Local Historical Societies Research Articles

ИСТОРИЯ ИЗУЧЕНИЯ ПОСЕЛЕНЧЕСКИХ ПАМЯТНИКОВ САРМАТСКОГО ВРЕМЕНИ В ЛЕСОСТЕПНОМ ПОДОНЬЕ

The article reveals the history of the study of hillforts and settlements of the first centuries AD on the Upper Don. The author substantiates the identification of three chronological stages in the history of settlement archeology of the Upper Don region. The first of them is associated with pre-revolutionary studies of local history societies, as well as with the work of the Upper Don expedition in the Lipetsk region and the expedition of the Voronezh State University in the Voronezh region. At this time, the process of accumulation of material from the first centuries took place, and its interpretation was limited to the term “early Iron Age”. The second stage of research began in 1978 with the creation of the Scythian-Sarmatian brigade of VSU (A.P. Medvedev) and its targeted study of burial mounds and settlements of the Sarmatian period in the forest-steppe Don region. During the same period, work was carried out by the LGPI expedition (A.N.Bessudnov), State Directorate for the Protection of Cultural Heritage of the Lipetsk Region (I. E. Biryukov, I. A. Kozmirchuk), as well as employees of the Department of Archaeology and History of the Ancient World of VSU (Yu. D. Razuvaev, M. V. Tsybin, A. S. Savrasov, A. D. Pryakhin, N. A. Tropin, etc.). The third stage is distinguished by the work of both scientific expeditions (A. M. Oblomsky, I. E. Biryukov, G. L. Zemtsov, Yu. D. Razuvaev, D. V. Akimov, etc.) and protective archaeological excavations. Discussions on the identification of groups of hillforts and settlements of the Sarmatian period are considered, and controversial issues of their dating are identified. From the historiographical analysis of the current state of the problem, further directions of its research logically follow: highlighting the cultural uniqueness of the settlements of the Upper Don and, especially, their chronology.

How the Fourth Statistical Account of East Lothian Recorded Developments in the Church in the County Between 1945 and 2000

This article will use the Fourth Statistical Account of East Lothian, which was produced by a consortium of local history societies, to provide a case study of how the church in the county developed between 1945 and 2000. Because East Lothian is the only Scottish county to have a fourth statistical account, the study provides a unique opportunity to trace the development of the church within a Scottish local authority during the second half of the twentieth century. The article will use, as its main sources, essays on four established denominations and the sections on ‘Belief’ in each of the parish entries. It will detail how the Church of Scotland, the Scottish Episcopal Church and the Methodist Church contracted between 1945 and 2000; show that, while the Roman Catholic Church was more stable, it began to suffer from a lack of vocations and the disinterest of younger members of the Catholic population, and that, while the Baptist Church increased its presence in the county and Pentecostal congregations and ‘house churches’ were formed, the Brethren and Church of Christ both declined and, as a consequence, these other churches remained on the margins of the church in East Lothian.

‘I don’t even trust now what I read in history books’: family history and the future of co-production and collaboration

ABSTRACT Family historians are a large and often neglected group of historical researchers. They have a strongly articulated sense of their practice, and a well-developed set of methodologies and research apparatuses. They mostly work on their own, or in partnership with other family members, and are associated with public libraries, archives and local historical societies. They are a community who are situated outside the academy, often marginalised by the mainstream. They have been dismissed for their naiveté and amateurism and are ridiculed for seeking emotional connections with the past lives of their forebears. The research practice and interests of family historians are often defined as unscientific, uncritical, emotional and of little value to the academy or anyone else bar their own family group. We interrogate these assumptions here and show how family history is enabling a huge number of people to think historically and to produce distinctive forms of historical understanding that challenge academic monopoly of historical knowledge. The essay considers the working practices of family historians and elaborates some of the key ways that family history work provides models for socially engaged research.

