bloggin history

self evaluation

2005-05-12T12:42:00.000-07:00

i would first like to start by saying that we are all glad that the class was not like your last class, and therefore i think we got more out of it because you weren't constantly on us to do just the bare minimum. with that said, i think i speak for us all when i say that i got alot out of the class because i put alot in.

the attendance was an excercise in self control. after the scare tactics of the first class, i would say everyone did a great job of getting to class ON TIME!!! i only missed one day towards the end of the semester for a catering job (which was cleared ahead of time) and i even made it to the LOC field trip. although sometimes my blog was not up to date at every class meeting, the final project was completed in a timely fashion (which was probably the single largest accomplishment you wanted for all of us after the horror stories of last semester's last minute grading bonanza.) i did need one extra day and had to drop the paper off at your house in South Riding, but true to my word it was there and it was complete and coherent.
the paper itself was no easy task. this was my first foray into real research, and i would say that my meeting with George Oberle made the difference between an ok and a great paper. i actually wrote hime an email thanking him because i am not sure i could have grasped the online journal searches without his help. the paper nearly killed me, but now that i am on the other side i can say that it really did make me a stronger student. i hope that you liked my final paper (i put alot into it) and i will also be looking for a 499 class on which i can build this into a larger paper. if nothing else, i now have the skills to take 499 head on.
the most beautiful thing about this class is that there were not surprises. i am fairly sure of my final grade because i earned it. i thank you for your no nonsense style of teaching, it really left me no option but to do the work and learn from it. one suggestion would be to require that every student make an appointment with George for next semester, that way there will be no way around it (you could even require that people sign up to see him within the first few weeks of class so there is no delay.)
now for the grade part:
my estimation for grades for this class are as follows-
class attendance and participation- A
charm - A+
blog work - B
research work - B+
final paper - A
-----------------------------------------------
final grade - A

thanks for the great class and i assure you that the skills i have gained will last me a lifetime (or at least through 499)

have a great summer, John Baber

link to paper for comments

2005-04-20T08:28:00.000-07:00

http://www.archiva.net/hist300ay05/papers/haber.doc

Bibliography

2005-04-13T23:22:00.000-07:00

Here are all the sources that I plan on using in my paper:

Brown, JoAnne. “A Is for Atom, B Is for Bomb: Civil Defense in American Public Education, 1948-1963,” Journal of American History 75, no. 1 (1988): 68-90.

Bryan F. Swan and Generose Dunn. “A Unit on Atomic Energy for Junior High School,” The School Review 62, no. 4 (1954): 231-236.

Henriksen, Margot. Dr. Strangelove’s America: Society and Culture in the Atomic Age. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997.

McClure, Dorothy. “Social Studies Textbooks and Atomic Energy,” The School Review 57, no. 10 (1949) 540-546.

McMahon, Clara. “Civil Defense and Educational Goals,” Elementary School Journal 53, no. 8 (1953): 501-508.

O’Brien, Christopher. “’And everything would be done to protect us’: The Cold War, the bomb and America’s children, 1945-1963.” Ph.D. diss., University of Kansas, 2002.

Ridgway, James. “School Civil Defense Measures,” The Elementary School Journal 54, no. 9 (1954): 501-508.

Scheiback, Michael. “The Atomic Generation: Coming of Age with the Atom, 1945-1955.” Ph.D. diss., University of Kansas, 1993.

Wattenberg, William. “Culture in Catastrophe,” The English Journal 36, no. 6 (1947) 320-321.

Whitfield, Stephen. The Culture of the Cold War. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins U.P., 1991.

The White House. Executive Order 10952: Assigning Civil Defense Responsibilities to the Secretary of Defense and Others, 1954. Washington, D.C.,: GPO, 1954.

Winkler, Allan. Life Under a Cloud: American Anxiety About the Atom. New York: Oxford U.P., 1993.

2005-03-31T13:50:00.001-08:00

Update

2005-03-31T13:50:00.000-08:00

I am a little behind, and am just now listing the sources that I have found. I've been having problems with the whole cross-referencing thing, so I finally got off my butt and went to see George Oberle in his office in the Johnson Center library yesterday. He was prepared and knowledgeable, and gave me some great suggestions what specific terms I should use when searching. He showed me how to get in touch with a number of Local School Board Record Centers and the Library of Virginia for access to primary sources.
I write this because he said not many people have been there to see him, and I just wanted to tell everyone who reads this blog that he put some time and effort into helping me dig deeper into my research. Many of you may have hit some dead ends along the way, and he showed me ways to always leave a window open. He has done all the same research we are doing now, so he knows in what ways to help any one of us. I know my paper is better off after our meeting.
My next post will be my bibliography, followed soon thereafter by the outline. I am determined to get this paper done right if it kills me!

Post #5: Library of Congress

2005-03-28T12:08:00.000-08:00

Our trip to the LOC was most imformative. Now that I possess the pertinent information on how to get down there (Capital South metro stop), where to enter, where to put my coat, and where to eat I am ready to do some actual reseach there. Now that I have my reader's card I was able to hitch a ride with my dad over spring break and check out the LOC while he was at a meeting down there. Although I only had time to get a few books, I am now familiar with the process of cross referencing. I plan on attending the LOC again in the coming two weeks before the rough draft is due so that I can access extra material for my paper.

