Academic – Page 3 – Ammon Shepherd

Prep for Orals – Modern French History

So, what are the big issues in modern French History?

Fears of change. Periphery versus the national (Paris). Modern versus traditional. New versus old forms of society, government, culture. National versus local.
Social importance and role of individuals. Individual versus community versus monarchy.
Vitality and virtue of French. Really comes into play during Dreyfus affair and national result indicating lowering birth-rate. Escalated through the two World Wars, and can be seen as the cause of issues with Algeria, and blossoms again in their search for vitality in nuclear power.
Political troubles. Around eleven (11) major changes in political power from 1780-1960, contrasted with other European and world powers (USA – 1, England – 1, Germany – 5)

I’ll look at the following:

Republicanism and Nationalism
Antisemitism
Colonialism
World War I and World War II
Post-war national identity

Referencing some of these books:

Caroline C Ford, Creating the Nation in Provincial France: Religion and Political Identity in Brittany (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1993).
Christopher E Forth, The Dreyfus Affair and the Crisis of French Manhood, The Johns Hopkins University studies in historical and political science 121st ser., 2 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004).
Sudhir Hazareesingh, From Subject to Citizen: The Second Empire and the Emergence of Modern French Democracy (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1998).
Gabrielle Hecht, The Radiance of France: Nuclear Power and National Identity After World War II, Inside technology (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1998).
Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace: Algeria, 1954-1962 (New York: Viking Press, 1978).
Eric Thomas Jennings, Vichy in the Tropics: Pétain’s National Revolution in Madagascar, Guadeloupe, and Indochina, 1940-1944 (Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 2001).
Maurice Larkin, France Since the Popular Front: Government and People, 1936- 1986 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988).
John McManners, Church and State in France, 1870-1914 (New York: Harper & Row, 1972).
Philip G Nord, The Republican Moment: Struggles for Democracy in Nineteenth-Century France (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995).
Robert A Nye, Crime, Madness, & Politics in Modern France: The Medical concept of National Decline (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1984).
The Sorrow and the Pity Chronicle of a French Town During the Occupation = La Chagrin Et La Pitie: Chronique D’une Ville Francaise Sous L’occupation (Milestone Film & Video ; [New York], 2000).
Robert O Paxton, Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940-1944, Columbia University Press Morningside ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982).
Pamela M Pilbeam, The Constitutional Monarchy in France, 1814-48, Seminar studies in history (Harlow, England: Longman, 2000).
David Prochaska, Making Algeria French: Colonialism in Bône, 1870-1920 (Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
Henry Rousso, The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France Since 1944 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1991).
Rebecca L Spang, The Invention of the Restaurant: Paris and Modern Gastronomic Culture (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2000).
Eugen Joseph Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914 (London: Chatto & Windus, 1977).
Eugen Weber, The Hollow Years: France in the 1930s, 1st ed. (New York: Norton, 1994).

Continue reading Prep for Orals – Modern French History

British Imperialism and Gender Issues

Here’s my final sprint into the history of modern Britain.

Bibliography:

E. J Hobsbawm, The Age of Empire, 1875-1914, 1st ed. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1987).
Seth Koven, Slumming: Sexual and Social Politics in Victorian London (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004).
Peter Mandler, ed., Liberty and Authority in Victorian Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).
Bernard Porter, The Lion’s Share: A Short History of British Imperialism, 1850-2004, 4th ed. (Harlow, Essex, England: Pearson/Longman, 2004).
Edward W Said, Orientalism, 1st ed. (New York: Vintage Books, 1979).
F. M. L Thompson, The Rise of Respectable Society: A Social History of Victorian Britain, 1830-1900 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1988).
Judith R Walkowitz, City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London, Women in culture and society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).

Imperialism in Britain prior to 1857 was to provide wealth to England. After Indian Mutiny in 1857, crown took over East India Company to help England, India, and Co survive. Afterward, they realized their dependence on their colonies and attitudes turned from one of master to one of public servant (there to enlighten India in economics, politics, and education). The realization of their dependence on colonies and their new focus on their relationship with colonies was termed “new Imperialism”. Porter and Hobsbawm both put economics as the moving force behind imperialism.

Another impetus for imperialism was the shift in local and national economics to the growing global market economy spawned by industrialist and capitalist needs for goods and resources. Imperialism became a necessity to remain competitive in the global market. If you didn’t have colonies to supply resources and goods, you didn’t have global power.

