Research Project Ideas

Ideas for Research Projects using the Pacific University Archives:

These are just a few ideas.

• • Compare our Forest Grove Indian Training School Autograph Album, which contains notes from the Indian students addressed to a white teacher, to the one that has been digitized by the University of Washington, which contains notes written between the Indian students. The Newberry Library has another closely related example that could be compared as well.

  • For a paper on language and gender, look at how women students are addressed in University catalogs and viewbooks over time (any time from the 1860s-2010s)

  • Use the "Liquor Investigation Reports" in the President McClelland Records to investigate what it was like to live in a "dry" town circa 1900. This could be done in combination with other sources on Forest Grove held by the Friends of Historic Forest Grove.

  • Look at letters a World War II soldier sent home to family in the John Seus Papers to look at how one soldier interacted with his family while at war. This project could be expanded by looking at other soldiers' letters that have been digitized online.

  • Read the Karl Ferguson Baldwin Collection of World War II Intelligence Reports on the Japanese to examine the Allied forces' views on Japanese military psychology

  • Look at Pacific women students' scrapbooks from the 1900s-20s, like the Esther Silverman Scrapbook, the Frances B. Clapp Scrapbook, the Ernestine Brown Davidson Scrapbook and others, to see how they memorialized/represented their own lives. This could be a good project for someone interested in gender studies.

  • Analyze the large group of receipts for household goods in the Sidney H. Marsh Papers (Box 4, Folders 37-55) to shed light on consumer life in Oregon in the mid-1800s.

  • Examine the records of 19th century Oregon religious associations, such as the the Willamette Association of Congregational Ministers and Churches Records, the Social Degree Temple Minutes, the Washington County Bible Society Treasurer's Records and others, to investigate their aims and organizational strategies

Ideas for Research Projects using digitized books, magazines and newspapers:

Google Books Ideas

• • Look at public perceptions/reactions to transformational technologies of the 19th century, like the telegraph, steam trains or the sewing machine

  • Take an issue that has traditionally been difficult to research -- such as prostitution in the 19th century, the appearance of ethnic foods in the American diet, etc. -- and see how unexpected sources made available through Google Books can change the standard histories.

  • Look at patterns of knowledge dissemination in the 19th-early 20th century press. Check to see how a story or idea passed around through newspapers, magazines, books, etc. and spread to locations across the English-speaking world.

America's Historical Newspapers Database Ideas (Note: this would require traveling to U. of O. to get access to the database.)

• Pick a commodity (for example: pineapples, books, Chinese imports, cotton fabric, etc.) and look at how the product is advertised for public sale over a period of time, such as from 1750-1860. This could lead to a variety of insights into issues such as consumer culture, changes in shipping, industrialization, differences in economic structures, etc.

• Pick an event (for example: a natural disaster, the Haitian Revolution, the crowning of a new monarch in Europe, etc.) and examine whether/how newspapers in various communities reported it.

Oregon Digital Newspapers Ideas

• • Pick an issue or an event that happened between around 1890-1920 and see how it was reported, how people responded in letters to the editor, etc. Some topics that could be interesting: divorce, women's suffrage, the Spanish-American War, a play or movie like The Birth of a Nation

  • Examine how a certain industry or product advertised itself to Oregonians. Some interesting possibilities: medical services/products; colleges & trade schools;