Youth history Essay Contest
The Chittenden County Historical Society is pleased to announce the Chittenden County History Essay Contest. It is our genuine hope that this contest will inspire educators and students from all corners of the county to dig in and learn about the rich history of the cities and towns of Chittenden County.
Over our decades of teaching, the most memorable and meaningful teaching and learning experiences have been studying local history. Students are engaged and genuinely interested when they learn about where they live. Encouraging students to learn about and write about their hometown is a valuable way to develop a lasting understanding while creating young experts who become the new keepers of our local heritage.
Learning about the history of our local towns and cities is exciting but often takes a little more effort. Our “Getting Started” guide will help steer you towards valuable local history resources. This essay contest is a great way for students and educators to learn more about the terrific caches of information housed in town libraries, Special Collections at the University of Vermont and the Vermont Historical Society. All of these institutions have experts who can help you or your students navigate their way to discovery. In addition to these traditional resources, we hope that students and teachers will interview neighbors and relatives who can share their personal knowledge and stories with our young historians.
Whether this is a class project or an enrichment opportunity for an inquiring mind, a project like this teaches our students research skills, writing skills and builds critical thinking all while honing a local historical perspective. In addition to all the educational benefits, this is also an opportunity for students to be recognized for scholarly work. The winning essays will be published in the Chittenden County Historical Society's newsletter and the authors may receive a monetary reward. We believe that this is a winning combination and hope that you will encourage your students to enter their work in our annual contest. Entries are due (via email) by the last day of May.
Sincerely,
Jeffrey Hindes & Kathleen M. Harris
Co-Chairs of the CCHS Chittenden County Historical Article - Essay Contest
Contact us with any questions at [email protected] or [email protected] for more details.
Getting Started -- Guidelines for Researching and Writing
“Nobody asks how old you are, just how good you are.” This is a quotation from a professor of journalism who began being paid for his nonfiction articles by national magazines at age 14.
Think about your research project as if you were a detective solving a mystery. Just role playing a detective will encourage you to think out of the box as you develop plans to locate material. Discovering something forgotten or unknown about the past can be very exciting. Some of your ideas will gain nothing for you. Some leads will be dead ends, but you will have learned from them and found out what will be a waste of time to pursue. You also will find some of your sources are unreliable, and you will not be comfortable using them. It takes common sense to do good research.
As an example of something that worked for me as I did research, I googled the name of a 19th century man I wanted to know about and found something about him on ancestry.com. There was one woman in a thread who was descended from him. Although she had written her piece ten years ago, I located her present mailing address by asking a lawyer friend who has access to special computer programs to help me find the woman’s address, wrote to the woman who was still alive, and she gave me leads I followed.
Where to get ideas:
1. Here is a list of possible subjects from CCHS members. These are subjects someone would like to see researched. You are not limited to the subjects on the list. Your own idea may be as worthy as any on the list—or more so. CCHS starter ideas for research are: bridges of Chittenden County; your local armory; look at the Look Around Chittenden County booklets and update material.
2. Your local historical society may have subjects it would like someone to research. Talk to town historical society members.
3. Keep your mind open to hints from family members, older friends, articles in the paper, on the news, or in the want ads.
4. Is there something you would like to know more about? It takes real work to research a subject. Be sure you are attracted enough to the subject and would like to know more. If you are excited, others will be, too.
Where to start research: first, focus on primary research:
1. Interviews: think of what you may be adding to history if you interview a person who might be dead before anyone thought to talk to him or her about something he/she was a part of. It is not possible to interview someone from the past, but maybe you know of letters or a diary and that sometimes is almost like doing an interview. There is a lot of material that is not in libraries and is still in private hands.
2. Support or add to what you learn from interviews with library research. Your local library often will have a Vermont section. In addition to your local library, Fletcher Free Library and the Bailey-Howe Library at the University of Vermont both have special collections. Call ahead for the hours. For example, at UVM in the Wilbur Room (Special Collections) you will find town histories and other items pertaining to town history in open stacks. Special Collections material has to be used there and may not be checked out. Other libraries with special emphasis on Vermont are the Bixby Library in Vergennes and the Vermont Historical Society library in Barre.
