Comments on posts

Hello, all. This is Julie, the writing fellow for this class. You'll all meet me in person tomorrow in class, but I just want to respond briefly to your posts regarding possible paper topics.

First of all, I'd like to say that you're all off to a good start. Some of you clearly have more refined topics than others, but that's to be expected at this stage in the writing process. I would recommend that all of you start making some tentative steps in the next few days towards locating sources that might match your interests. We will go to the library in week 4 and do some more refined searching, but there's no harm in starting now. I'd start with the accessible: Socrates and the online databases available through the library website. Also try the California Digital Library. It has links to Melvyl, the UC system's online catalog and to the Online Archive of California. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the OAC, it allows you to search by name, topic etc. and see holdings in most of the major archives of California. Worldcat.org can also be useful, but the OAC will give you more local materials.

I'd also like to make a few very brief comments though we'll talk about this more in the next week, so don't worry about the fortune cookie nature of the comments bellow:

Chris--The idea of doing a project of Chinatowns in the South Bay, perhaps at Stanford, sounds good. As one of your colleagues has already mentioned, this might be fruitfully combined with the issues of culture and identity that you mentioned in your third possibility. I'd like to hear more about any work you've done in the University archives at Stanford and previous work you've done in this area.
Andrea--It seems like you're most interested in cultural representations of the black family. Perhaps this could be combined with your interest in the Gilded Age, which would perhaps lead to you examine images of the black family from that period. If you do want to keep your focus in the 20th century though, I'd start looking at the holdings of the African American Museum and Library at the Oakland Public Library. You should also remember that if you locate your topic too close to the present, it might be harder to find archival sources. Also, on a related note, I have an image of a bus ad that I snapped in D.C. that I think you'd love.
Brendan--I think that the idea of using diaries could be quite fruitful. I'd start looking around to see what sorts of materials exist in the area. If you could find a couple of different diaries in the same time period, you might be able to do something a bit different from what you've done in your previous work. Doing a paper on McNamara might be significantly harder because his papers are at Library of Congress and the LBJ library, but you could search around and see if there's a specific episode you might explore.
Jenni--Given that the first topic listed is the most specific, you might want to start looking for sources around it, keeping in mind that you might have to shift the time period closer to the present to get a critical mass of usable sources. Also, you should check out Kathy Peiss' article "Charity Girls and City Pleasures: Historical Notes on Working Class Sexuality, 1880-1920." It should be available on jstor.org.
Alice--Have you thought about perhaps looking in to strikes that occurred during the Civil War? Perhaps this is a good way to marry together your main interests. There's plenty to look at for the North. I'm not as clear on the history of Southern strikes, but you could start looking around to see if there are sources around here for either.
Matt--If you haven't already, you should read Bernard Bailyn's The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. I hate to recommend a shelf full of books, but you also might be interested in Nathan Hatch's The Democratization of American Christianity.
Tom--If you're interest is in the Great Depression and ethnic identities, you could probably fold this in to a project about San Francisco, say about a particular enclave, neighborhood, group. There are plenty of ways you could slice it, depending on your interests. Also, I'd recommend Thomas Sugrue's The Origins of Urban Crisis. It's about Detroit, but it might help you think about issues in your own work.
Sylvie--As I'm sure you're aware, Buckley's papers are at the Hoover, as are the papers of a number of other conservative leaders and thinkers. If you haven't done so already, you should search through and try to identify others that might give you a window in to their religious thinking at the Hoover.

Also, I'm pleased to see that some of you are responding to each others posts on the blog. Keep it up!

--Julie