Monday, March 5, 2012

The Scholar's Dilemma

I feel as though I’ve developed a surefire approach to conducting historical research:

Step One: Choose a TOPIC. Make sure it’s broad enough that you can write a book about it, obscure enough that it hasn’t already been written about, and significant enough that someone else will read it.

Step Two: Develop a clear and concise research QUESTION. Use it to guide the entirety of your research for the years to come.

Step Three: Outline a detailed, multi-year research PLAN. Hopefully, this will take you to impressive archives and research institutes around the country and/or globe over the course of your research.

Step Four: Discover a cooler project along the way.

Step Five: Experience a MELTDOWN. This is the point where you consider whether to continue with the old project or start anew and abandon steps one thru three.

I've suffered from a stage five meltdown several times in my short career--most significantly three years ago.

In the summer of 2009, I found myself in the manuscripts room at the Indiana State Library thumbing through a collection titled, The Francis Godfroy Papers, 1824-1847. At the time, I was finishing work on my first book, Winning the West with Words (yes, this is shameless self promotion), and had a few extra days in Indianapolis. Instead of packing up my laptop and setting off to enjoy some well-deserved time off in the city—I had been working in the library about 9 hours a day, six days a week, for the previous month--I decided to comb through obscure and ancillary collections that might provide remote connections to my research. That’s when I asked the archivists to pull the Godfroy Papers—a collection that had almost nothing to do with my project, but a collection that might provide broader insights into the 19th century Great Lakes that I study.

I knew almost nothing about the subject of the collection, but here’s what I did know: Francis Godfroy was a Miami war chief, he built several impressive timber-framed homes, and he was apparently a hefty man (reportedly tipping the scales at nearly 350 pounds). The only reason I knew any of this was because Englishman George Winter—a person to whom I devoted an entire chapter of the book--passed through Godfroy’s village on his way to visit famed Miami captive Frances Slocum. I was initially excited to view the collection. After all, seldom does a researcher find early 19th century Native voices captured in state archives (they are almost always diffused through meditators, interpreters, or government officials). Could these be letters written in Godfroy’s own hand? Would they reveal something new about life in central-Indiana lost in Anglicized accounts? I only hoped. When I opened the first of three folders, which comprised the entire collection, I noticed two things:

1) The collection included a mere dozen or so Photostat copies of letters sent to Francis Godfroy
2) Many of those letters were from a guy named Allen Hamilton.

I did what any good historian does; I approached the archivists and asked them the academic equivalent of WTF? They didn’t have answers, but they suggested I consult the Hamilton Family Papers—the bulk of which was donated to the library sometime in the 1990s. I said, “sure, why not. I’ve got time.” The Hamilton Family Papers comprise 51 boxes of material. Obviously, I could not sift through it in one day. Still, I thought I’d try. The bulk of materials in the first 12 to 14 boxes (dated 1810-1845) had not belonged to Allen Hamilton or his family. Instead, the boxes contained payment slips, business ledgers, legal documents, and personal letters from the trading houses of Francis Godfroy. The discovery created the historian’s dilemma: stick with the old or start with the new.

I wanted to know more. And, once I did, I wanted to tell this man’s story.

Thankful, I didn’t have to choose between projects. I was close enough to finishing Winning the West with Words that I could transition easily from one idea to the other. I finished the manuscript by the end of the year and returned to Indianapolis the following summer. Over the course of two months, I parsed through all 51 boxes of the Hamilton Family papers (I’ve transcribed nearly 600 documents that trace back to Godfroy). These documents have led me to other collections that help shed light on life among Godfroy’s villages along the Wabash and Mississinewa Rivers in present-day Indiana. They have also led me to people (more about that in an upcoming post).

I’m currently working on detailing Godfroy’s life and the contested legacy he left behind. What do I find so interesting about a man whom I barely knew three years ago (and who happens to have been dead for about….oh….170 years)? Why do I think it’s important that the stories captured and hidden in the archives be recovered? Our narratives of the Great Lakes and statehood development obscure the complexities of life for people on the ground. Francis Godfroy’s life represents a real muddling of that story (perhaps an upending of it).

My trip to the Indiana State Library taught me several things. First, diligence and the act of wading through material can pay off. Truth be told, I almost did pack up my stuff and head off for the golf course in 2009. I had examined more than a dozen useless collections, folders, and individual documents that led me no where. Time spent being thorough eventually paid off. Second, manuscripts are the collections of dead people. They can't speak to you and answer questions. Archivists can. Brent Abercrombie and Mark Vopelak at the Indiana State Library knew more about their library's collections than anyone. They led me to Francis Godfroy. Since those early research trips, they've become good friends and welcome faces in the reading room. Over the years, I've learned to admire and respect the active role of archivists in the research process. I tend to chat up archivists wherever I travel. Finally, I've learned to be flexible in conducting research. As much as I'd like my students (and myself for that matter) to adhere to a strict research plan, I also know from firsthand experience that being open to change sometimes leads to better questions, interpretations, and even topics. Sometimes serendipity happens in the archive. When it does, I say go with it.

1 comment:

  1. Is it wrong for me to say how much I like Godfroy's outfit?

    ReplyDelete