Butler, Lindley S.

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Georgia ArchiveVolume 4 | Number 2 Article 3January 1976Mass Education in Archival Resources: A CaseStudyLindley S. ButlerRockingham Community CollegeFollow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/georgia_archivePart of the Archival Science CommonsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@Kennesaw State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in GeorgiaArchive by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@Kennesaw State University. For more information, please contactdigitalcommons@kennesaw.edu.Recommended CitationButler, Lindley S., "Mass Education in Archival Resources: A Case Study," Georgia Archive 4 no. 2 (1976) .Available at: https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/georgia_archive/vol4/iss2/3MASS EDUCATI ON I N ARCHIVAL RESOURCES A CAS E STUDY Lindley S. Butler :::I::n the fall of 1972, the North Carolina Department of Com-munity Colleges began offering in a number of its institu-tions a course entitled "Research in Local History and Biography: Materials and Methods." The course is designed to provide instruction and experience in research techniques for lay genealogists and local historians. The chief pur-poses of the course are to upgrade the quality of research being done by countless genealogists and local historians, especially the nonacademically trained, and to awaken interest in the preservation of local history data, artifacts, and architectural fabric. Although the content varies widely because of the diversity in background and experience of the instructors, essentially the students are exposed to primary and secondary sources in the fields of genealogy and local history, learn research methodology and techniques, take trips to local and state archival repositories, and are required to demonstrate their newly acquired skills with a research topic of limited scope. This course was the dream of Dr. Dallas Herring, Chairman of the State Board of Education, who secured the position of State Coordinator of local history programs in the Department of Community Colleges. The coordinator, Dr. Maurice Stirewalt, then organized a state advisory committee Dr. Butler is Historian-in-Residence at Rockingham Community College, Wentworth, North Carolina. A version of this paper was delivered at the South Atlantic Archives and Records Conference, Raleigh, North Carolina, May 2, 1976. 119 1Butler: Mass Education in Archival Resources: A Case StudyPublished by DigitalCommons@Kennesaw State University, 1976to formulate and provide guidance for the course. Various members of the state advisory committee have helped the coordinator produce a course syllabus, and some are now engaged in overseeing the writing of a textbook. There are 57 com-munity colleges and technical institutes in North Carolina, and in the first two years (1972-1974) over 1,200 persons 1 enrolled in 59 classes for normally 33-40 hours of instruction. In a few locations a sequel course, or advanced seminar, has been offered so that research projects of greater depth could be completed. The local history courses at Rockingham Community College, which serves a county of 75,000 population divided evenly between rural and urban settlement, are taught in the continuing education division and are eligible for teacher certificate renewal credit. In the period 1973-1975, the basic research course was offered each fall quarter to a total of 113 students. In the winter quarter of 1974, the advanced seminar was taught to a selected group of 9 students. A natural follow-up to the research courses is a narrative course in Rockingham County history, which has been taught in the spring of each year, and in the period 1974-1976, has attracted 141 students. The basic requirement in the county history course is a research project, such as a brief written report on family or local history, a tape relating to local history, the recording of a cemetery, or a slide-illustrated report on an old home or historic site. The research course is best taught as a seminar, but with over thirty-five students in each class, it has been conducted with lectures, demonstrations, a sample project kit using deeds, wills, and family records, field trips to the state archives, and guest lectures by archivists, archae-ologists, and historians. In the early sessions, the students are introduced to basic historiography and an extensive bibliography of county history and genealogical sources. Then they are exposed to the pertinent county, state, and national records. Major private manuscript repositories, such as those atthe Universities of Duke, North Carolina, and Wake Forest, are explored, particularly relevant family, local, and church records. In the context of a survey of Rockingham County history, the importance of private records, newspapers, folklore, historic preservation, and archaeology is stressed. The student projects vary widely in interest and quality. At present, approximately fifty documented historical 120 2Georgia Archive, Vol. 4 [1976], No. 2, Art. 3https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/georgia_archive/vol4/iss2/3and genealogical studies of a limited nature are available; numerous cemetery surveys have been complete~ and several published; a tape library has been established; documented studies of a half dozen homes have direct application to a county historic sites survey; a town history has been pri-vately published; and a number of records (especially church records) have been identified and preserved. The most important result of the local history re-search courses has been the evolution of The Journal of Rockingham County Hi s tory and Geneal ogy, a semiannual publica-tion of the county historical society and the first of its kind in North Carolina. After the first year of classes, it was evident that a few publishable articles would be pro-duced, but there was no medium for publication. The journal is directly related to the local history program, and its future depends on continuation of the classes. Another tangible result is the position of "Historian-in-Residence" at the community college. As a result of the obvious community interest generated by the courses, the college administration in 1974 approved the first Historian-in-Residence in North Carolina and defined the position as a "resident academic humanist thoroughly committed to the teach-ing and writing of local history. Ideally he will support any history-related community interest and seek to meet the needs of the total community in the field of local history. The position as envisioned is flexible, demanding of the resident historian that he be interested in teaching, research, writing, archives, lecturing, public relations, archaeology, preservati on, and res toration." Obviously one person could not possibly be a historian, an archaeologist, a preservation architect , and an archivist, but he would serve as a liasi on with regional and state historical agencies that could provide the professional support for specialized activities. The Division of Archives and History in Raleigh has supported local history instruction from the outset by conducting workshops for new instructors, offering special attention to class groups visiting the state archives search room, providing low-cost student and instructor materials packets, and sending various staff members to conduct class sessions on the state archives and its records. The work-shops have been particularly meaningful to the less experienced instructors who were introduced to the holdings of the archives, from government records to private sources, and to the concept 121 3Butler: Mass Education in Archival Resources: A Case StudyPublished by DigitalCommons@Kennesaw State University, 1976of archival research. Since the courses began, the use of the archives search room for genealogical and historical research has increased tremendously, necessitating the hiring of additional staff. Once introduced to the archives through the research course, many students return on their own time. The archives materials packets, which contain pub-lished guides and leaflets on the use of the state archives, have been especially valuable to both the instructors and the students. Among the materials in the packet are a guide to the Civil War Records, a guide to North Carolina newspapers available on microfilm, a county history bibliography, a leaf-let on the federal census, a selected genealogical biblio-graphy, and a leaflet on writing county history. By far the most important contribution that the state archives has made to local history instruction, however, is the development and distribution of the Core Collection. Very early the state archives staff realized that it had neither the facilities nor the personnel to support adequately the genealogical and historical research being conducted by more than a thousand persons throughout the state. The Core Collection was developed as a microfilm library of those local records, dated before 1868, most frequently used by genealogical and local history researchers. The county collections could be purchased at cost by each instructional institution. The archives was soon inundated with orders for the microfilm, and presently more than fifty of the institutions in the coUD11unity college system own at least part of the Core Collection, all of which is available through interlibrary loan. Through the local history research courses, staff members of the Department of CoUD11unity Colleges, the Division of Archives and History, and many of the individual institu-tions in the community college system have completely changed the course of local history and genealogical research, writing, and publications in North Carolina. The results have been so overwhelming that the future of local history in this state looks bright for some time to come, 122 4Georgia Archive, Vol. 4 [1976], No. 2, Art. 3https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/georgia_archive/vol4/iss2/3NOTE \iaurice R. Stirewalt, Local History Research : The First 'l!wo Years. A Partial Report (Raleigh: Department of Community Colleges, 1974) , 101 . 123 5Butler: Mass Education in Archival Resources: A Case StudyPublished by DigitalCommons@Kennesaw State University, 1976

Mass Education in Archival Resources: A Case Study

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Mass Education in Archival Resources: A Case Study

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