An Accidental Historian

An Accidental Historian

Reaching into the Community to Interpret Labor History

Reaching into the Community to Interpret Labor History

Исследования В.Г. Гниловским географических особенностей Ставропольского края

Introduction. The current stage of the development of local history is characterized by an increased interest in the most valuable results of scientists of the XX century. An active study of the information collected and systematized by them is underway. By 1917, local history took a significant place in cultural and social life of large and small cities. There was a wide range of educated people engaged in local history research, and a generation of local historians emerged. Local history societies, museums and clubs sprang up everywhere. They formed the real scientific basis without which it is difficult to imagine the further development of local history. Vladimir G. Gnilovskoy made a great contribution to the development of geographical local history and brought it to a new level but the main views of the scientist remain insufficiently studied. Materials and research methods. The research was based on the principles of historicism, objectivity and consistency. The use of general scientific methods of analysis and synthesis made the great contribution to the in-depth study of historical phenomena in the field of geographical local history. The paper uses a comparative historical method and a system-functional analysis of the material using a problem-chronological approach. The method of quantitative analysis allowed us to track the dynamics of local history works of various types over the entire period under review. Scientific legacy of V. G. Gnilovskoy is largely determined by the reliance on the works of his predecessors, their critical analysis which allowed us to complete a certain stage in the accumulation of empirical information about the nature of Stavropol. The paper uses a comparative-historical method and a system-functional analysis of the material using a problem-chronological approach. The method of quantitative analysis allowed us to trace the dynamics of local history works of various types for the entire period under review. Research results and their discussion. The purpose of this article is to identify and analyze the contribution of V. G. Gnilovskoy to the development of geographical local history. To achieve this goal the work of local historians – the predecessors in Stavropol in the XIX – early XX centuries was analyzed and the research activities of V. G. Gnilovskoy were systematized. The main approaches and principles of geographical local history in the works of V. G. Gnilovskoy were identified as well as the key ideas of popularization and educational activities of the scientist in the field of geographical local history were summarized. Conclusions. Systematization of research activities V. G. Gnilovskoy allowed us to identify two main areas that most of the scientist's works belong to: a) scientific work in the field of geomorphology; b) research activities in the field of historical geography. His long-term scientific research and discoveries enriched the geographical knowledge of Stavropol and gave an impetus to further more in-depth and comprehensive research. All the results of his research activities V. G. Gnilovskay tried not only to publish but also to convey to the public. Having identified the key ideas of popularization and educational activities in the field of geographical local history we can conclude that V. G. Gnilovskoy made a great contribution to the organization and conduct of public education activities.

The European native oyster,Ostrea edulis, in Wales, a historical account of a forgotten fishery

The history of the European native oyster has been documented for numerous countries within its natural range. However, the history ofOstrea edulisin Wales remains conspicuously absent from current UK and European peer-reviewed publications. It was therefore deemed necessary to address this and as a result in-depth research of archival data was conducted including local trade directories, decennial census returns, collections from the National Museum Wales, annual government fisheries reports and grey literature from local historical societies. These historical reviews resulted in the construction of a timeline which documents all the significant historical dates related toO. edulisin Wales from the early 1500 s to present day. Fisheries statistics for England and Wales were also analysed for the western regional oyster fisheries in an attempt to understand the contribution which the Welsh landings made to the region. The review revealed that the Welsh fishery was the primary contributor of regional landings from the early 1600 s with maximum landings reported 1894, with the oyster beds at Mumbles producing more oysters than any other port until the fishery closed in 1937. A commercial native oyster fishery no longer exists in Wales but there remains a small native oyster population in South Wales. It is hoped that the historical accounts of bountiful catches, overexploitation, and restoration ofO. edulisover the centuries in Wales may offer current conservation practitioners an insight into failures and mistakes of the past which could benefit the future of the European flat oyster in Wales.

Museum Construction in Ural Region (1923–1934): Based on the Materials of the State Archive of Sverdlovsk Region

This article considers the development of the network of museums in Ural Region in 1923–1934. The author examines the features of the Ural museums, such as formation, organization, management, typology, educational activities, interaction with the Soviet authorities, the relationship of museums and the Ural local history movement, as well as the influence of state policy. Museums emerged in the Urals in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. During the post-revolutionary period, i.e. in 1917–1923, in many ways due to the purposeful state policy, new institutions appeared in the museum network. The reorganization of the administrative and territorial division in the Urals influenced the interaction between the local authorities and the museums subordinate to them. The introduction of a new economic policy in 1921 positively influenced the activity of the museums. Local history organizations and societies actively conducted scientific and educational work on their basis. With the creation of the super-region, Ural Region, in 1924, the museum activity on its territory was directed at implementing the decisions of the RSFSR People’s Commissariat for Education. Based on data sent to the museum subdivision of the Ural Public Education Department, the author reconstructs the museum system of the region as of 1926. The results of the analysis make it possible to speak about the inefficiency of the accounting and control of museums by the Ural Public Education Department. In addition to the complex management of museums, the museum industry also faced other problems. Throughout the 1920s, the material and normative consolidation of the museum network took place. By the early 1930s, the rejection of the new economic policy was followed by the ideological rethinking of the museum’s functions. The museum and local history movement shifted its focus from education and excursion activity to propaganda and political-educational tasks. The author draws a conclusion about the contradictions in the development of museums in the Soviet Urals between the 1920s and the early 1930s characterized by the complexity of management, weakness of material resources, low financing of the creation of the new Soviet museum. The paper refers to documents of the State Archive of Sverdlovsk Region.

