Students should be able to:

• Attentively read and make observations about historical documents
• Make inferences based on their close observations about the author, subject, and audience of each document
• Formulate questions for further research

The narrative arc of this course begins with cultural and theoretical questions about how people define “dirty” and “clean” and about how they categorize different kinds of matter. Then we study our “personal waste.” Students bring to class 48 hours worth of their own garbage. See assignment here.

The archives visit is part of a unit which focuses on the history of sanitation in New York City. Prior to our visit to the archives, students read a selection of secondary sources about the management of waste, primarily in New York City (see Further Reading below). These readings, along with class discussions, provide both historical context and theoretical tools that help students better understand the archival material.

Number of Visits: 1
Duration of Visit: 2 hours 10 minutes

Agenda

In groups of 4, students examine a suite of primary source documents. Handouts guide groups through the step-by-step process of making observations, formulating inferences, and posing questions about their documents.

Group 1

Students examine a folder of materials from the Arnie Goldwag Brooklyn Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) collection which contains newspaper clippings, flyers, and letters documenting CORE’s efforts in 1962-63 to increase the frequency of city garbage pickup in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn.
See handout here.

Group 2

Students examine one photograph circa 1915 of the interior of a second-hand shop run by the American Legion of Kings County.
See handout here.

Group 3

Students examine a selection of 5 photographs (taken over a period of 50 years) which document the Gowanus Flushing Tunnel in Brooklyn. The tunnel, which opened in 1911, was designed to bring relatively fresh water from Buttermilk Channel into the Gowanus Canal.
See handout here.

Group 4

Students use a light table to examine four lantern slides created by the Brooklyn Bureau of Community Services to document local slum conditions. The photos depict backyard privies and dumps.
See handout here.

Group 5

Students examine two photographs depicting the construction of sewers in Brooklyn. In addition, they read a 1910 newspaper clipping from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in which an editor describes life in Brooklyn in the 1850s before there were sewers.
See handout here.

Each member of the group is assigned a role: document handler, reader, photographer, and note-taker. The notetaker is required to write notes directly on the handout and to record the group’s observations about each document’s size, physical properties, subject, author or creator, date, and audience. The photographer uses a camera (without flash) to take pictures of the collections.

Wrap Up

Each group summarizes their activities and research questions in a 3 – 5 minute presentation to the rest of the class. The instructor then leads the whole class in a discussion reflecting on the experience working with primary sources.

Blog Posts

After the visiting the archives, students write a 2 – 3 page reflection on our class blog. See prompt here.