Duke History Revisited Round-Up: Sept. 19th

Date: Monday, September 19, 2016
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: Holsti-Anderson Family Assembly Room, Rubenstein Library Room 153
Contact: Valerie Gillispie, valerie.gillispie@duke.edu

This summer, the University Archives offered a new program for undergraduate students called Duke History Revisited. The idea was to give students a chance to dig into the University’s history and tell the stories of people and events that were not widely known.

On September 19th, the program’s eight students will come together to recap their research projects. During this event, each student will briefly introduce his or her topic, highlight their research discoveries, and offer their own insight into Duke’s history. The presentations will be followed by refreshments and an opportunity to talk with the students in more detail.

The DHR students spent 6 weeks working with faculty members Jolie Olcott and Joshua Sosin; graduate student Will Goldsmith; and archivists Amy McDonald and Valerie Gillispie. The group met twice a week to discuss progress and share research. This special program was made possible by a grant from Humanities Writ Large and the Office of the Dean of Trinity College of Arts and Sciences.

Students and faculty discuss research strategies during a Duke History Revisited meeting.

We also welcomed a number of special guests to the program to talk about the act of doing research or reflecting on the past. Our guests included William Turner (T ’71, M.Div ’74, PhD ’84), Charles Becton (Law ‘69), Brenda Becton (WC ‘70, Law ‘74), Bob Ashley (T ’70), Steve Schewel (T ’73, PhD ’82), and Robert Korstad (Duke faculty). We were also joined by experts from the library, including Tracy Jackson and Matthew Farrell (University Archives), John Gartrell (John Hope Franklin Center for African and African American History), Laura Micham and Kelly Wooten (Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture), Hannah Rozear (Librarian for Instruction), and Michael Daul (Digital Collections).

The students pursued a wide range of topics, using archival materials from the University Archives, materials from other repositories, oral histories and interviews, and other sources. Each created a final project that they felt best expressed the content. The titles and links to the projects are below:

Sini (Nina) Chen | “Finding a Home for Tricky Dicky: The Nixon-Duke Presidential Library Controversy” (online exhibit)
Hayley Farless | “Right to Access: A History of the Duke University Abortion Loan Fund” (presentation; link to PDF)
Elizabeth George | “Success of the Second Sex: Duke University’s Demonstrated Efforts to Empower Women” (research paper; link to PDF)
Lara Haft | “(we know) (we’ve been here): uncovering a legacy of student & employee solidarity” (online exhibit)
Alan Ko | “‘Cherry Blossoms Among Magnolias?’: A History of the Asian Experience at Duke” (online exhibit)
Paul Popa | “A Leap of Faith: Documenting the First-Generation Undergraduate Experience” (online exhibit)
Victoria Prince | “Town and Gown Relations vs. Power Struggles: An Overview of How the Durham Freeway Controversy Affected Relations Between Durham, NC and Duke University”
Jesse Remedios | “The Politics of Identity” (podcast)

Post contributed by Valerie Gillispie, Duke University Archivist.