By Wilson Riccardo
This past month, I found myself working on a research project for Professor Pinsker. The goal of the project was simply to create a body of research centered around various points of Carlisle during the Civil War era. For my own project, I began with Dickinson’s role in the Invasion of Carlisle in the summer of 1863, but later expanded to focus on the invasion itself. Throughout this process of researching for the sake of research, I came to find myself learning more than just about the Invasion of Carlisle.
The first lesson I would try to impart on future students, were I in any position to do so, would be that persistence pays off. Alliteration aside, being persistent really does offer results. While the research materials for my area of search were more or less available and easily accessable, there were times were I would find myself frustrated because I wouldn’t find what I was looking for, even though I knew it (whatever it was, exactly) was there due to mentions of it in other research or in the card catalogue. One particular occurrance of this was when I was looking for the letter from President H.M. Johnson’s son, Theo. I had known it was somewhere in the archives because it had been cited in a student’s paper. I looked for the citation for a long time in the card catalogue, and only found it after looking through the cards for Theo’s dad, pres. Johnson, and even then, it was a passing reference. I then took that specific card to the secretary whose name escapes me at the moment (and seemingly every moment), even though she is a lovely and helpful woman. After some searching on her part, she presented me with a large folder of loose papers authored by people with the last names beginning with the letter J. After some time searching and getting distracted by interesting topics not related to mine, I finally came across the one paragraph half-sheet of paper that was what I was looking for. Success.
Another major lesson regarding research that ingrained itself into my brain was to be creative with research. While creativity and research didn’t originally find themselves together in my mental associations, this project has taught me how to bring creativity to areas I originally thought were devoid of the characteristic. The easiest example of this is, for me, best described in this post:
In summary, I went to the Dickinson Archives looking for letters, was immediately frustrated at the lack of findings, and moved on to uncover arguably the best part of my project. In short, when something isn’t working, do something else.
The final, and arguably more valuable lesson I learned during this experience was the benefits of treating people with respect. Research is rarely done 100% solo. It helps to be respectful to and appreciate the assistance of other people. The woman in the archives at the desk is one example. I would have had a much harder time with my research without her. Additionally, during my time perusing the microfilm, I had a long and interesting chat with Brad. I had gotten what I needed to find out of the way, and was skimming papers just in case something else should pop up, which could have been very boring, but instead, I got the opportunity to know Brad a bit better. It was a good experience.
I suppose, upon reflection, that these lessons I’ve learned could also be applied to life in general as well as history. Think about it.