The 19th Amendment: 100 years ago today

 On August 18, 1920 Tennessee ratified the 19th Amendment, the final state needed for it to become law.  The 19th Amendment guarantees women the right to vote, making the 1920 presidential election the first one in which women voted. The Republican and Democratic Parties tried to figure out how to attract women voters - what issues would drive them?  

How has the pandemic changed your experience at SBU?

Documenting the Pandemic at SBU Update

Homemade Face Mask with Instructions

We now have a Google Doc explaining three ways you can share your experience with the archives, and thus the future.  (1) You can email the document to pandemic2020@sbu.edu.  You can do it as a Google Doc (which it is), download it as a MS Word doc, or cut and past it into MS Word.  (2) You can complete this Google Form.  If you want to send us audio, video or pictures use WeTransfer to send them to pandemic2020@sbu.edu.  WeTransfer is easy to use.  Just enter your email, the destination email of pandemic2020@sbu.edu, select the file and let it send the file.  It works on most devices.

If you work or study at St. Bonaventure University, we hope you take a few minutes to reflect and document this experience.

Documenting the Pandemic at St. Bonaventure University

Josie, Alex, and Kurt in History 419 (Computer Lab in Friedsam Memorial Library)

Josie Barcley, Alex Jodush, and Kurt Stitzel (pictured above in History 419:  Digital History and Archival Practices) have set out to capture at least some of the Bonas experience during the pandemic.  Growing out of a discussion with University Archivist Dennis Frank that there are very few records from the 1918 pandemic at St. Bonaventure University, the three students proposed that they set up a system and start collecting documents and reflections on what the 2020 pandemic has meant for the SBU community. 

This is a work in progress, but the Josie, Alex, and Kurt are reaching out to students and others to ask them to share their materials.  You can learn more on the archives web site or you can contact the team at pandemic2020@sbu.edu

Historical Detective Work and Information Literacy

Is it real, or is it Memorex?

Henry Ford once famously said that history is bunk.  During the Fall 2020 semester, Professor Chris Dalton is taking on that charge in History 106:  The Art of Historical Detection.  Students will apply historical methods to exam bunk history.  In this age of fake news, misinformation, and deep fakes, determining what is real is a valuable skill.  How do we tell what is real?  Some might call it information literacy, we call it debunking.

1920 Election

The folks at the Jandoli School of Communication are doing good work.  Check out the Jandoli Institute.  The published two essays of mine comparing the 1920 and 2020 elections, America First:  Make America Nostalgic Again and Like Writing History with Lightning: The Politics of Nostalgia and the New Media.

History classes work together

Students in History 106: Art of Historical Detection helped out the students in History 206:  Introduction to Public History by playtesting the Civil War games they built. It's all part of the design process.