Peter Brears: <i>Traditional Food in the South Pennines</i>

Peter Brears: Traditional Food in the South Pennines: Hebden Bridge Local History society, 2022: 252 pp., paperback, £11.99.

Work of the Dorzhi Banzarov Buryat-Mongolian Scientific Society for the Study of the History and Culture of the Mongolian Nation in the 1920s

The events of 1917 had a major effect on all spheres of society in the former Russian Empire. These events also had a major effect on the development of scientific and educational activities. The study of the features and experience of scientific and educational institutions of the 1920s is important and significant for more effective construction of research activities, state policy in the field of science. This article reviews the history and work of the first scientific and educational institutions of Buryatia. The processes of studying the history and culture of the Mongolian peoples are considered on the example of the works of the Dorzhi Banzarov Buryat-Mongolian Scientific Society formed in 1924. There is a connection between the scientific Oriental institutions of pre-revolutionary Russia and the new Soviet scientific organizations. The article views the history of the Buryat-Mongolian Scientific Society, its structure, main directions and results of work. The results of scientific and educational work in Buryat-Mongolia were also evaluated. The article is based on materials from the State Archive of the Republic of Buryatia and the State Archive of the Irkutsk region. The institution consisted of three main sections: political-economic (economic), physical-geographical and historical-ethnological. Special attention is paid to the work of the historical and ethnological section of the society, which has made a great contribution to the development of historical science, the study of the history and culture of the Mongolian peoples, educational activities, as well as the accumulation, description and preservation of archival materials. An important source for writing the article was the print publication of the Buryat-Mongolian scientific society “Buryatievedenie”, the lectures of participants published in it and reports on the work of the institution. An important aspect of the study is the matter of changes in state policy in relation to scientific, educational, local history societies in the early 1930s and its impact on research work in Buryat-Mongolia.

World War II and the Making of a Journalist

World War II and the Making of a Journalist Owen V. Johnson (bio) and Jon Paul Dilts (bio) In early 1945, Sgt. Ralph Holsinger, in a reflective mood, wrote to the editor of the Piqua (Ohio) Daily Call to tell him what the war was like "in the rain and mud and mountains."1 We captured Naples, he wrote, and: had come to expect an advance of 25 miles every week. And then in November, in the mountains, around Venafro, something happened. Maybe the rain was heavier and the mud thicker, maybe the mountains were higher and more rugged, maybe the Germans were tougher. . . . Whatever it was, we made no more weekly moves of 25 miles. As a matter of fact, many weeks passed and we made no moves at all. We ate our Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year's dinners in the same muddy olive grove on the side of the same hill overlooking the same valley. While we were there the rains turned to snow and the mountains became white-capped. On New Year's Day a terrific blizzard swept through the valley, blowing down all our tents and covering the mud with six inches of ice cold slush. It was a miserable day.2 [End Page 28] Ralph had started writing to his hometown editor after hearing some of his letters home were being shared and occasionally published. He had written hundreds of letters since he was drafted—letters to his parents in Ohio, to his friends from school, and, more recently, to his hometown newspaper. He wrote about the war, the tiredness, the boredom, the dead, the fighting at Salerno and Anzio. Many of those letters today can be found preserved in the archives at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, where Ralph spent his later years teaching. They tell the story of a young soldier from Ohio, a story of a life-changing adventure, a story still best told in Ralph's own words. ________ The writing of letters was at its peak during World War II.3 Advances in communication and postal delivery gave letter writing a boost at the beginning of the twentieth century. High school curricula began to include the how-tos of letter writing. The first US war that saw extensive writing of letters was World War I.4 While the use of telephones was growing, the cost of long-distance calls was prohibitive of extensive use until the 1960s or later. Troops were encouraged to write home often, a process facilitated by the use of V-Mail.5 Dozens of articles and books of World War II letters have been published, but many of them are of significant interest only to the soldier's family and a small circle of friends. Some constitute collections of letters by multiple individuals.6 Among the more interesting collections are those that have appeared under the auspices of university [End Page 29] presses, state and local historical societies, or reputable trade publishers.7 A few publications focus on the letters of well-known individuals.8 ________ Ralph was six months into his first job out of Ohio Wesleyan University when the war came. The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) Victor Company had brought him to Camden, New Jersey, to the center of American technology, and to the Nipper Building. For Ralph, the RCA job meant a future of stability and security. The Holsingers of Covington, Ohio, had survived the Depression because Ralph's father, Fred, was good with his hands and Ralph's mother, Mary Vannas Inman Holsinger, was smart and careful. Ralph was the oldest of four children, two boys and two girls. Mary brought Ralph into the world during the Great War in 1918, Evelyn came the following year, Perry arrived in 1922, and Thelma June was born in 1927. Together, they learned the values of thrift, grit, self-discipline, and positive thinking. They believed that if one worked hard, [End Page 30] stayed focused, calculated risks, and took care of friends, good things were bound to happen. And they mostly did for the Holsinger family. Ralph finished high school and went to work for his father as a carpenter's helper...