At a time of the rise in sciences of religion, New Imperialism was seen as social Darwinism as the more advanced, developed, and intelligent races naturally ruled over the lower species.

The Boer Wars in South Africa in 1850s and 1890s were significant shocks to Britain as they realized they were not the only players in the global bid for colonies, and, as they discovered in the second war, their nation was virtually unfit to compete in the skirmishes necessary to retain power.

Imperialism - The Longest Reach — Imperialism – The Longest Reach

Imperialism creates what Edward Said terms orientalism, or dividing humanity based on culture, and comes about as one country comes to terms with differences encountered in other countries. The universal issues of “us” versus “them”. Such encounters, especially after their defeat in the 1890 Second Boer War, and the discovery of unfit men, left England seriously questioning the beliefs and culture that led them to that point.

Gender also came to prominent status as mass media and upper classes turned to look at the lower classes and themselves. According to the way some authors (Koven and Walkowitz) portray Victorian society, every aspect of life was actually about sex. Walkowitz looks at how changes in the city brought changes in society and gender spheres. Victorian society became more accepting of sexual discourse through various mass media (mostly newspapers) as more people became literate.

Such publicity lead to more exposure to woman’s rights and needs, as well as abuses (Jack the Ripper) and disreputable employments (prostitution). Some legal changes, including the Married Woman’s Property Act 1882, gave women more legal power to deal with injustices of the times. Koven looks at the philanthropic movement of “slumming,” the practice of upper class individuals visiting the poorest areas of cities in order to observe and often to help. Koven seems obsessed with the sexual aspects of everything, and seems to turn every instance into an opportunity to talk about it. Much too much focused on just one aspect to deliver a clear picture of Victorian period philanthropy. Anyhow, the Victorian period, especially fin de-siecle, was one of dramatic increase in the political address of woman’s rights.

British History and the Industrial Revolution

In preparation for my Oral Exam on October 28, 2010, I have written down some questions and possible replies about the Industrial Revolution in modern British History.

Bibliography

Some of the important works I’ll draw from are:

Berlanstein, Lenard R, ed. The Industrial Revolution and Work in Nineteenth-Century Europe. London, [England]: Routledge, 1992.
Hobsbawm, E. J. The Age of Revolution [Europe] 1789-1848. New York: New American Library, 1962.
Thompson, Dorothy. The Chartists: Popular Politics in the Industrial Revolution. 1st ed. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984.
Thompson, E. P. The Making of the English Working Class. New York: Pantheon Books, 1964.
Thompson, F. M. L. The Rise of Respectable Society: A Social History of Victorian Britain, 1830-1900. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1988.
Wiener, Martin J. English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit, 1850-1980. 1st ed. Cambridge [Cambridgeshire]: Cambridge University Press, 1982.

Questions

How did the Industrial Revolution affect British society and politics?

Steam Engine. From the Almanach comique, pittoresque, drolatique, critique et charivarique pour l’année 1887, published in Paris.

Changes in Lower Classes

As E.P. Thompson’s book title suggests, the Industrial Revolution created a new socially aware and politically active group, or class of people. And it created more than one. E.P. focuses on the worker class that was established as people became workers in factories. The Industrial Revolution also created a new middle class of merchants and businessmen.

Industrial Revolution also changed trades. The weavers were the hardest hit. Once a respectable and well paid trade, after industry replaced people with machines, weaver trade was poorly paid and dishonorable. Positions opened up for women and children to work in factories. People moved to more urban areas. F.M.L. Thompson argues though, that these modes of urbanization were already in place and were not affected by industrialization.

This bespeaks a fear seen in all levels of society: the fear of change, the fear of technology, the dominance of machine over man.

Organizations Lead to Political Activism

This working class eventually formed unions to deal with issues in the factories, and such organization and collaboration in factory politics spilled out into the politics of government as they eventually sought redresses with Parliament. Dorothy Thompson writes about such a movement known as Chartism, that happened in the 1830s and 1840s. Chartism was a movement of varying and differing causes, with the intent of a better society, fueled by the long unhappy workingmen throughout the country.

