For your first task, you will be working with primary sources that I have provided for you. Everything you need is in this sub-module (and also appears in the Sharing Stories Module, where I’ve gathered your “Sharing Stories” resources in one place).
First, take a look at the following document (“Delegate Assignments”) to find out which delegate you will be researching. This list shows your delegate’s name and where they are living in 1977, the year of the conference.
After you know your delegate, you will search through two different sources to find out more about them. The first, Tennessee IWY Records, contains National Women’s Conference Registration Forms. These are scanned copies of archival documents, the kind of stuff historians work with when they do research. There should be a form for your delegate in here. Write down the information you find. Make sure to note the file name (Tennessee IWY Records) and which page the information is on so that you can easily find it again if you need to. This file also gives interesting information about the delegation from Tennessee as a whole, like ages, religious affiliation, and race. Why might these details be important?
The second file (“TennesseeStateMeetingReport. . .”) contains information from Tennessee’s state meeting where representatives gathered to choose these delegates. Search this one for information about your delegate. If you find them, note what they were doing at the state meeting and anything else you see. You can use the little magnifying glass icon at the top left of the file to search for your delegate’s name in the file, though I believe only typed responses will show (nothing handwritten). If your delegate’s name appears more than once, you can use the arrows in the search box to move to the next instance. To be thorough, skim the entire document after your search, don’t try to tackle the whole thing in one go. This, again, is a common scenario for historians, where you will be faced with a whole box or boxes of materials to go through (if you’re lucky). And usually we don’t have a search shortcut to use! Sometimes you go through a box and do not find what you’re looking for . . . If you find your delegate in here, take note of the file name, page number, and information you found so you can use it in your biography and find it again if needed.
For both sources, you do not need to keep formal footnotes, but make sure you are recording in your research notes where the information came from (file name and page #).
Submit your research notes to me as a word document in the folder in this sub-module. Your research notes can include what you found and your thoughts on the research process. These do not need to be polished or formatted any particular way or any specific length – just submit your notes. If you struggled in some aspect, tell me about it.
