This past week at the Massachusetts Historical Society, I engaged in some of the same work that I have been involved with in previous posts. I continued my work on an email spreadsheet of high school Social Studies coordinators, a list that contains nearly 400 school districts. This task is certainly tedious, and at times I find myself slightly discouraged because it has almost nothing to do with actual historical research. Still, I remind myself that this is part of being an intern, and that I must do some grunt work before I can involve myself with the work that I hope to achieve in researching and writing.
Continuing transcriptions this week, I found that though I am just converting handwritten documents to typed documents, I am retaining much of the information that I process. Not only do I recognize names and places in the documents, but I am able to put these things in a historical context based on my knowledge of American history (mostly from my APUSH class last year). For example, while transcribing a letter from Frederick Douglass’s son (seen above) who was a Union army soldier during the Civil War, I recognized the name of General McClellan, an important Civil War general. Even these menial tasks are aiding me in my pursuance of a career in history by flushing out my knowledge of various events and providing me with many primary source perspectives. I look forward to continuing with this work in weeks to come.
Continuing transcriptions this week, I found that though I am just converting handwritten documents to typed documents, I am retaining much of the information that I process. Not only do I recognize names and places in the documents, but I am able to put these things in a historical context based on my knowledge of American history (mostly from my APUSH class last year). For example, while transcribing a letter from Frederick Douglass’s son (seen above) who was a Union army soldier during the Civil War, I recognized the name of General McClellan, an important Civil War general. Even these menial tasks are aiding me in my pursuance of a career in history by flushing out my knowledge of various events and providing me with many primary source perspectives. I look forward to continuing with this work in weeks to come.