Census Data Takes Class Back to 1880s
Students at Duke University and the Durham School of the Arts are studying Durham of the 1880s, but they aren't just relying on history textbooks.
The undergraduates and eighth-graders have teamed up this spring to explore a new database of information drawn from the 1880 U.S. Census, which they're using to reach their own conclusions about the way people lived at the time.
The project has been organized by Trudi Abel, a historian and senior fellow at Duke's Center for Teaching, Learning and Writing. It is the centerpiece of a course she's teaching this semester, titled "Documenting Durham and the New South."
The course is distinctive because of the way it weaves together history, technology and service learning, according to Abel.
"What's great about this project is that it leads students to assume the roles of both historian and detective," Abel said. "They're learning how to use a database and primary sources to render fresh interpretations of the past."
The project represents a new collaboration in the Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnership Initiative (NPI), an effort begun in 1996 to improve the quality of life in neighborhoods immediately surrounding the university by developing school-based programs and other partnerships to help the communities empower themselves. The Durham School of the Arts is one of seven schools participating in the initiative.
At the beginning of the semester, Abel assigned the seven students taking her course to read several essays and books on the New South to put the city's growth into a historical context. In addition, she introduced them to the census database, and how it can be loaded onto handheld computers, donated by Handspring Inc.
Each Duke student received one Handspring Visor, allowing them to strike out on their own and conduct research more efficiently. They visited the university's Rare Book, Manuscript and Special Collections Library, as well as other local archives, and reviewed old letters, tax lists, business ledgers and city directories, among other records.
And whenever Abel's students came across a name in the archives, they could learn vital information about the individual - age, race, birthplace, occupation, marital status and whether he or she was literate - because of the data they carried.
The database also can be used to cross-tabulate information. For example, one of Abel's students, Jason Koslofsky, had the database identify all the youths in school and then give him the occupations of those who weren't.
"According to the 1880 census, roughly nine of every 10 school-age children neglected their education to work in domestic service, on farms or in factories, including children as young as 8," said Koslofsky, himself a Durham resident.
After some preliminary research, the Duke students selected facets of local history that interested them. The topics that emerged are primary education and youth culture, business and commerce, textile mills and child labor, the prohibition movement, higher education and career opportunities for women, religion and the growth of denominations, and the African-American experience.
Taken together, the various areas of study offer a rich analysis of Durham's social and economic history in the late 19th century, Abel said.
Helen McLeod's eighth-grade social studies class joined the project in February. The middle school students made a trip to Duke with their teacher to get a look at old city maps, business ledgers, correspondence and other archival documents.
"They were pretty much in awe of the materials," McLeod said. "One of the kids didn't want to touch any of the letters. She was afraid she might damage something."
After their visit to the special collections archive, the eighth-graders chose study topics and were matched with Duke students working on a similar theme. Each of Abel's undergraduates became a mentor to three or four of the middle school students.
The Duke students have attended McLeod's social studies class five times in recent weeks and shared their findings with their middle school counterparts, who are conducting their own research. The database is available on computers at the public school, and the students are exploring it together.
Eighth-grader Lauren Bell, who is working with Koslofsky, was surprised to learn that large families were common in Durham before the turn of the century. "They were bigger than I realized," she said. "Every family had like six or seven people."
Durham was known mostly for its snuff and tobacco factories in 1880. It had one bank, three weekly newspapers and a small number of other businesses, such as barber shops and feed stores. Historian William Boyd commented in the 1920s that Durham was "frowned upon by nature in the distribution of soil and drainage" and "unworthy of description by the journalists that followed the [Civil War] armies."
Notwithstanding its shortcomings, the city was poised for transformation. In the years that followed, a critical mass of businesses opened in the downtown area. Industrialism began to take hold, and Durham welcomed many new mills that produced textiles, hosiery and fertilizer. Also, in 1898, the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Co. was founded, and would become the nation's oldest and largest African-American life insurance company.
"Basically, Durham was emerging as a 'player' in the New South," Abel said, "and that's the main reason we're studying this period. It's a pivotal span in the city's history."
Paralleling the course project, an initiative is underway to make the census database available to the public via a Web site. The initiative, also led by Abel, has been made possible by two grants totaling $30,000 from the Duke Center for Instructional Technology. The site is expected to be launched in the fall.
Written by Noah Bartolucci.