History 2000: Visualising the Past
(A Quantitative Reasoning course)
Instructor: Robert SweenySlot 18 Tuesday & Thursday 10:30-11:45.
How can we understand the complexity of the past and explain it to others? Grasping complexity is for historians often a question of working with differing types of sources, andthen explaining that complexity to people who have little or no background in history. In this course we will learn: how to work with sources about ordinary people; how each source tells different types of stories; how we can link those disparate stories together; and how we can use graphic and pictorial evidence to tell thiscomposite story to more people.
This term our course will explore where we are. We will be researching and writing the history of the neighbourhood that is home to MUN: Churchill Park, which is among the first modern suburban developments in North America Designed as a social housing project to address the needs of the skilled working class during the World War II, Churchill Park is now one of the most affluent communities in the province. Its history encapsulates much of the recent history of not just Newfoundland, but urban life in North America.
The course is structured around five two-week-long modules that each explores a different type of source: the Goad insurance atlases, city directories, census returns, newspapers and municipal tax rolls. Within each module we will be learning about the graphic and pictorial techniques most widely used in presenting that type of source material. Each module involves assigned readings and a computer lab. For each module you will write either a short reflection on the readings or do a practical exercise with the source.
Collaborative research is a key component of this course. The class will be divided into groups, each working on a differing source and the group will be making a 15 minute presentation to the class during the third to last week of the course. You will have the option of collaboratively developing this preliminary presentation into a 3,000 word illustrated essay in the form of a web page. For those of you who opt out of this second stage of the group project you will have as your final assignment a 500 word illustrated essay, also in the form of a web page, telling the story of a house, family or firm in the neighbourhood that draws on at least three of the sources we have studied.
Evaluation: Five bi-weekly reflections or exercises….. 50%
Group class-room presentation …………. 15%
Final group or individual web page ……... 25%
Class participation ……………………….. 10%
Texts
No textbook is required, as all readings are available online through our D2L shell.