DRAFT

HIST 713: HISTORICAL RESEARCH METHODS

OFFICE HOURS: I am available most quickly by email, and I am happy to make an appointment to meet face-to-face. I have availability on almost every weekday. Please email to set up an appointment.

Office: 351 HoltonOffice Phone: as a cost-cutting measure, I no longer have an office phone.

email: (I am online almost every day)

Class meets 7-9:40pm on Wednesday in Holton 341

The methods historians use to do their research may at first seem obvious: look at some documents/artifacts and interpret what they tell us about the past. The reality is a great deal more complex, involving specific analytical skills developed for particular genres of evidence, and a self-reflexive stance that assesses the interpretative limitations of a piece or a collection of evidence, including qualifiers for the types of interpretive arguments that the sources can support. The historian’s methods are not “eternal,” but are themselves products of historical experience and change over time. That is, historical methods are as much historical artifacts as they are “instruments” of our current craft. This means that methods change over time and are frequently reshaped to fit existent circumstances, new questions, new types of evidence and artifacts, and new archives. This class examines AND PRACTICES historical methods, and works toward the kinds of skills that will allow a graduate student to do advanced research in the discipline of history, as well as acquire new methodological skills.

Required Texts:

Dougherty, Jack. More Than One Struggle: The Evolution of Black School Reform in Milwaukee,

ISBN: 0807855243 (paper)

Feldstein, Ruth. Motherhood in Black and White: Race and Sex in American Liberalism, 1930-1965.

ISBN: 978-0801484384 (paper)

Articles posted on the course D2L site.

* Grading: Written work: 80%. There will be three short assignments worth 10 percent each, and a final paper worth 50% of the grade. The final paper will be a grant proposal/research plan for a historical study of your choice. Seminar participation: 20%. I expect every student to contribute something useful, in writing (a page is fine), to each class meeting.

Discussion Topics, Assignments, and Due Dates

WeekDateDUE, Read, Class Work, etc.

1Jan 24Class work: explanation of class design, assignments, and questions; student introductions; introduction to Joe; What’s your project?; methods workshop introduction (Negotiate monograph/method selection with Joe by class #4, Feb 14)

2Jan 31Meet in Special Collections, UWM Libraries, 4th floor for presentation by Max Yela and a collective examination of documents from this collection. Read: D2L, Session #2. (Negotiate monograph/method selection with Joe by class #4, Feb 14)

3Feb 7Read: Doughterty, More Than One Struggle.Class work: discussion of the book; how to perform an autopsy on a monograph; constructing methodological questions; methods, in relation to historiography and secondary research. (Negotiate monograph/method selection with Joe by class #4, Feb 14)

4Feb 14 DUE: Short Assignment 1 (autopsy of More Than One Struggle); title and brief description of student’s monograph/method selection. Read: D2L, Session #4. Class work: second discussion of More Than One Struggle (new insights from the autopsy?); some common fallacies of historical reasoning; methods workshop: newspapers and the public sphere.

5Feb 21Read: Your monograph selection. Class work: preliminary monograph reports (oral) and discussion; electronic databases and primary research; methods workshop: memos, reports, and other official communications produced by governmental entities.

6Feb 28DUE: Short Assignment 2 (autopsy of the monograph you selected).Read: D2L, Session #6.Class work: collective discussion of monographs dissected. methods workshop:oral history.

7Mar 7 Read:D2L, Session #9. Class work: planning your short archival project (Short Assignment 3, Apr 11); planning your large project (draft due April 25; final due May 9); methods workshop: photographs.

8Mar 14No class meeting. As needed, email or face-to-face discussions with me on short archival project ideas and large project ideas. Go to Archives (short assignment 3, due Apr 11); locate archives and secondary sources for final project.

Spring Break March 18-25

9Mar 28No class meeting. As needed, email or face-to-face discussions with me on short archival project ideas and large project ideas. Go to Archives (short assignment 3, due Apr 11); locate archives and secondary sources for final project.

10Apr 4Read: Feldstein’s Motherhood in Black and White. Class work: discuss + dissectFeldstein’s Motherhood in Black and White(in class)

11 Apr 11DUE: Short Assignment 3 (Local Archive). Read: D2L, Session #11. Class work: discussion of archive experiences for Short Assignment 3; requirements for Final Paper; questions; methods workshop: popular culture artifacts.

12Apr 18Read: D2L, Session #12. Class work: research funding for the Final Paper: travel funds, grants (the SSHA Travel Grants), and fellowships; methods workshop:the social sciences.

13Apr 25DUE: 4 copies of your final project draft. Read: D2L, Session #13.

14May 2DUE: comments on 4 drafts. Student group workshops on final projects.

15 May 9DUE: Final Project. Class work: short oral presentation on final projects; reflections; questions; endings and conclusions.

No class week of May 14