HIST 13
Eyewitnesses to History: American Treasures in the Chapin Library Winter 2019

This is not the current course catalog

What did Christopher Columbus write in his 1493 letter to the Spanish court? How did John Smith describe the Virginia colony the early 1600s? What would a pioneer find when following the Oregon Trail west in 1846? How much did a female slave cost in Richmond, Virginia, in 1860? These and many other intriguing questions are answered by rare books, manuscripts, newspapers, maps, and prints in the Chapin Library, primary sources which contain eyewitness accounts of important events in American history. Students in this course will learn, through handling rare materials, how to analyze primary sources and put them in historical context. For the first two weeks, they will investigate items, selected by the instructors, in tutorial-like sessions, with one student presenting conclusions of research and another giving a critique. For the final project, each student will select an item from the Chapin Americana holdings, write a 10-page research paper and present it to the class, and write a brief note about the item for a public display in the Special Collections instruction Gallery.