Research Example for History 351 - Women's History
Alright - this is a rough example of how you
might go about researching a topic in women's history. Suppose
you read a reference to the Triangle Fire in one of your history books,
so you want to learn more about it.
1)Background Material- You can use an online source, such as Wikipedia, or an encyclopedia. The advantage to an encyclopedia can be in inclusion of a bibliography. Also, the entry may be signed, giving it more authority than an Wikipedia entry. For this assignment, Wikipedia (or a general Internet search) may be fine to give you background. In this case, a general web search gave me an excellent site out of Cornell University called The Triangle Factory Fire. Here is the Wikipedia article on the fire.
And below is the entry from a print source. This comes from the book Weatherford, Doris. American Women's History: An A to Z of People, Organizations, Issues and Events. 1994.
Notice how all three give you useful information. The Cornell web site is the most complete, and even provides some documents that you can use for this assignment. However, notice how succinct the encyclopedia entry is. The Wikipedia article and the article by Weatherford complement each other.
Now we know more about the incident.
2)Browsing primary magazines- Having the exact date, March 25th, 1911, is very useful. At this point I could go in 2 different directions, either use the Readers Guide to find exact references, or simply browse a few issues from the list I provided.
If you go with the Readers Guide, here is a sample of what you will find:
So, if you look at the first entry, "Acquittal in the Triangle Case." this is the title of the article as it appears in the magazine Outlook. It appears on page 8 of the January 6th, 1912 issue. The Reader's Guide is a great entry into finding articles. However, keep in mind that the Reader's Guide can be selective. Browsing is still very valuable. For example, The Survey is one of the magazines, they index, but they did not pick up the following images, which would contribute to your understanding and work on this project.
The notice of the funeral procession came from the April 15th,
1911 issue of The Survey, and the editorial came from the
April 1st editorial in the same magazine.
Also, keep in mind that something may be listed under Fires. Further, when searching, it is a good idea to keep your terms open. For this subject, triangle fire, triangle shirtwaist, and triangle waist all can come up with different documents.
3) Online Magazines - Unfortunately, none of our subscription databases cover the year that the fire occured. However, looking at the list of free sites, the Harvard site, "Women Working," might have something. I had no luck in this collection, so I looked at the American Women guide provided by the Library of Congress. I found this image from an Italian immigrant newspaper and a few more resouces. At this point, I would look at this guide in more detail.
4) Other Possible Sources - Certainly, the New York Times, as indicated in the Cornell website about the Triangle Fire, would be a great place to look. We have it in microfilm and the index to the Times is in the reference area. There were a few references from Women and Social Movements in the United States, but none specifically from journals.
5) Conclusion & Help- Okay, so for this project, I would focus on what I find in the Reader's Guide, looking through our collection, looking at the New York Times, and using the Library of Congress web site. All of these might lead to other avenues that I would want to explore, they may mention a particular writer or another paper that discusses the Triangle Fire.
If you need help, please contact Allen Reichert at 823-1164 (email preichert @ otterbein.edu or IM askallenoc). You can also contact the reference desk at 823-1984 or by IM otterbeinlibrary.
Good luck!
last modified 10/2008