On Mar 12, 2011, Claudia Nicholson wrote:
Subject: “Under the heading of Daft?”
Dear Carol: Your column in History News is one of the few things in the magazine that I consistently read, and I have been grateful over the years for the way that you think about, and urge us to think about, doing history.
I have just read this issue’s column on the Encyclopedia of Local History, and it occurs to me that there is a great deal of local history to be found in the local chapters of national organizations. In addition to the obvious (for me) ones like Boy Scouting and Girl Scouting, I am thinking about service and fraternal clubs (Elks, Lions, Optimists, and Rotary), all of which have a component of community service in them.
While the general outlines of all of these organizations are dictated from a national charter and organization, they inevitably take on the flavor of the place in which they are. I know from my work that both Boy Scouting and Girl Scouting vary according to their location, and that their publications, newsletters, and even websites, can be a wealth of information about what is happening in the local community. I am also a member of Rotary, and that organization is devoted to “improving lives locally and globally”–our focus is either micro, or maximum macro. Rotary addresses community needs in its local work, and again, its publications and local organs are a wealth of information about what is going on in the community with ordinary people.
I have no clue how one would approach an article such as this for the Encyclopedia, but I do know that studying the work of such organizations in a community would give you a great deal of information about what has gone on in that place.
Daft, huh?
Best wishes,
Claudia
Claudia J. Nicholson
Executive Director
North Star Museum of Boy Scouting and Girl Scouting
North St. Paul, MN
www.nssm.org
From: Carol Kammen
Sent: Sat 3/12/2011
To: Claudia Nicholson
Subject: Re: Under the heading of Daft?
Claudia:
Nope. Not daft at all. I have been thinking along the same lines: not about Boy or Girl scouts, though they work, but also about national organizations where materials about the local can be found. I have been working on the Sanitary Fund in my community where there are no early records, though there are materials in the New York Public Library in the Sanitary Fund Collection that relate to Ithaca. They tell me who did the organizing, what goods were sent to the war front etc, the prods for fundraising.
Would you want to try a very short article about this, using your experience with what you have found in the national records that relates and helps explain the local? Say 600 words by May 1?
This is also a great topic for HNews. Thanks for jogging me on this.
Carol
PS Bob Beatty, my very helpful HN editor, will laugh: he thought daft might be replaced by a better word!