busy and too busy

I'm busy teaching both World Civ I and Rare Books this fall. On top of that, I'm working on finishing (actually revising and re-writing) my first book on Disaster Response. AND working on putting pieces together for my Dissertation. Boy is my plate full. So no news is good news...
Until next time,

the beginning

They say that all stories, all writing has to begin somewhere. Since my dissertation proposal was accepted, I haven't done much to add to the text of the dissertation.. As Jeanne says, i have to start somewhere, so I'll start with a timeline, and start to flesh out the text from there. Chronological order seems to be the best approach.

Next will be a list or notation of where to do the research and where to do the analysis. A mixture of narrative and analysis is my goal.

This is step one. If I can get this together, then the rest should flow.

dissertation research

Thursday April 1st, I had a successful day at OHS. I found the references for Werner Printing's award of Ohio Public Printing contract, and each of the dates he was paid / contract. Alas, the company only bid once. So now I need to hunt down the act that gives him income for the Official Roster vol IX.

Also have figures for costs to compose & print pages in 1889.

OHS also has a sample book of Werner Printing - commercial job printing. It won't reproduce, there are no prices, and no date. BUT they have the publication.

Now I need to flesh out the "how I will do this" section of the proposal.

Teaching Spring courses

Teaching goes well. This semester the course is Genealogy & Local History. My 12 enthusiastic students are learning all about how to research the past and present using primary sources. It's one of my favorite courses to teach. In between, I get to teach some short courses. This past weekend I taught students how to search for government documents and information about the workings of our government agencies. An eye opening experience for most of them, especially those who don't follow political activities.

The Dissertation Proposal

I'm currently working on the proposal for my dissertation. I am going to examine the history of a printer in Akron Ohio who had a large, flourishing printing business from 1870 to 1914 with offices throughout the world. He's a typical late 19th century printer and businessman and is almost unknown today. The artwork his presses produce is absolutely gorgeous. I'm having fun putting together the pieces of his business successes and failures. The proposal has to be submitted and accepted before May, so I'm working to put the info together and form arguments as to why I should write this dissertation. Then I can barrel ahead and start really writing.