3rd Blog

White says the memory and history are not the same thing, that memory often leaves the lies, cruelty and other things that most people want to forget.
Oral history can be important because it gives the historian a more personal look at the history that is being told. If there is an oral history of a fighter pilot in WWII, a historian could find out the feelings the pilot had, what he smelled, and what were his fears while flying. It seems like there aren't many sources that a historian can access that can give those sorts of details.
However, oral history is based on memory, and as White said, memory leaves out many details. An event can happen and everyone that viewed it could say something different about it. An historian can use an oral history but I would say that they should have other sources to back it up as well. If you have other evidence that is similar to the oral history, I would say that it would be a good source to use. If all you have is an oral history though, I think it might be fairly weak evidence for an historian.

2nd Blog

There are several types of evidence that seem to be the most useful for my scenerio. Newspapers and books written near the time of WWII have given me the most information. Magazines provide some interesting information, but I could not find very much that was relevent to my conscientious objector. I find that the UW library database is the most useful for finding sources that back up my character. I actually found a book that was about a concientious objector living in a CPS Camp in Oregon, which is where my character will be.

Overall, it was been somewhat difficult to find primary sources about concienctious objectors, just because it seems like so much of the information out there is about the military. Perhaps they didn't write as much about their experiences, or its just that so many more people were in the military that there is that much more information for them.

Traces of my life

I read a newspaper in the morning, and left it on the table. Last night I read a book and left it on my dresser. I wrote a myspace message to a friend in Bellingham about how boring the book is and generally complained about it.
I wrote a short paper for this class and printed it out. I may have damaged the microfiche reader when I was trying to read the paper yesterday, but I'm not sure if they would remember me doing it.

1st Blog

O'Donnell writes in his article about the changes that have occurred in library catalogue systems. I believe by nonlinear reading he is referring to the library's way of organization, and how it has changed from catalogue cards to computer databases.
O'Donnell concludes that although the Internet has made the search for information much easier, it has yet to replace libraries. No one created the Internet, he says, and therefore there is no one that is committed to maintaining or supporting the information that you find.

About Me

My name is Ryan and I'm an anthropology student. I wanted to have a career in archaeology but last quarter I decided it wasn't for me. I'm a senior and I only needed a few more credits to graduate. I took this class because I was interested in how people actually research and write history.
I'm originally from Bellingham but moved around quite a bit. I like to travel and have traveled to different places around the world and hope to continue traveling in the future.