COMMUNITY PORTRAITS

CRITERION #3

ASSIGNMENT #3A

RECENT COMMUNITY HISTORY

DUE IN SESSION #8

One of the two major projects (the other is your Census analysis) that you need to do as part of demonstrating the Community Portraits competency is to prepare a present-oriented historical portrait of your chosen community. To do so, you need to gather relevant information and prepare a written historical portrait that identifies and briefly describes the major periods, events and developments that have made the community what it is today.

Competency Assignments 3A through 3E contain all of the steps for your historical portrait. They involve:

• • becoming familiar with places and sources of information on the history of a community,
• •assembling overview historical data,
• •selecting and organizing the relevant data, and
• •preparing a short historical portrait.

As you do this series of assignments, keep in mind that your goal is to tell the story of how the community became the way it is now -- socially, physically and economically. Some facts and events from the past will be relevant for understanding how the community has become the was it is today; other facts and events will not be relevant. So part of what you will be doing is deciding which information to include in your portrait and which not to include.

This assignment (#3A) is focused on gathering information about the recent history of your community -- the period from about the end of World War II (1945) to the present. Some of this history you have already learned about through your 1980 and 1990 Census analysis and the community overview you did in the first class. Now, though, you will be taking a longer perspective -- looking at the past half century of change in the community.

The following are the types of questions you should be trying to answer about how your community has changed over the past 50-60 years. You don't need to answer all of them, and you may think of others as you do your research:

* Has there been much population growth or decline?

* Have there been major ethnic or social class changes in the types of people living in the community?

* Has there been much change in the housing -- new housing built, demolition, abandonment, urban renewal?

* Has there been much change in commercial areas -- declining or revitalized village centers, shopping malls, strip development?

* Have any major types of industries, institutions (such as hospitals) and other economic activities declined or left the community, and have any others emerged and grown?

* Have there been any major transportation changes, such as highway construction, subway lines, commuter rail?

* Were there any natural disasters, or political issues, or community organizing efforts, or community service organizations that have made a significant difference to the community in recent decades?

For this assignment you are NOT yet expected actually to answer any of these questions. Rather, you need to be locating information that will help you to answer questions like these. For this assignment, you need to work on the following four steps:

1. Prepare a list of places you can think of and find out about which might have documents, materials or first-hand knowledge about what has happened in the community over the past half century. The UMB Healey Library is one place to start. Your local public library is another good place. Your local historical society and historical commission are not likely to be useful for recent history. Instead, in addition to Healey and your local library, places such as city or town planning and community development departments, major social-service and community agencies, local newspapers, city or town clerk's offices, and long-time residents who have been active in the community are likely to be important places to find information.

2. Visit at least two of the places on your list (In the case of Healey Library you can "visit" it on-line at www.lib.umb.edu). Keep in mind that many people do not consider the past half century (or more) to be "history." For some people "history" only happened over a hundred years ago. So instead of saying that you are looking for info on "recent community history," you might instead say that you are looking for info on "how the community has changed since World War II."

For each place you visit, find out what kinds of materials or information they have. Find out how the sources are arranged or catalogued and how you can get access to the information. Libraries of course have their materials organized or catalogued systematically, but other organizations, agencies and individuals probably don't. For each place you visit, identify several kinds of sources available (books, census reports, planning reports, agency reports, city or town annual reports, pamphlets, newspaper and magazine articles, maps, interviews, etc.), and make a preliminary list of likely sources you might use for answering the kinds of questions at the top of page 2 above.

3. From preliminary bibliography to working bibliography. Locate and list about 6-8 possible sources that you might use for answering questions about the recent history (this is your "preliminary bibliography"). Then, based on quick preliminary reading, select about 4-5 that seem most useful as the source materials you can draw upon for doing your recent history (this is your "working bibliography"). Make xerox copies or take notes from the sources in your working bibliography. Make sure that you have all relevant bibliographic information for each source (author, title, date of publication, place of publication, publisher, volume #, pages [if an article or chapter]).

4. Read critically the 4-5 sources in your working bibliography. This includes identifying and comprehending the authors' main ideas of theses; understanding relationships between main ideas and supporting details; writing summaries; evaluating the quality and usefulness of the sources; and selecting potentially relevant information that will enable you to answer your research questions about the recent history of the community.