Specific Titles to Help with Vermont Research: K.M. Harris’ Personal Choice
No one doing research on early Vermont history can avoid using an amazing five-volume history that one woman in the 19th century collected and edited. It is The Vermont Historical Gazetteer by Abby Maria Hemenway (1828 - 1890). It is arranged by counties. Her plan was to collect the early history on every town in Vermont while the early makers of the history were still alive. There is an index volume. Abby recruited capable persons to research and write each town’s early history. Some of her writers were more able than others, so some towns’ histories are better done than others. After Abby died, the Vermont Legislature which had never given her any money for her huge project while she was alive, realized what a treasure she had created and voted to fund an index volume. Examine the index volume. If you have any Vermont ancestry, you may find the name of your ancestor in the index—or maybe the name of a neighbor. No other state has the kind of resource Abby with her life’s work provided for Vermont. By the way, Abby began her career as a teacher as a 14-year-old.
Beers Atlases of Vermont c. 1870s. There are 1114 local maps in the atlases. The maps of towns are so local that boxes for buildings are drawn along roads and the name of the family who lived there at the time the atlas was written or the church or business is given. Original Beers atlases will be in special collections although the books and maps have been reprinted.
Chittenden County has a wonderful resource in the Look Around Chittenden County series of paperback booklets which also were collected eventually in a book. Edited by Lilian Baker Carlisle and published by CCHS, they are local histories written by different local writers from the various towns. There are photos, too.
Another excellent resource is David Blow’s three-volume Historic Guide to Burlington Neighborhoods published by the Chittenden County Historical Society in 1991.
Another useful set of books is Vermont: The Green Mountain State (five volumes) 1921-23. The author is Walter Hill Crockett.
Walton’s Register, now called the Vermont Year Book, was published annually and started very early in the 19th century. It is a listing of businesses with lots of specific information. For example, suppose you are researching a particular farmer and you know he was farming in 1830. You can go to Walton’s and look in his town (remember, some towns once had different names) and find out under his name how many acres he farmed and what he had for crops.
You will find other Vermont histories in the Vermont area of libraries. For example, W.S. Rann wrote the History of Chittenden County, VT in 1886. Do ask the librarian for suggestions to further your research. Librarians have a lot of knowledge and are among the most helpful of people.
Some historical Vermont newspapers are freely available online, including the Burlington Free Press, 1836-1920 at http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/newspapers/Vermont/
Great visual images for Chittenden County towns are available through http://www.uvm.edu/landscape/ according to a UVM reference librarian.
Remember that an excellent place to find titles of good book or periodical sources is from the books cited in other books.
Interviews:
You will find most people are very kind and willing to help you. People like to have others interested in their stories. Older people are eager to share their knowledge with genuinely interested young people. Remember to give them credit for their help and to write thank you notes to those who have given you special help.
You also may run into a taciturn or modest Vermonter who answers you in monosyllables. You will feel awkward in this situation. If so, you will have to be inventive about where to go for information and may have to interview his or her friends or family members to find out about the person’s accomplishments.
Go into an interview with a list of prepared questions, but be willing to go where the conversation leads. You can’t anticipate everything. Take careful notes. Save the most uncomfortable question until the end of the interview. Do not stay more than an hour. You can learn everything you need to know usually in an hour. Be sure to ask if you may telephone or email afterwards if you need more information after the interview or need to check your accuracy with the person.
Writing Your Article:
When you write your article, you will find it easier to indicate where you have found your information if you include your source in the text of your manuscript. So state, “According to Abby Hemenway. . . “ and then put the volume, page number, and the rest of the bibliographic information in your endnotes. That way the reader doesn’t have to constantly turn to the endnotes to find out where you found the information.
When you finish your writing, be a good self-editor. Be careful not to fall in love with your own words which is something many writers do. The experienced writer knows almost everything written can be cut and improved or stated more clearly. Be ruthless with your own writing. Question everything you write. Ask yourself is there a better, clearer way to say this? One of the marks of a beginning writer is that he or she is unable to emotionally take editing. Almost everything written becomes better from having a good, intelligent editor go over it. One definition of writing is writing is re-writing.
Unlike what some people may think, grammar, spelling, and typos are important. A reader will think if the writer is not careful about these mechanical things, he or she is not to be trusted in handling the facts either. In other words, just as personal cleanliness and dress influence the opinion of others, the appearance of your written work influences your reader’s reactions.
Article/Essay Requirements and Due Date:
The article should be three to five typed pages in length, approximately 1500 words long.
