Historical Research Partners

Many upcoming events at Freeborn County Museum

This project is one our community should be very proud of as it teaches our young people to be resourceful, creative and to stand out among their peers. It teaches them to work with younger children, to learn from their adult mentors, to listen and learn from the conversations they have with residents from St. John’s Lutheran Home and to work with each other to make a day in the life of our area youth, to be something to remember for the rest of their life.

So it is not just a day to be out of school, but a day to have fun, celebrate our heritage and learn from the past. Many area residents help to make this project a success by donating their time and knowledge before, during and after this event. Jim Haney, the teacher who works many extra hours to make this happen, also deserves a thank you for going that extra stretch to make the project a success.

This opportunity sometimes helps students to realize that teaching is something they would like to do, or not. It is a life lesson to learn to think outside of their comfort zone, to work together with all ages, to develop and present their subject matter not only once, but four times throughout the day. I am very proud to be able to host this wonderful project and want to say a very sincere thank you to all our community partners that makes this project possible.

Next on the agenda for the month are our school tours. During May we have 18 school tours booked and in progress. Local residents volunteer to be guides to teach and share their experiences with our local school children. The students love to visit the museum and learn about the past. Each grade that visits gets a different tour, so they learn different things each time they visit. Thank you to all of our volunteer guides!

Last Sunday we held the annual meeting of the Freeborn County Historical Museum, Library & Village. A brief business meeting was held that included a review of 2010 events and projects as well as a progress report on the Building Expansion Fundraising and plans for 2011 events and projects for the museum.

Bristol University | News from the University | AHRC CDAs

Four prestigious collaborative doctoral awards from the Arts and Humanities Research Council have been awarded to Bristol University’s Faculty of Arts. These awards are given for research that involves active collaboration with outside partners and are designed to encourage researchers to use their expertise to work on projects that benefit the wider community.

In partnership with the ss Great Britain Trust , two PhD students, supervised by Dr Kirsty Reid and Dr Tim Cole of the Department of Historical Studies will research the history of the ss Great Britain, Brunel's iconic steamship, from 1843 to the present.

The first studentship will cover the period 1843-86 when the ss Great Britain carried passengers to the USA and Australia, troops to the Crimean War and cargo between the UK and the USA.  The focus will be on the ss Great Britain as a ship in motion, and the student will research the experiences of the crew and passengers, the nature of the relationships between different shipboard groups, and how voyaging affected identities of age, class, gender, race, nation and empire.

The second studentship will examine the period from 1886 to the present.  Abandoned in Port Stanley harbour in 1886, the ss Great Britain became a local landmark for Falkland Islanders until 1970 when it was salvaged and relocated to the dry dock in Bristol in which it was originally built.  Since then it has been restored and is now a prize-winning museum.

The student will research how the ship was used during its time in the Falklands, and its subsequent salvage and return to Bristol.  The student will draw on and develop the recent oral history project of memories of the ship’s salvage and consider how the ship has been represented, what stories have been told and why, and what a study of the ss Great Britain reveals about the contemporary history of the heritage industry. 

In partnership with Czech Radio , the Czech counterpart of BBC Radio in Prague, a PhD student will study a recently-acquired archive of BBC Czech-language recordings made in London and broadcast to occupied Czechoslovakia between 1940 and 1945.

Science in Russia and the Soviet Union, a short history

Fundamentals of educational research

Historical research, the bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research

Social studies review

Sharing power, learning-by-doing in co-management of natural resources throughout the world