscript collections in search of rel- Downloaded from The Power of the Archive evant information. Knowing where to locate sources and how to access My primary responsibility at MdHS is managing the Student Research them greatly expands the research potential of a project and allows Center for History, a manuscript reading room designated specifically the researcher to consider other questions, explore new angles, and for secondary students. The center provides them with the rare oppor- include a greater diversity of perspectives, thus strengthening the final tunity to engage in the historian’s craft by working with original pri- product (3). mary sources from the society’s archival collections. Program offerings Furthermore, the tactile experience of handling archival material http://maghis.oxfordjournals.org/ include group and individual research sessions and primary source excites and motivates students and imbues them with a sense that their workshops that simultaneously develop students’ content knowledge, research is authentic, original, and meaningful. From my experience strengthen their analytical and critical readings skills, and introduce working with NHD researchers, students are energized by the sense of them to historical research methods. I serve as a bridge between the discovery in scouring a document case of personal papers and elated K–12 community and the state’s treasured documentary heritage, and upon encountering a source that speaks directly to their research ques- therefore am uniquely positioned to support teachers seeking to tran- tion. Leah Renzi, a Baltimore County Public Schools social studies scend online research and students searching for primary sources rel- teacher who brought her eighth-grade students to MdHS to research evant to their NHD projects. their NHD projects, reflects, “I think students feel like they are being Educational theorists have long touted the importance of culturally treated as serious students when they are invited to research at archives relevant pedagogy and the need to ensure that academic content, skills, and historic sites. The impression I get is that they think going to at University of Colorado on October 13, 2014 and processes are socially applicable and meaningful to students’ lives these places adds credibility to their studies. And it does” (4). Since beyond the classroom (2). History ceases to be merely a collection of most NHD participants across the nation cannot easily visit the Library abstract facts when students can associate historical trends or epochal of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, or the National Archives events with physical structures, institutions, streetscapes and land- and Record Administration’s repositories, their best chance to have an scapes, place names, and individuals within their communities—hence archival research experience, as Leah Renzi’s students enjoyed, is to the power of place. With the help of archivists and other public histori- embrace a local or state history topic or to consider the local dimensions ans, students and teachers can utilize the local and regional resources of a global or national theme. in identifying NHD topics and can enrich their research experience by Informed and enthusiastic public historians—librarians, archivists, visiting museums and archives within their communities. curators, site managers, and educators—are the stewards of local his- Over the course of the last decade, the Library of Congress, the tory and thus a critical bridge between students and sources. Students National Archives, the Smithsonian, and hundreds of smaller institu- who conduct archival research and seek assistance from librarians tions have digitized tens of millions of individual items.