Anthony Corbett Course Blog

So, with this post I’ve added the link to the map I made about Shay’s Rebellion. Found the GoogleMap process to be very worth while, still have a whole lot to learn about it. But it was very interesting and I think it was very fun to use.

As for the research on the project I did most of mine of Hathitrust.org. I found it to be a really good place to find a couple of good sources for a beginning project like this one. It had sources that just touched the surface of the topic, pointed out a few important notes, gave a few good names and places, and just gave a pretty easy to understand and quick synopsis of what Shay’s Rebellion was and how it went about. I’ve got a few other online sources to look at, I know Shane visited the Springfield Armory and picked up a lot of good stuff there. It more so a matter of sifting through the information, finding what’s most important, and presenting it to the public.

Sources for the map:

United States. National Park Service. Springfield Armory National Historic Site, Proposed: Environmental Impact Statement. , 1972.

Hale, Edward Everett, Sr., 1822-1909. The Story of Massachusetts. Boston: D. Lothrop company, 1891.

Link to Map

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1POQfX0wV1lDuwl9_nEUwYSMCbDM&usp=sharing

Shane did a pretty good job of summing up the information we’ve gathered thus far in our research. I met with the Reference Librarian at MCLA and she gave me a bit of useful information, however, some of it was just a brush up on using sites like JSTOR and the libraries online catalog. Things Shane and I are all to familiar with being history majors. Even so, she did leave me with a few bits of information that I found useful.

The first note being that MCLA does not have a archives of old reference material. So, basically we have no primary reference material on campus. She also told me that she has no idea if Williams College (the college in the town right next to ours) has any sort of archives. I was a little surprised, but that gives me a reason to visit Williams and do a little schmoozing with the folks next door.

She also gave me a few secondary sources that our library can order in for us. Books written about thirty years after the rebellion. Worth looking into. She also suggested looking at the Commonwealth Catalog, along with the North Adams Library. However, she wasn’t sure what sort of information they might yield. Just another day in the life of a history major; spending most of my time going through books and old news papers looking for some obscure quote that might not even exist. But before I start that search, I have one more source worth looking into. Hathitrust.org. It’s another library, a digital one to be exact and it is full of early nineteenth century and more modern works that talk about or touch on Shay’s Rebellion (as long as that is what you type into the search bar). Pretty cool huh?

Along with these sources, I plan on making a trip to Springfield, MA in order to see the Springfield Armory (a major place during the rebellion). Along with taking a trip to the most southern part of Berkshire County to a little town called Sheffield. Sheffield is where the rebellion ended and is most likely a place to find some sort of evidence as to what type of effect it had on the people.

 

I’m not very computer savvy, for starters. Took me a while to figure out that I needed to log in in order to do this post. But now that I’ve worked out those kinks I might as well make it a good one.

The first week of class was interesting. Honestly, I’ve never been a fan of video conferencing but I’m wiling to give this a try in the name of higher education. I also found the subject of the course to be rather interesting. Being a history major I’ve spent most of my college career studying strife among groups of people, however, I’ve never studied the real history behind Berkshire County. (That’s where my college, MCLA, is located. It’s also where I’ve grown up). As I have learned through my many years on this earth, there is a lot of history in this area; some interesting, some not so much. Famous authors like Susan B. Anthony, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. and Jr., to name just a few, lived here in Berkshire County. Huge multi-million dollar companies, like GE and Beloit, have come and gone through this same county, while others, like Crane and Company, are still kicking. Famous places of music and culture like Jacob’s Pillow, Tanglewood, and half a dozen theatre companies have all called this place home for who knows how long! There’s quite a bit to talk about here in the 413.

Finding a conflict in which to research and study shouldn’t be too much of a problem. It’s finding one that has a high impact on many people in the area. We are very much a divided county. The closing of mills and factories has left many working/middle class families out of a job, however, the upper class families can still afford to enjoy the theatre and museums that pepper this area. There is a lot of spite, anger, and tension…

On that note, I guess this is my first blog. Ever. Hope you enjoyed it!

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