Middle Class Changes in Society

The middle classes created their own sphere in English society. Wanting to emulate the aristocracy, they embraced the idea of the gentleman and created a culture of private and public spheres for women and men, codes of conduct and beliefs. Industry began a continual decent in the late nineteenth century as the middle class (the owners of industrial factories, the merchants and businessmen) abandon capitalist notions and seek the leisurely life of the gentleman. One argument is that the decline in British industrialism was a direct result of the middle class emulating the aristocracy instead of overcoming them (socially and politically) (Wiener).

Rain, Steam, Spead - The Great Western Railway, 1844. Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) — Rain, Steam, Spead – The Great Western Railway, 1844. Joseph Mallord William Turner.

Historians and the Industrial Revolution

How historians view the Industrial Revolution shows how history telling is affected by modern economic, political and social atmospheres. Four phases of interpretation show that the Industrial Revolution was viewed as a negative consequence of human behavior; a cyclical process of nature tied to war and economic challenges; a process for economic growth; and most recently as nothing more than anticipated economic and technological evolution.

Why does E.P. Thompson hate the standard of living debate?

Thompson looks at the standard of living between 1790-1840. The biggest issue is that historians sympathetic to capitalist entrepreneurship used the data to match their conclusions, rather than to discover what was there. (Like looking for red cars and noticing how many there are, to the exclusion of noticing all the other colors.) This issue leads to three other issues with historical the look at the standard of living.

1. Historians did not take into consideration that quantity can increase and quality can decrease at the same time. Economic historians take the rise in wages and goods and deduce that quality of live increases too. Social historians look at the writings about poor quality of life and deduce that material wealth declined as well. Thompson argues that the Industrial Revolution brought increase in material goods (wages, products, etc) but the “well-being” of workers decreased (decreased leisure time, less independence, longer working hours, etc) (211).

2. Taking an average dilutes the actual findings. Adding the stats for all counties and then dividing by the number of counties to find an “average” ignores the discrepancies within the counties. One county may be very rich, another very poor, but combining their info and dividing by their numbers does not provide an accurate description of how those counties actually were (213-214).

3. Quality is subject to interpretation and dependent upon the group you’re looking at (gentlemen, poor, workers, laborers, etc)

The Past in Color

This weeks installment of history found on the web includes links to a few sites with something special. Color photographs from the early days of color photography. Color somehow brings a photograph to more life, adds more detail, and helps get a better understanding of the time period. Sure you can see the style of clothes, for example, in a black and white, but did you know it was bright green!

The first site comes from the Boston Globe. These pictures are from Russia over 100 years ago! Absolutely amazing detail.

Second we have a bunch of color moving pictures from World War II from a blog at salon.com. Color and moving pictures just makes it all the more real.

Department of Energy Historical Atomic Test Films — Historic Test Films

The third site is an archive of films from nuclear testing by the U.S. Department of Energy. Crazy the amount of destruction those armaments produced.

Fourth is a link to NASA’s Flickr account. Here is Flickr working with a number of the U.S. Government departments to archive some of their images and provide a more publicly accessible way for these public images to be… accessible. Kind of neat.

Finally, the best for last. This site is all in Russian, so not too sure what he’s saying, but Sergey Larenkov has some neat images. They show a juxtaposition of World War II photos with current photos of the same place. It’s a really neat way to see how the damage would look if it were to happen today.

Many Mechanical Machines

Back again with another roundup of websites promoting some history. This weeks focus is on the computers and other machines.

Technologizer has come through in the past year or so with some really fun looks at technology of the past. Here are three:

designmistakes1 — 15 Classic PC Design Mistakes

videophone-splash1 — 132 Years of the videophone

It’s amazing how ugly and non-functional computers were in the early stages. They don’t seem to be anything like cars. Old cars, some of them anyways, become classics. They were made to look good. Somehow, I guess, computer manufacturers didn’t think computers would need any style. Sure they were made for businesses, but beige…. for everything? One of Apple’s biggest successes has been to transform the look of personal computers. No matter what you think about Apple as a company and Steve Jobs as a person, at least their stuff has some style (which has it’s own interesting history in that many styles come from old Braun products by Dieter Rams).

oldcomputer01 — Small Gallery of Old Computers

Speaking of old computers… The Obsolete Technology Website has a plethora of information, a veritable archive, of old technology. It’s good to see someone is keeping the history of our tech junk. Newscientist also steps in with a small gallery of ancient (read older than 30 years) technology.

mac-startup-chimes-osx-startupsound-preference-pane — Macintosh Startup Chimes

Finally, a trip down memory lane with all of the old Macintosh start up sounds at Geekology.

