Peer review.

Okay, peer review.  I'll be honest, I don't think I've done peer review since high school.  I really don't get my papers reviewed.  Heck, most of the time I don't write drafts, I just write it, edit grammar and spelling, and that's that.  Never been to the writing center, and I don't plan to.  But, we did it here, and I saw how it can be useful.  It's really hard to review a first draft, because most people are sort of just letting their brain flow, and its not meant for anyone but them, more of a really in depth outline than anything.  So when I was reviewing the other student's paper, i just kind of ignored that kind of thing.  I told her, but, didn't really belabor the point since it was a first draft.  Mostly, I tried to focus on the weightier matters, like, the research, and topic focus, that kind of thing, but, again, really, its hard to do in a rough draft, since nothing's fleshed out yet.  My reviewer was pretty happy with my paper, though, so that's good.  She asked a few questions, since there were some gaps, paragraphs and topics I hadn't covered yet, but, because of my writing process, which, I'll admit, is unusual, my rough draft was more like a final draft four page paper, so the main issues were places that neeeded more explanation and information. So, yeah, honestly, i see how it can be useful, but I still probably won't do it in the future.

Website Design

The schedule says that we should be fairly far along in the design of the website.  If that means figuring out what I want it to look like, then yes, I really do.  If that means having it done, then no, I don’t.  I’ve thought about the website, but my time has been taken up with research for the paper, and well, there can be no website without the paper.  So, in short, I pretty much have it figured out what I want to do with the website, I just need the chance (and the time) to get to the lab and get it done.  But the website should be fairly easy to get done, once the paper is finished.  I mean, finding the information and writing the paper is the hard part.  Making the website is just arranging what we’ve already done.

 

Paper Progress

Okay I accidently posted this one as the last one, so I guess that I have to rewrite it.  Dang, because, man I had some really profound stuff on written for it in word.  I mean, while writing that blog I solved world hunger.  Oh well.  Anyway.  How is my paper doing?  Well, its getting there (yes, I know, I'm editing this after we already got the grades back, and I got an A, so I guess I did pretty well, but I'm doing what I can to remember how I felt when I was at that point), I mean, I have most of the research done, and I'm finding out some pretty cool things about New Waverly.  Seriously, the agent that they got to recruit the  Poles was a pirate.  A pirate.  Wow.  But anyway.  Thesis statement.  I don't really have one yet.  I pretty much just start a paper by writing all the information, then making that into a narrative, and whatever the narrative leads to, I bring back at the end as a thesis statement.  Unfortunately, I'm not there yet, so, I don't have one for now.  The research is going pretty well, although I won't have as many primaries as I wished, but for what I did find, the Thomason room was extremely helpful. I guess that I don't really see any major obstacles looming, or questions.  really, this project is coming together a lot better than I expected. Again, a pirate.  Pirates make everything so much more interesting.

Images

The schedule is right, images will be very important when making the website.  A website that is nothing but a block of text, no matter how cleverly formatted, would be very boring indeed.  Images are great at bringing subjects to life.  To that end, I have located some photographs to use on my website.  One shows a train rushing towards the train station at New Waverly.  Though the picture was not taken during the early years of New Waverly, it does help to show how essential the railroad was to the growth of the town.  Another is a group of Polish musicians from New Waverly.  This photograph humanizes the story of these immigrants.  They are obviously regular people, who play music for fun.  It helps the reader (or is it viewer? I don't know what the term is for websites) to empathize and relate to the people they are learning about.

Paper first draft

Jacob Piwetz                                          His 388

 

A New Waverly

 

     In the late 1860’s, a group of men, women, and children crossed the stormy Atlantic, to try to find a brighter future in the land of opportunity.  Spurred on by the greed of southern plantation owners these immigrants would, in the following years, build not only a new life for themselves, but also a small corner of America, New Waverly, which would surpass and outlive the settlement that they were originally meant to bolster.    

America has always been a country of immigrants.  For Texas, that is also true.  During the 19^th Century, especially the latter half, before America began to close or limit the flow of people seeking freedom across its borders, both America and Texas experienced unprecedented levels of immigration.  One group, in particular, was the Polish.  After the unsuccessful Polish Insurrection of 1863, many Polish citizens were more than happy to leave their troubled homeland, and search for a better life in a new land. 

