Well me and Anthony started are look into Shay’s Rebellion. Anthony talked to our librarian as he’s on campus, classes don’t start here yet till next week so I still haven’t set foot on campus. From my understanding the meet with Tony and librarian didn’t yield to much, we do not have old documents at our school and she directed us to look else where such as the Commonwealth Catalog. That being said, I have not been idle.
I have two plans of gathering research for this topic. One is just doing the standard history gathering practice, I am a senior history major and this is pretty regular for me. I went through JSTOR and our library’s online catalog and already through that gotten some pretty good results. I’ve found an article through The American Historical Review that literally is just primary sources of letters between the governor and his generals that stopped the Rebellion. I’ve found two helpful monographs, one that discusses Shays’ Rebellion and it’s relation to state formation and another on how Shay’s Rebellion influenced federalists and antifederalists as they were discussing constitutional reform. In this same vein I found an article that takes a sociological view at the Rebellion and the effect it had on state-making.
The second plan, is more outside of what I usually do, contacting people. I went to our local museum this week and talked to a curator, who was very friendly and was willing to dig up the information that the historical society had in direct local history to the Rebellion. He emailed me a rather short (like six pages) word document that was cited and read like someone’s notes going through old North Adams documents, it mentions a few local people by name and their relation to the rebellion. As well as a few notes by the museum staff themselves when they are not sure if a bit of information provided is reliable. It’s pretty neat. I have also learned the Springfield armory, where the failed rebellion started, is now a museum. I’ve been meaning to call them but my work schedule been making this pretty hard. Plan on doing this Monday, to see if I get anything neat like I did from the North Adams Museum, might take a psychical trip out to the museum this week too. I think Anthony is looking into Sheffield, where the rebellion was put down. I’ve also been looking through the search engines that our library suggested, mainly the commonwealth catalog but it hasn’t borne anything that amazing.
At this point, I already have a bunch of information to review over and delegate with Anthony with. I would like more local documentation, hopefully when I do contact the Springfield Armory Museum they will be able to point me at some good stuff.
Hey Shane! Sounds like you guys are on track and have a couple of leads that will hopefully give you the information you are seeking. It’s smart to divide and conquer the museums near the start and end of the rebellion and i’m sure you’ll be able to get some valuable resources in those visits. There might even be historians working at those museums that can give you some further insight. Shay’s rebellion was definitely influential in many areas of discipline so you should end up with a well-rounded and multidisciplinary project. Good Luck!
Springfield Armory is definitely the next step for your team. It can feel strange for a history major to talk to people instead of just using the information gathering skills you’ve been practicing the last three or four years. Definitely, though, call the Springfield Armory Historic Site before you go! The folks who are working when you show up might not be the ones who know the collections best, or who know the exact documents you are looking for. The Armory helped put together a website exhibit on Shay’s Rebellion about 10 years ago, so it’s also worth contacting their partners on that website’s development (Anthony has the URL).