My entry point for history was my own family. I grew up visiting graveyards regularly, whether it was planting flowers on relatives graves (some of whom I don’t remember exactly where they fit in the family tree) or trying to find other branches on the family tree generations back, so far back that the graves were often not visited anymore. I can still find baby Daisy because she’s buried so close to Author’s Ridge in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord. To put things into even further perspective was thinking about my great-aunt. Born at […]
Using Fiction to Understand the Past
There is something about reading a book that has familiar landmarks. Not even necessarily places that you’ve actually been to (though being able to actually visualize where you are in the book is fun), but places that you’re actively interested in, time periods you’ve spent scads of time researching. I’m currently reading The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry, and while I love my ability to mentally follow Towner down Derby Street, up Hawthorne past the hotel and up to the Common, well… It reminded me of yet another book where it wasn’t quite the same, […]
The Spirit of Historical Inquiry
I was listening to TED Radio Hour last month for a re-airing of an episode entitled, “The Spirit of Inquiry”. What fascinated me was how science-based the episode was. And yes, to a certain extent I could understand why it was so science-based. But here is where I would like to take that thought and bring it even further: Most of us were taught in school that the reason we should believe in science is because of the scientific method. Scientists follow a method and this method guarantees the truth of their claims. […] The […]
History Chat: The Earliest Constitutions
Most of the questions I have involving history are because I heard someone say something that didn’t quite line up with my existing knowledge. Either that or someone posed a question I didn’t know the answer to and had to look it up. Since I spend most of my time either in a classroom or a museum, this happens quite a lot. Today’s inquiry came from a simple statement. John Adams wrote the Massachusetts Constitution in 1780, the oldest Constitution in the country. So, I will start with the part that is the easiest to […]