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These postings continue the contributions of students in Professor Keith Erekson's undergraduate introductory public history class at the University of Texas at El Paso. As a final assignment for the class, students were asked to write and post a short piece about their impressions of the field. *********** 1) Erika Ruelas -Reflection When I took this class I decided to take it because I needed a history class. I could not find any class that would fit on my schedule and this class fit, so I decided to take it. I did not have any idea of what public history was. I ask my advisor and he did not have any idea either of what public history was. The week before classes started I used Google to find out what public history was. I found out that is a way to make history more accessible to the public. Public history is like a vehicle to take history out of school and reach more people. I was not sure that I would like this class but once that class started I realized that I was involved in public history without even knowing it. I have been a docent at the El Paso Holocaust Museum and Study Center and my job was to make the history of the Holocaust more accessible to people. In addition I learned about the several job opportunities that are out there for people that study public history. As a history major this is something of my interest. Working in the several projects that we did in the class I realized the importance that history has in the life of every person. This class also teach me that history is everywhere not only in school or books. History can be found in an old building and people that we saw every day. ------------ 2) Reflection Paper Iris Nevarez When I was in high school, I thought history was what they taught in school. I always thought of history as boring and less important than the other subjects taught in school. I would dread taking history classes my first two years at UTEP and but I figured I might as well get them out of the way so that I never had to take history in my life again. I ended up becoming a women’s studies minor and I learned about women’s history and how the struggle is not over. It was then that I realized that not all history is taught. Some of the most important historic events are not documented and taught in high school. I decided to take Chicano studies and learn about the struggle of my people in the United States. I became very interested in history from then on and heard that Public history would be a good class to take and it also fit into my schedule for this semester. I had a hard time finding information about the Munson Shoe Last. I found one book on Google and read through it. I also research keywords and still found nothing. There were a lot of road blocks for me. I thought I had found a book that would be of some help but when I started reading it, it had nothing to do with William Jefferson Glasgow or the Munson Shoe Last. I decided to go into the archives and look for old newspaper articles to see if I could find anything on The Shoe Board but was unsuccessful. The next step was contacting Fort Bliss and trying to locate any documents that would be related to the Shoe Board’s work. I waited for a response and after a week I had not heard from them. I called again and was told they had not found anything and that they had no idea what I was even talking about. I went to the library and looked through their archives and found nothing. It was very discouraging but instead of looking for more information I focused on getting the information from the book that I did find and look for leads to names of people on the board. I found a few names that turned out to be names of doctors that had done research on feet but not particularly for the Shoe Board. All in all, I learned a lot from this project and I admire historians for their dedication and persistence in getting the information that they are looking for. I was not able to find as much as I might have if I had had more time but I did still find good information about the proposal that was given to the government on behalf of the Shoe Board to make new, more comfortable shoes for the Military Soldier. -- H-Public To post to the list: H-PUBLIC@h-net.msu.edu Home page: www.h-net.org/~public sponsored by the National Council on Public History (www.ncph.org)
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