Use the MLA Style Manual for citation of sources.
Submit your finished work via email to [email protected] and [email protected] by the end of May.
Over our decades of teaching, the most memorable and meaningful teaching and learning experiences have been studying local history. Students are engaged and genuinely interested when they learn about where they live. Encouraging students to learn about and write about their hometown is a valuable way to develop a lasting understanding while creating young experts who become the new keepers of our local heritage.
Learning about the history of our local towns and cities is exciting but often takes a little more effort. Our “Getting Started” guide will help steer you towards valuable local history resources. This essay contest is a great way for students and educators to learn more about the terrific caches of information housed in town libraries, Special Collections at the University of Vermont and the Vermont Historical Society. All of these institutions have experts who can help you or your students navigate their way to discovery. In addition to these traditional resources, we hope that students and teachers will interview neighbors and relatives who can share their personal knowledge and stories with our young historians.
Whether this is a class project or an enrichment opportunity for an inquiring mind, a project like this teaches our students research skills, writing skills and builds critical thinking all while honing a local historical perspective. In addition to all the educational benefits, this is also an opportunity for students to be recognized for scholarly work. The winning essays will be published in the Chittenden County Historical Society's newsletter and the authors may receive a monetary reward. We believe that this is a winning combination and hope that you will encourage your students to enter their work in our annual contest. Entries are due (via email) by the last day of May.
Sincerely,
Jeffrey Hindes & Kathleen M. Harris
Co-Chairs of the CCHS Chittenden County Historical Article - Essay Contest
Contact us with any questions at [email protected] or [email protected] for more details.
Getting Started -- Guidelines for Researching and Writing
“Nobody asks how old you are, just how good you are.” This is a quotation from a professor of journalism who began being paid for his nonfiction articles by national magazines at age 14.
Think about your research project as if you were a detective solving a mystery. Just role playing a detective will encourage you to think out of the box as you develop plans to locate material. Discovering something forgotten or unknown about the past can be very exciting. Some of your ideas will gain nothing for you. Some leads will be dead ends, but you will have learned from them and found out what will be a waste of time to pursue. You also will find some of your sources are unreliable, and you will not be comfortable using them. It takes common sense to do good research.
As an example of something that worked for me as I did research, I googled the name of a 19th century man I wanted to know about and found something about him on ancestry.com. There was one woman in a thread who was descended from him. Although she had written her piece ten years ago, I located her present mailing address by asking a lawyer friend who has access to special computer programs to help me find the woman’s address, wrote to the woman who was still alive, and she gave me leads I followed.
Where to get ideas:
1. Here is a list of possible subjects from CCHS members. These are subjects someone would like to see researched. You are not limited to the subjects on the list. Your own idea may be as worthy as any on the list—or more so. CCHS starter ideas for research are: bridges of Chittenden County; your local armory; look at the Look Around Chittenden County booklets and update material.
2. Your local historical society may have subjects it would like someone to research. Talk to town historical society members.
3. Keep your mind open to hints from family members, older friends, articles in the paper, on the news, or in the want ads.
4. Is there something you would like to know more about? It takes real work to research a subject. Be sure you are attracted enough to the subject and would like to know more. If you are excited, others will be, too.
Where to start research: first, focus on primary research:
1. Interviews: think of what you may be adding to history if you interview a person who might be dead before anyone thought to talk to him or her about something he/she was a part of. It is not possible to interview someone from the past, but maybe you know of letters or a diary and that sometimes is almost like doing an interview. There is a lot of material that is not in libraries and is still in private hands.
2. Support or add to what you learn from interviews with library research. Your local library often will have a Vermont section. In addition to your local library, Fletcher Free Library and the Bailey-Howe Library at the University of Vermont both have special collections. Call ahead for the hours. For example, at UVM in the Wilbur Room (Special Collections) you will find town histories and other items pertaining to town history in open stacks. Special Collections material has to be used there and may not be checked out. Other libraries with special emphasis on Vermont are the Bixby Library in Vergennes and the Vermont Historical Society library in Barre.
