Comments for Michael's History Blog

Comment on Thesis, Part II by Draper

Draper — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 04:47:33 +0000

You can do it!

Comment on Thesis, Part II by elizabeth

elizabeth — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 00:32:31 +0000

Oh no! I’m sorry your hard drive crashed. My suggestion: along with the re-compiling, buy a 120GB/250GB whatever size external hard drive from Walmart or Best Buy, and back up regularly. Very helpful. You could get two, and then backup your backup, just in case. Sounds like overkill, but not necessarily so…

Good luck on your next chapter, and on your colloquium presentation!

Comment on I’ll be Thankful when this chapter is done :-) by mablaa

mablaa — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 18:04:17 +0000

Just for fun

Comment on I’ll be Thankful when this chapter is done :-) by klshan

klshan — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:45:15 +0000

That is awesome! I love old books! I can’t believe they would even sell that to you! It should be in a museum or something, haha. Is the book relevant to your thesis, or did you just buy it for fun?

Comment on In the trenches by klshan

klshan — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:43:21 +0000

I was just as scared as you seem to be in trying to tackle the introduction first, but everything is going to need revision in the long run. I definitely understand wanting the historiography done first. That is pretty much my plan as well.

Comment on In the trenches by Katherine

Katherine — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 03:28:09 +0000

I thoroughly enjoyed seeing you today in the UC, especially since you seemed to be feeling EXACTLY as frazzled as I am!

I think that writing at least part of the intro is necessary to give your paper direction and structure. You have to know what your argument is in order to make it! The additional outlining is going to be great for your later chapters… you’ll know exactly what they’re going to be about and how to format them.

Good luck this week!

Comment on In the trenches by cameron

cameron — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 19:41:28 +0000

I like the idea of writing the introduction first. Of course, you will have to revise it later, but that’s a given anyway. I wrote my introduction first as well, and I think its a good way to get moving and put your thoughts into prose. Thank coffee shops, and maybe when you become a famous historian you can get free stuff out of it. Dave Chappelle actually lives in a little town near me in Ohio, and he does a lot of work in a coffee shop. Maybe its work, anyway he’s on a laptop in there all the time. Great minds think alike.

Comment on This week by mattmorrill

mattmorrill — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 20:35:08 +0000

I think that point about culture is important. A lot of people don’t realize that culture is constantly changing and morphing as a result of a variety of influences and conditions. The cultural role of hotels could be a very interesting point to make. Just be careful not to assign too much agency to the architecture, as vernacular hotels (if these hotels are your subject rather than the more ornate ones) may not have been designed by master builders and therefore probably would have sacrificed cultural symbols and meaning for economy of construction. But definitely a point worth exploring.

Comment on Moving towards crunch time by jalitt

jalitt — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 00:56:23 +0000

Sounds like your title from last week could have been used this week too. All that work and consolidation definitely looks like progress to me. Personally, I’d say your organization looks great and very well split up. It looks like you have a pretty good idea of how you’re going to get your paper rolling.

My major papers for other classes are yet to come, but I can definitely sympathize with you there. However, that’s really lucky that your topics seem to overlap like they do for Chapter 4.

I’m curious though, based on your thesis, are you arguing that hotels are a uniquely American invention? That sounds very interesting, and it’s something I hadn’t considered before. Also, are your chapters going to be different in size? I noticed that the last three are analytical whereas the first two seem to follow a more chronological format. I know in my case that my third chapter is likely to be much shorter than the other four. Are you seeing any major size differences between chapters as your organization develops?

Comment on Moving towards crunch time by elizabeth

elizabeth — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 00:38:07 +0000

* Introduction. THESIS: The hotel–not only a new architectural form, but also a business model distinct from the tavern–reflected the desires of social and cultural elites to cling to traditional social structures while simultaneously improving their new nation, thus embodying a central paradox of American ideology in the years of the early republic.
* Chapter 1: Taverns in New York City, 1783
* Chapter 2: New York’s First Hotels
* Chapter 3: The Republican Vision and Symbolism of New York’s Early Hotels
* Chapter 4: Hotels as a New Approach to Health and Morality
* Chapter 5: Hotels, Capitalism, and Industrialization
* Conclusion

So, to double-check, I think your argument is that the hotel was a mechanism for conservatism even though it was a means of progress/social improvement. The organization seems fairly clear. Each of the first two chapters represents an informative block – what the reader should know before he could understand the rest. Each of the next three chapters addresses an analytical approach to understanding the rise of hotels/downfall of taverns – politics, social health, and the economy. Not knowing everything you do, you might find that these three analytical chapters will blend together – watch out for repetition there!