The State of the Humanities circa 2022

The State of the Humanities circa 2022

The Challenges of Global Church History for Those outside the United States of America

The Challenges of Global Church History for Those outside the United States of America

Tumble by Celia C. Pérez

Reviewed by: Tumble by Celia C. Pérez Elizabeth Bush Pérez, Celia C. Tumble. Kokila, 2022 [368p] Trade ed. ISBN 9780593325179 $17.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9780593325193 $10.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R Gr. 5-8 In Adela's corner of New Mexico, lucha libre is a big deal, and she bonds with her stepfather, Alex, over the spectator sport. When Alex and Mom bring up the welcome possibility of Alex formally adopting Adelita, it also opens the door for the seventh grader to press for answers about her biological father, who has for years remained an off-limits topic of discussion. After ransacking Mom's room for clues and searching both online and through the local historical society, Adela discovers her father is a member of the Bravo family of noted regional luchadors. With that skeleton now out of the closet, Mom agrees her daughter may as well meet him and see for herself why Mom and Manny parted ways soon after her birth. A surprisingly warm welcome from the Bravo clan and the novelty of involvement in lucha history and tradition delights Adela, but her father is too busy angling for a comeback to be the reliable parent Adela fantasized. A subplot involving a school production of The Nutcracker that annually features a creative twist (this year, a planned wrestling match between the Nutcracker and the Mouse King) adds shape to the domestic drama. While treating Adela's experience with patience and respect, Pérez (Strange Birds, BCCB 10/19) considers the impact of the reunion on adult members of both families, as Adela does not have exclusive claim to the joy, regret, and uncertainty that this new family configuration brings. Copyright © 2022 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Chebsey Parish Local History Society

Chebsey Parish Local History Society

National cultural heritage and its originality

The problem of the complex nature of the cultural identity of the local historical societies, including social, religious, political and ethnic identity backbone traits, situational dominance with each type. However, in different historical periods it has been a predominance of certain types. Analyzed the most common (frequency) algorithm for the formation of local identity features.

Colonial Revivals: The Nineteenth-Century Lives of Early American Books by Lindsay DiCuirci

Reviewed by: Colonial Revivals: The Nineteenth-Century Lives of Early American Books by Lindsay DiCuirci Kathryn Snyder Colonial Revivals: The Nineteenth-Century Lives of Early American Books. By Lindsay DiCuirci. Philadelphia, PA.: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019. 288 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, and index. Cloth $69.95, eBook $66.45. Lindsay DiCuirci's book Colonial Revivals seeks to join the "history-as-process" and the "constructed archive" genres so popular in recent American historiography. Her topic is the "documania" of nineteenth-century American antiquarians and their "near pathological obsession with manuscripts and documents related to colonial history in particular." (18) While some men, like author Washington Irving, wrote of their fear of navigating a chaos of overproduction—of too much being in print and of thus losing authorial possession—most of the nineteenth-century emphasis was on preservation. Had the ancient Egyptians spent more time finding ways to immortalize their words in print, by producing copies of their hieroglyphs, instead of building in marble and stone, or embalming bodies that would all desiccate to nothing in the end, their civilization might have been truly eternal. This was the "fantasy of print's permanence and society's permanence," and the thing that would save Irving's own nineteenth-century civilization from going the way of Ozymandias. (15) And for the new Republic of the United States, nothing seemed more important than collecting the material evidence of the colonial past with its "patina of age" (especially from the more remote seventeenth century) in order to "[build] a case for the young nation's legitimacy and permanence." (18) Collecting and reprinting such material was a process that reflected this national exuberance—but also anxiety that records could be (and were often) lost to fires and misplacement. Far from producing a single national story, DiCuirci argues, documania for colonial manuscripts often resulted in "bastions of localism," and she explores these themes in five chapters: 1) the New England custom-house as both a physical archive and a more Gothic and "imagined space of uncanny encounters with the dead"; 2) the re-invention of colonial New England figures John Winthrop and Cotton Mather through reprints of their seminal books; 3) the southern sectionalism (re)constructed by Virginia antiquarians during the antebellum period; 4) the myth of William Penn and the Lenape Indians through collected testimonies, which encouraged a sense of moral Pennsylvania regionalism; and 5) her final chapter about the global implications of colonialism through Washington Irving's 1828 archival biography, The Life and Voyages of Christopher [End Page 127] Columbus. (32) Preservation in nineteenth-century Pennsylvania often meant being a member of the local historical society which promulgated the narrative of the mythical tree where William Penn negotiated his land treaty with the native Lenape people. The Tree has since become a sort of relic, that of "treaty fragments"—its bark gifted and its seeds planted all over the colony as if it were a blessing on the land and its people to fill it with more of their progeny. (144) Unlike the "tyrannical" Puritans of Massachusetts, Penn and his followers were supposed to have been fair-minded and peaceful in their dealings with one another and with the native peoples. Preservation also meant that one might have taken sides in the growing divisions between "orthodox" and "radical" Quaker sects, divisions whose adherents began to take a renewed interest in printing the writings of "primitive" Friends, like George Fox. This kind of material history and "documania" was thus at the praxis of three (often interrelated) nineteenth-century groups: antiquarians who sought to distinguish their histories from that of New England; social activists resisting Jacksonian Indian Removal; and the Society of Friends "clashing over the future of their faith." (146) In this chapter, DiCuirci wisely points to the Quaker emphasis on "the spirit over the letter," an emphasis that makes this chapter in particular a productive exploration of the question that haunts us now as much as it did the Friends and documaniacs of nineteenth-century America: can "the work of reprinting," of exploring these archives, "reconcile the tension between dead letters and living communities?" (33) DiCuirci's book is at once local and global...