In Texas, the immigration of the Poles was chiefly done in two waves.  The first wave of Polish immigrants settled in and around the settlement of Panna Maria, which holds the distinction of being the first organized settlement of Polish Immigrants in America.  The Panna Maria wave began in 1854, before both the Polish uprising, and the American Civil War, both of which would have massive impact upon the second wave of Poland to Texas immigration, which would center on the small town of Waverly in the late 1860s.

The Civil War contributed to the second wave of Polish immigration by vastly changing the labor situation in the South.  The freeing of the slaves created a labor shortage on large farms.  In response to this, on September 19, 1866, a group of the well-to-do planters who lived around Waverly gathered together in the general store owned by one Meyer Levy in Waverly to discuss ways in which new labor could be found.  At that meeting, the Waverly Immigration Society was founded, and a decision was made.

The solution that they hit upon, no doubt guided by Levy, who was a Polish Jew who had managed to establish himself in Waverly, was to send emissaries overseas to recruit suitable “foreign laborers” to work in the fields, replacing the slaves that they had so recently “lost” to freedom.  Each planter made a request for whatever number of workers he needed.  Special skills, if required, were also requested at this time.  Meyer Levy, being Polish, was commissioned to go to Poland, and recruit a hundred and fifty workers to return with him to Waverly.

The system that they worked out was very nearly one of indentured servitude, where immigrants’ passages over were paid for by an outside entity, and after arrival, the cost of the journey was worked off.  In the case of the immigrants brought to Texas by the Waverly Immigration society, these immigrants’ passages were paid for by the planters of the Waverly Immigration Society, in part equal to the proportion of the immigrants they wished to hire.  The planters also would provide the immigrants with a “comfortable cabin’ and food.  Men would be paid $90, $100, and $110 dollars for their first, second and third years working for the planter respectively.  Women would be paid twenty dollars less a year than the men for their work.  In return, the workers were to be “faithful laborers” and work for a period of three years, and out of their wages to repay the planter for the cost of their journey to the New World, before their contracts were complete, and they were released to do what they willed with their lives.

Levy sailed to Poland and fulfilled his charge, returning to the Texas coast in April of 1867 with a party of Polish immigrants.  Willing workers were no trouble for him to find, as discontent in Poland after the Insurrection of 1863 made a new start and a new home seem like a very welcome prospect.  In May, the party had finally returned to Waverly, and began to settle in and around the area which would later become New Waverly. 

In the early years, the Polish immigrants worked as agricultural labor on the farms in the surrounding area.  Immigrants from Poland looking for a place to settle or following relatives began to group around those already established.  In 1869, St. Joseph’s Catholic Church was established, the first Polish Catholic Church in East Texas under Father Felix Orzechowski.  New waverly would serve as a base for further Polish immigration of East Texas.

From a settlement by a small number of farm labor, New Waverly would continue to grow.  As the railroad bypassed what had become known as Old Waverly, the parent town died, while the younger one continued to thrive and expand.  The few wealthy farmers who met that afternoon in a room in a small general store could not have foreseen how the laborers that they required could create a thriving community which would shift the cultural landscape of Texas.

Dreamweaver

So.  Two classes with dreamweaver.  I've never used this particular program before, but I am familiar with other Adobe design tools, and so it is not too hard to get used to.  I really actually am starting to like it.  Like all of Adobe's stuff, the interface is a bit intimidating at first, with a billion buttons, but once you get into it, and actually start using it, you get a really great amount of control over what you create.  I am somewhat concerned about finding images to flesh out the site, but actually designing it doesn't worry me.  I'm not sure at this point whether I'll be able to get things to make the website interesting to look out.  To be quite honest, I'm worried about the paper before the website, rather than the other way around, and so the paper will probably guide the website much more than the website would guide the paper.

Progress Report

Jacob Piwetz

A New Waverly

Summary of Current Progress

At this point the research project is progressing slowly but steadily.  Sources that have been found so far are one internet source, and the vertical files in the Thomason room, specifically the file on the St. Joseph’s Catholic church, which includes history of the church, but, as it is so closely tied to the Polish settlement, also includes quite a bit on that.  So far the research is showing that there was a large shortage of labor after the Civil War ended.  To try to remedy this, a group of planters met together, and came up with the idea to recruit laborers from Poland, and to bring them over to create a new labor source.  Also, a timeline of the Polish immigration is beginning to form, and many individual immigrants are showing up.  New Waverly appears to be quite important to Polish immigration in Texas in general, as it was the first organized settlement of Poles in East Texas, and later immigrants would go there first, before spreading further afield.