History's equation

I had moment of early morning, jump out of bed and write it down, inspiration the other day.

It was the equation of history.

The Present = (Past Realities) + (Hopes for the Future)

The present, in very simple terms, is a combination of things that have already happened and what is hoped to happen in the future.

History is the study of this equation as it relates to individuals, corporations, governments, nations, etc.

Think about how you think about yourself, for example. You might be like me and when you think about yourself you have this knowledge of things you’ve done, seen, and heard. Then you compare that with how you think you should be.

A historical study does the same thing. It tries to figure out what the present is for any given time period, event, or issue by putting together the past events and the ideals that people left behind.

Anyhow, that’s a quick, not well thought out explanation of a very early morning inspiring thought. As those types of thoughts go, they often don’t pan out when brought under the light of a conscious brain.

The paper is done.

I finished the paper in record time. I was even able to edit it a few times, and didn’t even touch it over the weekend. The course intention is for the paper to include more primary research, but my dissertation advisor persuaded me (and the course instructor) that it would be best to make it a more historiographical look at what has been done on the subject and place it in historical importance. So it turned out to be more an introduction to the dissertation than a researched chapter.

Here it is in it’s entirety for your reading pleasure. 🙂 Shepherd-Hist811-Final

Some more changes to the project.

To make this post not so boring, here’s a couple of pictures I put in my paper.

8th Air Force bombing Marienburg, Germany

After meeting with my dissertation and adviser and prof., we decided to make the paper more focused and helpful for the dissertation. So the plan is now to have this become an introductory chapter. I have done plenty of reading on Albert Speer, and digging through some archival documents, and that will still be helpful and apply to this paper, but the focus will be different.

I definitely need more books, but the ones listed in the last post are a good start.

Oh, man. A lot has transpired since I wrote the above, three weeks ago. The title still applies, and even more so. I turned in my first draft with good reviews from the class, but significant changes required from my dissertation advisor. So much to write about, so many tips and tricks I’ve picked up.

Tips for writing a paper that I should have known already

So, first of all meet with your professors often. This is essential to stay on target. Meet at every step: beginning and deciding on the topic; bibliography; outline; first draft; second draft; final draft.
Make an outline! Man, why did I not do this more often in the past? This was a life saver in helping me formulate thoughts, figure out what was important and what was just an interesting tangent. One of the best benefits of an outline, I found, was that it made the reading more focused. Granted, it took a book or two to figure out what was important about the topic, but making the outline made reading the books easy. I didn’t have to plod through each book, cover to cover. Instead I sought out the parts of the book that helped fill in the outline. Awesome!
Peer review. This was a required part of the course. We all got to read another classmate’s paper and critique/review it. It was neat to see how the reviewer always had some neat aspect or idea that really helped flesh out the topic even more. (I’ll blog about the awesome and pivotal ideas that Mark gave about my paper.)

So there are three good tips. Now I have some more-than-minor rewrites and additional research to do for the version of the paper for class, and some major rewriting and researching to do for the version for my dissertation advisor.

Gathering the historiography

I went back to the Archives last week, for another go at finding documents. I left home at 7am and got there at 9am, this time. I was able to look through 9 rolls of film and get 300 pictures of documents (with some duplication and multiple pictures for some large documents). I had packed a nice lunch and snacks this time, but was called by my wife as I boarded the bus that morning, and she told me I forgot my food! Well, I knew where to get cash, and when to get food, so I was just fine. A big bowl of fruit and yogurt when I got there because the two hour ride made me hungry. And then two $1 hamburgers for lunch! I got to scan and study until 6pm when my family picked me up as we were staying at family in MD.

Anyhow, on to the history part… So I devised an awesome way to track the record, roll, and frame numbers while taking pictures. Again the documents were too large to capture the frame number and all of the document. Before getting to that, though, I checked just about every microfilm scanner in the room to see how well it displayed the images. It turns out that the one I used last time is the best.