Specific Titles to Help with Vermont Research: K.M. Harris’ Personal Choice
No one doing research on early Vermont history can avoid using an amazing five-volume history that one woman in the 19th century collected and edited. It is The Vermont Historical Gazetteer by Abby Maria Hemenway (1828 - 1890). It is arranged by counties. Her plan was to collect the early history on every town in Vermont while the early makers of the history were still alive. There is an index volume. Abby recruited capable persons to research and write each town’s early history. Some of her writers were more able than others, so some towns’ histories are better done than others. After Abby died, the Vermont Legislature which had never given her any money for her huge project while she was alive, realized what a treasure she had created and voted to fund an index volume. Examine the index volume. If you have any Vermont ancestry, you may find the name of your ancestor in the index—or maybe the name of a neighbor. No other state has the kind of resource Abby with her life’s work provided for Vermont. By the way, Abby began her career as a teacher as a 14-year-old.
Beers Atlases of Vermont c. 1870s. There are 1114 local maps in the atlases. The maps of towns are so local that boxes for buildings are drawn along roads and the name of the family who lived there at the time the atlas was written or the church or business is given. Original Beers atlases will be in special collections although the books and maps have been reprinted.
Chittenden County has a wonderful resource in the Look Around Chittenden County series of paperback booklets which also were collected eventually in a book. Edited by Lilian Baker Carlisle and published by CCHS, they are local histories written by different local writers from the various towns. There are photos, too.
Another excellent resource is David Blow’s three-volume Historic Guide to Burlington Neighborhoods published by the Chittenden County Historical Society in 1991.
Another useful set of books is Vermont: The Green Mountain State (five volumes) 1921-23. The author is Walter Hill Crockett.
Walton’s Register, now called the Vermont Year Book, was published annually and started very early in the 19th century. It is a listing of businesses with lots of specific information. For example, suppose you are researching a particular farmer and you know he was farming in 1830. You can go to Walton’s and look in his town (remember, some towns once had different names) and find out under his name how many acres he farmed and what he had for crops.
You will find other Vermont histories in the Vermont area of libraries. For example, W.S. Rann wrote the History of Chittenden County, VT in 1886. Do ask the librarian for suggestions to further your research. Librarians have a lot of knowledge and are among the most helpful of people.
Some historical Vermont newspapers are freely available online, including the Burlington Free Press, 1836-1920 at http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/newspapers/Vermont/
Great visual images for Chittenden County towns are available through http://www.uvm.edu/landscape/ according to a UVM reference librarian.
Remember that an excellent place to find titles of good book or periodical sources is from the books cited in other books.
Interviews:
You will find most people are very kind and willing to help you. People like to have others interested in their stories. Older people are eager to share their knowledge with genuinely interested young people. Remember to give them credit for their help and to write thank you notes to those who have given you special help.
You also may run into a taciturn or modest Vermonter who answers you in monosyllables. You will feel awkward in this situation. If so, you will have to be inventive about where to go for information and may have to interview his or her friends or family members to find out about the person’s accomplishments.
Go into an interview with a list of prepared questions, but be willing to go where the conversation leads. You can’t anticipate everything. Take careful notes. Save the most uncomfortable question until the end of the interview. Do not stay more than an hour. You can learn everything you need to know usually in an hour. Be sure to ask if you may telephone or email afterwards if you need more information after the interview or need to check your accuracy with the person.
Writing Your Article:
When you write your article, you will find it easier to indicate where you have found your information if you include your source in the text of your manuscript. So state, “According to Abby Hemenway. . . “ and then put the volume, page number, and the rest of the bibliographic information in your endnotes. That way the reader doesn’t have to constantly turn to the endnotes to find out where you found the information.
When you finish your writing, be a good self-editor. Be careful not to fall in love with your own words which is something many writers do. The experienced writer knows almost everything written can be cut and improved or stated more clearly. Be ruthless with your own writing. Question everything you write. Ask yourself is there a better, clearer way to say this? One of the marks of a beginning writer is that he or she is unable to emotionally take editing. Almost everything written becomes better from having a good, intelligent editor go over it. One definition of writing is writing is re-writing.
Unlike what some people may think, grammar, spelling, and typos are important. A reader will think if the writer is not careful about these mechanical things, he or she is not to be trusted in handling the facts either. In other words, just as personal cleanliness and dress influence the opinion of others, the appearance of your written work influences your reader’s reactions.
Article/Essay Requirements and Due Date:
The article should be three to five typed pages in length, approximately 1500 words long.
Use the MLA Style Manual for citation of sources.
Submit your finished work via email to [email protected] and [email protected] by the end of May.