Source List

St. Joseph Catholic Church vertical file, Thomason Room

http://tex-family.com/showmedia.php?&mediaID=275&medialinkID=&albumlinkID=&page=9

History of New Waverly Texas

 

 

 

 

 

Outline

1. Waverly Emigration Society
1. Civil War

1.     Lack of Labor

2.     Planters

2. Society

1.     Levey

2.     Contracts

    2.  Immigrants

                A. Poland

                      1.  Civil Unrest

                      2.  Leaving Country

                B.  New Waverly

                      1.  Arrival

                      2.  Settlement

                      3.  Impact

Isaac's Storm

            Well, the Galveston trip was a while ago, but with all of the work from my other classes, it took me quite a while to get through the book Isaac’s Storm.  But that’s nothing against the book itself.  To be honest, I thought it was outstanding.  Normally, I like to be very critical of books and lectures (see my blog on the Constitution Day keynote), but I really don’t have too much bad to say about this book. 

I guess I’ll start with that, so that the finish is the good parts, and, really, those are what I want you to remember.  Now, one thing I will say about the “bad things” that this book did, is that I don’t think that they are bad things.  As previously stated, I loved the book.  I’m just going t say things that other people might not like.  As a book on history, if you are looking for a dry description of the Hurricane of Nineteen Hundred, full of facts, written in a timeline manner which looks at figures and things which are absolutely factual, taken from primary sources, this book is not for you.  It is a very personal look at the people who lived and died in the worst natural disaster in U.S. history. 

So, now on to what I think made this book so great.  It was personal.  A quick Google search will get you all the facts of the storm.  You would learn all the same figures, all the same names, dates, everything.  But it isn’t the same.  Isaac’s Storm is all about putting you in the shoes of the people who experienced this horror.  It reads like a novel.  And the best part is that it does it from a factual standpoint.  It isn’t an historical fiction.  The people aren’t larger than life (other than those who actually were) characters, who throw out perfect quotes about what they go through.  Instead, the book goes through the timeline leading up to, during, and after the storm in a way that reads as a novel, yet, at the same time, being something, somehow, different.

That’s the thing.  I can’t really describe how I felt reading Isaac’s Storm.  I loved it, I really did, but it was different than any other book I’ve ever read.  As the book wound through the stories of people as their homes were inundated or swept away by the storm, it pushed the bounds of what a factual book should do, focusing on the human suffering side, how parents must have felt knowing their children would die, and other such horrors.  To me, that was great, but I recognize that others may not share that view.  But remember, this was not a romantic story pulled from the author’s mind.  It is solidly researched; the dialogue of the book was all actually said. 

So, those are my thoughts on the book.  Is it for everyone? No.  No, it really isn’t.  But if you accept it for what it is, then it can grab you.  In all honesty, I have to admit, this book, literally, by itself, convinced me to vow never to live on the coast.  That’s the impact it had on me.  Do I really need to say anything else?

Done!

So we got the state park project presented and finished.  I have to say, it's a nice feeling to have it done and not have to worry about it.  Now, whether it was a success, well, I don't really know.  I got my project done and put up, and all the other projects looked really good.  everything came together really well, in fact, I expected there to be more problems than there were.  But for the presentation itself, well, I was outside cooking, and so I missed that.  That was the thing that worried me, the burgers took longer than I expected to cook, and the hotdogs didn't really take up the slack, but there were a lot of leftovers, so I guess that everyone got food.  The power went out, which kind of sucked, but, everyone kind of took it in stride, and things went ahead.  The geocacheing (sp?) went much better than I expected.  The groups were running?  I have to admit, I didn't ever expect that level of enthusiasm.  So, yeah.  I guess that I'd have to say that I was happy with the state park project and how it went off.