So I got all set up, looked through notes and started to build a better spreadsheet to track notes with. I had just put in all of the roll numbers I would need when tragedy struck. I did an undo in my Zotero note, and it wiped out all of my note with the frame numbers I would need! I was in shock! I sat there dumbfounded for a bit, and almost swore at the Zotero programmers who didn’t for see my need for a redo button, but since I know them pretty well, I decided not to be angry. They’re good kids. After the shock wore off, I looked through the indexes at the roll numbers and found which frames I would need, and a few extra. So then I got to work.

: Papers in the way

At first I put the box that the roll of microfilm came in on top of the scanner. That got the record and roll numbers in the shot, but it still required two pictures to get the frame number and all of the document. Then I tore up a note card and wrote the info on small pieces and put that on the screen. The papers soon got in the way, so I hit upon the best idea. I hung the papers from the screen, at the bottom, and could now get all of the document and all of the necessary info! Once I found a set of documents, I became quite adept at taking a picture, scrolling to the next document and putting up the next sequential number. I could take about 15 pictures in a minute or so. It was ingenious! I didn’t get to look at all of the frames that I wanted to, but I think I have enough.

So now on to the historiography. I have some documents, I have some books and articles, it’s time to find out what exactly I’m writing about and what other historians have said about it already. Seems easy enough. So what is it exactly I want to write about? That’s actually a difficult question. I never really found any books or articles on how the Nazi leaders came to want to bury the factories, or even the process of it. Fortunately, I did find a few documents at the Archive that reference it. So what is it that I can do? What I have decided that I will actually be able to do, is to look at two Nazi officials and how they came to the decision to bury the factories. I’ll look at Albert Speer (Head of the Reich Ministry for Armaments and War Planning) and Heinrich Himmler (Head of the Nazi Schutzstaffel – SS). Both of these individuals jockeyed for the right to control how, where, and when to build the tunnels.

Now it’s time to build a framework of books and articles around that topic. As I looked over the literature I had already selected, I was dismayed to see that most of them aren’t going to work. They are great for later, when I look at the economics of the Third Reich and other aspects I’ll need to cover in the dissertation, but not for this paper. So it was back to the grindstone of finding articles and books. I have several on Albert Speer, none on Himmler. The books on Himmler focus on his role in the Holocaust, which is not particularly what I need for this assignment. Many of the documents from the Archive are from Himmler’s records, so I should be able to piece enough together from that. So here’s what I have to read and write a historiography about this weekend:

Willi A Boelcke, Deutschlands Rüstung Im Zweiten Weltkreig (Frankfurt am Main: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft Athenaion, 1969).
Joachim C Fest, Speer: The Final Verdict, 1st ed. (New York: Harcourt, 2001).
Hans Gerth, “The Nazi Party: Its Leadership and Composition,” The American Journal of Sociology 45, no. 4 (January 1940): 517-541.
G Graber, History of the SS (New York: D. McKay, 1978).
A. C Grayling, Among the Dead Cities: The History and Moral Legacy of the WWII Bombing of Civilians in Germany and Japan, 1st ed. (New York: Walker & Co, 2006).
Neil Gregor, Daimler-Benz in the Third Reich (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998).
Peter Hayes, Industry and Ideology: IG Farben in the Nazi Era (Cambridge [Cambridgeshire]: Cambridge University Press, 1987).
Jeffrey Herf, Reactionary Modernism: Technology, Culture, and Politics in Weimar and the Third Reich (Cambridge [Cambridgeshire]: Cambridge University Press, 1984).
John H. Herz, “German Administration Under the Nazi Regime,” The American Political Science Review 40, no. 4 (August 1946): 682-702.
Paul Jaskot, The architecture of oppression : the SS, forced labor and the Nazi monumental building economy (London; New York: Routledge, 2000).
Nicholas Kaldor, “The German War Economy,” The Review of Economic Studies 13, no. 1 (1945): 33-52.
Gerald Kirwin, “Waiting for Retaliation – A Study in Nazi Propaganda Behaviour and German Civilian Morale,” Journal of Contemporary History 16, no. 3 (July 1981): 565-583.
Robert Koehl, The SS : a history, 1919-45 (Stroud: Tempus, 2000).
Arnold Krammer, “Fueling the Third Reich,” Technology and Culture 19, no. 3 (July 1978): 394-422.
R. J. Overy, “Transportation and Rearmament in the Third Reich,” The Historical Journal 16, no. 2 (June 1973): 389-409.
R. J. Overy, “Hitler and Air Strategy,” Journal of Contemporary History 15, no. 3 (July 1980): 405-421.
R. J. Overy, “Mobilization for Total War in Germany 1939-1941,” The English Historical Review 103, no. 408 (July 1988): 613-639.
Bertrand Perz, Projekt Quarz: Steyr-Daimler-Puch Und Das Konzentrationslager Melk, Industrie, Zwangsarbeit und Konzentrationslager in O?sterreich (Wien: Verlag für Gesellschaftskritik, 1991).
Science in the Third Reich, German historical perspectives 12 (Oxford: Berg, 2001).
E. R Zilbert, Albert Speer and the Nazi Ministry of Arms: Economic Institutions and Industrial Production in the German War Economy (Rutherford, [N.J.]: Fairleigh Dickenson University Press, 1981).

