HST 401/501—Topics in American History: Field Methods in Community History Research
Special Session 13: July 9-August 4, 2007
Instructor: Christine L. Ridarsky

Field Methods Course Gives Students Hands-On
Research Experience Doing Community History

HST 401/501—Topics: Field Methods in Community History Research
Special Session 13: July 9-August 4, 2007
Instructor: Christine L. Ridarsky

Are you looking for an interesting and rewarding summer school experience? Would you like to earn college credit without spending your summer cooped up in a traditional classroom? Would you like to actually do history instead of just reading about it?

If so, Fields Methods in Community History Research may be just the course for you. This innovative, hands-on practicum gives students an opportunity to contribute to an important historical research project while honing their skills in advanced historical research methods.

John Potter, director of the Schuyler County Historical Society, examines a nineteenth-century business ledger. The historical society’s collections also include photographs, business and farm directories, cemetery records, and diaries and letters written by county residents.

For the first two weeks of the course, students will live on the shores of Seneca Lake in Hector, New York, (see Accommodations) and participate in directed research as part of the Finger Lakes National Forest Farmstead Archaeology & History Project. They will make daily research trips with the instructor to public records offices, libraries, museums, archives, cemeteries, farms, and community business districts where they will examine a variety of primary source materials. Students will also conduct oral history interviews with longtime community residents.

The goal will be to learn about various aspects of the rural community in and around the hamlet of Bennettsburg, New York, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Topics will include family life, agriculture, rural schools, religion and churches, social, farming, and business organizations, and the relationship between farmers, agricultural experts, and government bureaucrats, among others.

This 1874 map of Bennettsburg, New York, shows the location of residents’ homes and businesses. Maps can be useful historical sources.

At the end of this intensive two-week research period, students will work on their own (meeting occasionally with the instructor, as necessary) for another two weeks to complete a research paper on some aspect of the Bennettsburg-area community’s history. Students will be expected to incorporate the information from their primary source research with information from secondary sources in order to place the community’s history in a broader historical context. (Students should be able to complete most of their primary source research during their two weeks in residence in Hector, but depending on their topic and the sources available, they may want to make additional research trips to the region on their own.)

Additional Information

• Students who are considering enrolling in this course are encouraged to contact the instructor in advance at Christine.Ridarsky@rochester.edu.
• About the Instructor
• Syllabus for Summer 2007 Program [Link forthcoming]
• Want to know more?
  Read about the SUNY Brockport Finger Lakes National Forest Farmstead Archaeology & History Project.
• Field Methods in Community History Research course (.pdf document)