This blog post focuses on the process and output of the 3 research projects I completed this summer; 2 of which focused on compiling historical data on the occupations and lives of women in 19th century Baltimore. In the document, I walk through the multi-faceted process of sorting an 1858 scanned archival document into an organized Excel spreadsheet that solely represents women. As well, I describe the process of using, compiling, and presenting historic American census data from the 1800s from the Social Explorer Database. In both of these cases, I show how the forces of race, class, and gender played out in the lives of women in the port city. The research completed on Baltimore contributes to Dr. Shire’s upcoming monograph The Women at 44 Queen Street: Gender and Labor in Early Baltimore, which will be focused on the women who lived and worked in the household of Mary Young Pickersgill—the woman who sewed the first American flag.
Additionally, the blog post describes the research I completed to assist in building a flourishing alumni network for Western’s History Department. An important building block in creating such a network is the collection of data such as contact information and current employment thus, I compiled information on over 20 years of both Masters and PhD graduates from LinkedIn and university webpages. Some of the information I collected will be creatively presented and disseminated to present History students at Western as a way to share the plethora of ways in which they may use their degrees