Getting my hands dirty

Last Friday was archival research day. I spent the whole day at the National Archives at College Park. Well, let me rephrase that, I spent half the day getting there and back, and half the day in the archives.

The only way for me to get there was to take public transportation. I took the Metro bus from my house to George Mason University. From there I took the CUE bus to the Metro Station. One change on the Metro in DC and then I was at University of Maryland. Then it was another bus to the Archives. That wasn’t so bad. It only took THREE HOURS!!! After getting my researchers card, I went to the fifth floor, got a quick tour on how to use the microfilm readers from the very helpful staff, and jumped right in to what I thought would provide the best sources.

After several hours of looking at microfilm I decided it was time to eat lunch, it was already 3PM. Everywhere I looked were reminders that the copy machines in all of the research rooms ONLY TAKE DEBIT CARDS, NO CASH! Well, I thought, I’ll just run down to their cafeteria and get some lunch. What? What’s that? The Archives are open until 9PM but the cafeteria closes at 2PM?!?!? Oh, they have some stuff to buy, still, like milk, and cake, and muffins, and one last bowl of fruit. Fine, I’ll get the fruit, milk, and chips. Yes, I’m ready to pay now. Oh, you only take CASH?!?!? You’ve got to be freakin’ kidding me! Fine! I’ll use my last two dollars in cash to buy a danish and grape soda from the vending machines! Can’t use cash anywhere else, and can’t figure out how to let the cafeteria use debit cards. Now that’s some fine government work for ya.

So after that huge irritation, I went back to searching through the archives. I ended up spending 6 hours looking through 10 rolls of film. After reviewing the 150 pictures I took of the documents, only 2 of them apply to my topic.

So here are some things I learned while at the National Archives at College Park.

Leave much earlier in the morning. It takes forever to get there. Half the day was travel, which was good reading time. But remember to have paper and pencil handy or the reading goes to waste.
Take food. They have free lockers, and microwaves. If you need to eat their food, do it before 2 PM.
Figure out what rolls of film, and approximate frame numbers you need before you go. Fortunately, I had done that. It saved hours of time. I only got through half of the rolls I need to look at. Fortunately there were some good indexes for the film I need. You can find them at the Archive’s site to purchase copies of film. Type in a keyword in the index’s title. Then click on the index you want. Usually there is a PDF version of the index you want. And best of all… The PDF is SEARCHABLE! Man, that saves a bunch of time.
Figure out how you want to make copies of the microfilm. The College Park location doesn’t have the ability to scan the documents to a computer yet. You can print them on paper, though. But what works the easiest is to just take a picture of the screen with your digital camera.
Figure out a plan for referencing where the copies came from. It does you no good to take a bunch of pictures or make a bunch of paper copies if you don’t know which roll of film and which frame the document came from. I thought I had a pretty decent system. Take a picture, make a note in a spreadsheet which roll, frame, and a bit about the document. Looking back, the notes I made were much too vague. A much better system is to write the Record number, roll number and frame number on a piece of paper and tape it to the screen next to the document. Taking a picture automatically records that info right next to the document. You have to get paper and pencil from the Archives, hopefully they have tape too.

My next trip is this Friday. I won’t have the whole day, but with one day of experience under the belt, I think the next trip will go more smoothly. Now I just need to get some sources!

One last thing. Make a note of all of the interesting things you see, but don’t need. You might want to come back to those later. I saw a decree from Heinrich Himmler, outlawing the word “Partisan”, and some sweet pics of a Nurflügel-Segelflugzeug Horton II (below).

I can’t wait for next time.