Dry Run

Well, the assignment for this blog was to discuss a dry run of the state park project presentation.  the only problem is, we didn't have one.  Instead, we discussed the issues which still remained for the presentation.  And, at this point, there's only one thing that really does worry me.  My main worry is the audience.  The students are going to be there, but they, most probably, are not going to really care.  That, however, is my only concern, and, really, there's not much to do about it.  You gotta present to the audience you have.  As for my project, I don't really know, but again it's an audience thing.  I think my project is really interesting, but, I like folk music.  I don't, however, have that much faith in the musical taste of your average freshman (or average anyone, for that matter).  But, that's what how it is.  I mean, I think that the Lomax tour was really cool.  But, it's all about the music and why it was recorded, and, so, if you aren't interested in that, then it isn't going to interest you. 

Project

So, what have I done for the state park project.  My project, I guess.  When we went the first day, I was ahead, because I was the only person who knew in advance what I was going to be doing for the project.  Now that I've actually started working, I am pretty happy with it.  My project is fairly easy, because it is pretty much all multimedia.  Maybe its just interesting.  I don't know, but it doesn't really seem to be hard work to get this project going.  I've decided to do a board that shows photographs from the other recording tours, and some info on the tour that came through Huntsville, and then of course I downloaded the music that Lomax recorded at the Walls and Goree units, so the project is mostly done. 

State Park

First day at the state Park.  Well, not mine, but the first time for the class.  I've always liked the state park, and I've spent quite a while there.  I will, admit, I'd never been to that lodge building.  It is very nice, especially that patio area with the view of the lake.  I think that the project day should work out well.  One thing that I did think was very funny was that the park ranger didn't know where the geocache was.  Oh well.  It did make the day a lot more entertaining.

Probate records.

In the probate records we looked up James Gillaspie. He wrote his will on the 18th of October 1861, as he was leaving for the Civil War. He survived the war, but died of Yellow fever in 1867. His will was probated on Dec. 31, 1867 (yeah, New Year's Eve. I guess they didn't take many days off back then). He left everything to his "beloved wife, Susan Gillaspie", and made her executor of the will, and everything. He also didn't just leave her ownership, he also gave her the power to sell anything she needed to. An interesting example was her permission to "sell any negro she can not control". That caused some confusion when I first read it, as I had first seen that the will was probated in in 1867. That was when we found that the will was written in 1861. It was quite interesting to look that up. You don't see stuff like that in wills anymore.

Constitution Day

I attended the keynote address for the Constitution Day activities. I really don't know what I think of it. There were some things that the speaker really did well, but there were several times that I almost felt like laughing. See, she was speaking about secret prisons in the War on Terror, and the torture and such that goes on in places like that. And, obviously, I think torture is bad. Like, really bad. It shouldn't be done, if for no other reason than it makes us no better than the people we are supposedly fighting. Its just that parts of her presentation seemed somewhat thrown together, especially the parts where she used her student's work. Now the students were veterans, and veterans would of course have a unique perspective, and using their work was not the problem. It was the way she did it. There was a point where she was clicking through slides, saying. " Here's a slide my student did. Here's another." and so on. Maybe I'm being a little harsh, but, that's not informative. I wanted to hear something she had found through research, and that wasn't. It felt more like she was using it for filler. Also, at the end, during the question period, when she said that she had talked enough, and wanted to hear what we think. I understand the sentiment, but we're uninformed college students. She's the expert. We're there to learn what she thinks. That's the whole idea.

The Thomason Room

So, finally, I went to the Thomason room.  A history major, four years in school, and i had never needed to go until now.  I can't say I was expecting much.  But for the local history project, I can tell already that it's going to be a life-saver.  First off, just the people that work there are a source in themselves.  I went in, needing to find a source for my New Waverly project.  Right away they were able to point me toward sources.  The one that was most useful to me was the history of the St. Joseph Catholic Church.  Founded for the Polish community, the Church has its own history of the area and the town.  As it is, it doesn't really give me too much to use on the project, but it gave me places to start, such as family names, and businesses, things that can be researched in detail by themselves, which will be the information that I do need for the project.  

Library

So the library resource presentation.  Again.  Nothing against the library or its staff, but this is at least the fourth time that I've seen it, and it is always the same.  Oh well.  

Well, I looked up two sources on their databases.  One of them was on American National Biography Online, which, as the name suggests, puts biographies of Americans online.  The biography I found was of an artist named Walter Pach.  The biography wasn't extremely detailed, but neither was it fact-lacking.  It was fairly similar to a standard wikipedia article.  However, that is one thing that was worth mentioning.  Unlike wikipedia, this biography was very well researched, and provided a complete bibliography at the  end.