Period of life of the Bibikhin family in Bezhetsk

The materials of the report of the Chairman of the local history society of the city of Bezhetsk, Sergey Viktorovich Briver, are presented. The article tells about Bezhetsk period of the family life, where the remarkable Russian philosopher Vladimir Veniaminovich Bibikhin was born and grew up.

Contributions to the ethnic changes of Késmárk in the 19th century (Part Two)

The study examines the ethnic changes of Kesmark in the age of dualism. In the course of my research, I attempted to map the operation and contemporary situation of the city in a complex way. The extremely voluminous source material did not allow us to present Kežmarok in an arc of studies, so this study is only with the nationalization of the Dualism era, the local historical society, local schools, local newspapers and the state of community norms. The study also includes research on religious differences, as well as local Hungarian and Slovak national building efforts.

ЗАРОДЖЕННЯ ТА РОЗВИТОК СПОРТИВНОГО ТУРИСТИЧНОГО РУХУ В ЗАХІДНІЙ УКРАЇНІ (СЕРЕДИНА ХІХ – СЕРЕДИНА ХХ СТ.)

The purpose of the article is to clarify the process of emergence of sports tourism in Western Ukraine and to study the factors that positively influenced on this process. Methods. The investigation based on the use of general scientific and special research methods. General scientific methods include descriptive method, method of analysis and synthesis, generalization and abstraction, comparison and analogy. Results. It was found that the development of tourism was associated with the natural interest of society, which intensified ethnographic and cultural research. In the process of their implementation, new routes were laid, knowledge about the geography of the region was deepened, and the tourist infrastructure was formed. Physical preparation for the hikes took the form of scouting, which included the formation of skills of survival in natural conditions, the ability to navigate the terrain, set up a tent, light a fire, cook, and so on. The form of such training proposed by the British officer quickly gained popularity throughout the world and in particular in Western Ukraine. Gradually, sport tourism is becoming widespread. Overcoming financial, material and political difficulties, sports, local history and tourist societies during their existence have worked out numerous forms and methods of popularization and propaganda of Ukrainian history, sports, nature and culture using means of tourist and local history activities. Their work experience convincingly indicates the need for coordination of the activities of individual fans of tourism and travel, the concentration of efforts aimed at studying the recreational and cognitive potential of the native land. The activity of tourist and local lore societies and clubs has practically proved that one of the main factors of youth education is knowledge of one's own history and preservation of the nature of the native land, combination of physical development with patriotic and ecological education. The scientific novelty is that the factors of sports tourism development in the western region of Ukraine were clarified. The relationship between local history movement and sports tourism was determined. The some facts from the history of the local lore movement were indicated. The events testifying to the development of scouting in the western Ukrainian lands were revealed. The pan-European context of the process of sports tourism development and local lore movement was determined. The practical significance lies in the promotion of sports tourism as a form of relaxation and recreation, exposing the potential of scouting for sports training and patriotic education of youth, updating old and developing new tourist routes based on the experience of past tourist clubs.