Post #4: Topic Statement

2005-02-24T18:07:00.000-08:00

My paper topic will concern the effect of domestic Cold War propaganda on the youth of Fairfax County during the 1950's. I will obtain information by conducting interviews with people who experienced the Cold War era as children growing up in the Fairfax County area. The first steps of my project will be to collect information on the effects of the Cold War era on children in general and then try to apply it to questions I will use in my interviews. My goal is to take a central theme that I will find through research of the topic and apply it to a more specific case study by interviewing actual witnesses of the events in question. This will allow me to draw specific and personal conclusions about how this time in history affected children.

I have already consulted a web site (there is a post on it) that states how to conduct an oral research. Now I need to collect background information on the Cold War and children so that I can come up with a hypothesis that will be the platform of my interviews. I will talk to Professor Cohen who taught a Cold War history class last semester about possible directions for my thesis and primary sources.

Post #4: Oral History Guidelines

2005-02-23T09:04:00.000-08:00

This is a link to the Oral History Association's online pamphlet that talks about the guidelines for conducting proper oral history research. I posted it so that it would be easily accessible as we begin the research paper.
http://omega.dickinson.edu/organizations/oha/pub_eg.html

Post #3: The Changing Social Value of Children

2005-02-17T10:57:00.000-08:00

-from Childhood in America-

"The sociologist Viviana A. Zelizer describes how child labor laws have changed society's conception of the worth of children" (260). The Changing Social Value of Children is a brief study of the change that took place in turn of the century America concerning the view of working class children. Children were transformed from a family's source of secondary income to the typical shoolchildren we see today because of the introduction of child labor laws.
The present view of children as innocent, school-age dependents is due to the intorduction of the Child Labor Laws that brought an end to child labor during the post-Industrial Revolution period. "The child labor conflict is a key to understanding the profound transformation in the economic and sentimental value of children in the early Twentieth Century" (Zelizer 260). Children were prime candidates for factory work that required small hands or bodies and were many times put to work at age ten to become a secondary wage earner of the working class household, as the mother rarely worked.
A "moral revolution" was led by the National Child Labor Committee to revive the innocence of children, which in turn barred children under 15 in most circumstances from work. Furthermore, formal schooling was made mandatory for children under the age of 16 in an effort to bridge the gap between working- and middle-class American children. This new legislature became a way to affect children across the socio-economic divide.

Post #2: Breast Feeding Patterns anong Middle- and Upper-Class Women in the Antebellum South

2005-02-17T10:17:00.000-08:00

-from Childhood in America-
"Southern mothers had strong reasons for suckling their newborn" (McMillen 20). Sally McMillen's article takes a look at some of the reasons behind why well off Southern women found it important nurse their own children, as well as the social importance of doing so. Middle- and Upper-Class Southern women of the Antebellum period chose to nurse their own children in order to assure the baby's health and good temperment, to enjoy the contraceptive effects of nursing, and to attain a "higher form of womenhood" (McMillen 20) through the physical and emotional act of giving food and life.
One reason Middle- and Upper-Class women of the Antebellum South chose to breastfeed their young was because it was thought to promote both good health and temperment in babies. Children were suceptable to cholera infantum, which is a bacteria infection of the intestines. At the time, refridgeration was not an option for most, so milk could spoil easily and cause the cholera. Also, some women believed "early contact with the newborn could influence a child's character" (McMillen 22). Establishing an early connection with a newborn was seen as a way to instill in him or her a sense of the aristocracy of his or her stock.
Another stated reason for breastfeeding was the belief that lactating would delay the menstrual cycle, therefore making nursing a form of contraception. This is not backed up by any historical data as it was believed to be a wives tale traded discreetly between women of the period. This form of contraception allowed a woman to discreetly space out the time between children without the knowledge of her husband in a time when procreation was seen as a sign of prosperity.
Lastly, breastfeeding was part of a maternal role that was considered a "woman's sacred occupation" during the Antebellum period. The ability to breastfeed was directly connected to the idea of being a "good mother." Women who could not adequately lactate were shown through their letters and journals to feel insecure about the inablility, like it was a mark of parenting right or ablility.

Post #1:Citizen Soldiers

2005-02-04T14:16:00.000-08:00

-from The Children's Culture Reader-
The concept of raising children to be citizen soldiers is worth investigating because it was an attitude that many children got raised alongside in the 1040's.The outcome of the attitude they were raised around is that many older people know not to waste time or money because those are assets that they were tought to respect as children.This attitude of patriotism and conservationism lent a hand in raising many children to be hard working adults because they were given a reason to care as children.This reason to care about the small stuff in life like recycling leads to bigger themes like hard work, for the predisposition to work hard is something that people are raised with.
I think that this article has hit the nail on the head. It stresses the need for children to emulate "little soldiers" because the soldiers were doing their job for the country and the children should too.THe article states that "as citizen soldiers you each have a duty to perform,"(Patri 481) to perform in school, the house and the workplace. It stresses the characteristics of a hard working American, someone who devotes him or herself to the task at hand with a fervor of patriotism as the background.In a time like today when it seems like everyone in the world is just out for themselves, a philosophy like this is just what people need to instill in their children for the benefit of future generations.My generation benefited from the philosophy instilled in the WWII population, and we all need to do our part for the next generation.

1st blog for history 300

2005-01-29T18:23:00.000-08:00

bloggin away