The other source that I found was the July 2nd, 1902 issue of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram (although then it was the Mail-Telegram), on America's Historical Newspapers.  One of the things that I can't ever get over when I'm looking at historical newspapers is how limited the articles are.  The paper I looked at was one page, and more than half of it was ad space.  That doesn't leave much room to tell what's going on in the world.  However, as far as the source went, it was pretty good.  I understand that many online newspapers are hard to read, however, this one was quite legible.  It was fairly good resolution, and overall good quality.

Heroes or Villians

So we took a look at the controversy surrounding the exhibit on the Enola Gay in the National Air and Space Museum.  In short, it revolved around what view the exhibit would take of the bombing of Hiroshima. The exhibit, as originally planned, would focus much more on the destruction caused to the city and its inhabitants, and the effect the first use of a nuclear bomb in war would have upon the future of the world.  Veterans groups, understandably, did not appreciate this idea, and wanted a much more sanitized version.  Eventually, the minds behind the original exhibit would resign, and the final product would be a simple look at the plane and crew.

Now, we are supposed to take a side and support it.  Honestly, however, I can sympathize with both sides.  The exhibit as originally planned would have been a stark look at an intensely controversial episode of the past.  It would have passed all of the fluff and hero-worship so common with any view of American military history, and World War Two in particular, to focus on the consequences of America's actions.  Especially, it wouldn't have looked at the victims of the Hiroshima bombings as nameless "enemies", but people who were changed forever as a result of what happened.

On the other hand, the exhibit, while not openly criticizing those who flew the mission, by not defending them showed them in a negative light.  The crew, and veterans in general, were understandably upset by the exhibit.  They were following orders, and honestly believe that what they did was not only right, but the only option.  They did not enjoy what happened, but it was something that they had to do.  A museum exhibit that focuses on such things as child casualties doesn't reflect this, and so of course they were upset.  

But for the exhibit to be completely scrapped, and reworked as a perfectly acceptable fluff piece is unacceptable.  The veterans certainly deserve respect, thanks, and admiration, but not the power to keep any history critical of them from being shown.  I think that the original exhibit should have been expanded to look at both sides, and shown not just the consequences, but the moral ambiguity of the bombing in general.  Show the crew as people who believed in the justice of what they were doing, while still showing the consequences of their actions.  

To be honest though, with such a contentious issue, compromise was probably impossible from the beginning.  Maybe in the future there could be an exhibit that shows both sides, but for now, I don't think it can be done.

What is Public History?

What are some considerations when viewing public history exhibits? What Prof. Jordanova's essay said to me was that first you have to think about what is public history.  Museums and such, obviously qualify, but I never thought of historical fiction as public history.  But it's true, and actually, a little worrisome.  Tying back to the Alamo exhibit, The Alamo with John Wayne would be many people's only knowledge of the Alamo.  These people now believe in a history taught to them through a for-profit, highly glamorized, if not fictionalized movie.  Beyond that, even museums or other things that one would think of as actual history, have some motive behind their production.  The problem arises when that motive interferes with a non-biased portrayal of the issue in question.  As Jordanova pointed out, a major drive with public history is to both place blame, and to educate so that mistakes are not repeated.  An admirable goal.  In every class I have ever taken that dealt with World War 1, I have been told a similar, but still different reason for it beginning.  Historians do not agree.  If they did, there would be far fewer, because no one could publish a new book.  So how are exhibits to keep the past from being repeated, if we can't agree on what the past is?

A New View of the Alamo

The Alamo exhibit at the Walker Education Center was not what I expected.  A few panels with a few pictures and essays tacked to them is not what I think when I think of a museum exhibit.  But once I started to read, and examine it, I began to appreciate it more.  As a native Texan, I have always seen the same John Wayne movie story of the Alamo.  It's almost impossible to think of it as anything other than a place of battle.  Intellectually, I know it was a mission long before that, and later was empty, although the information that it was used as a warehouse was new to me.  I just don't think of it as anything else.  But the exhibit showed a lot of the other sides of the Alamo.  From the earliest known image of it, to the cartoon from the Mexican perspective, it examined the story from another viewpoint.