From: Caitlin
Question:
Hello. My name is Caitlin. I am a 5th grader in Texas.
I am working on my Colonial day project. I am having a
hard time finding information on being a Constable in
Colonial times. Is there any way you can help me find
a web site or a book in the library? Your site was very
helpful when I looked up information on crimes and punishments.
Thank you for that! Any information would be very helpful
and I would be grateful!
Thank you for your time.
Answer: Dear Caitlin:
First of all, let me congratulate you on sending me such
a polite, well-written message. You should be really proud
of yourself.
I have to admit that I worked a little harder on your
question, too, just because you'd done such a good job.
Remember this in the future -- people appreciate the time
that you take to write a clear, intelligent message.
More personally, I just have worked harder because I have
a granddaughter named Caitlyn who's a fifth grader at
an elementary school in Texas. I know how hard you young
ladies have to work.
You have a challenging topic, but here are a few suggestions
that may be helpful.
Remember that that the English colonies in North America
had very different individual legal systems. Constables
didn't do exactly the same thing in any two colonies.
The best we'll be able to do is look at how constables
did their jobs in some specific places.
You'll find a nice. very brief summary of the way constables
worked in Pennsylvania in a Website of Berks County, Pennsylvania:
http://www.co.berks.pa.us/constables/cwp/
view.asp?a=2246&Q=487756&berksNavDLTEST=%7C
Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, has to be used with caution sometimes,
but their entry on the office of constable will be of
some help, too:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constable
When you look at this, scroll down to the section on
"United States" and concentrate on descriptions
of individual states that were one of the original thirteen
members of the Union.
The most promising sources for you aren't online. And
they aren't in your local public library. (Thank you,
too, for giving me enough information so that I knew
where you live. That meant I knew which library catalogs
to look at online. You'd be amazed at the number of
people who don't think to tell me this.) But they are
in the library of the University of Houston:
Watson, Alan D. "THE CONSTABLE IN COLONIAL NORTH
CAROLINA". North Carolina Historical Review 1991
68(1): 1-16. The University Library has back issues
of this journal on microfilm.
Adams, Herbert Baxter, Norman constables in America.
Read before the New England Historical Society, February
1, 1882. Republished as a pamphlet by Johns Hopkins,
1883. This is a 38 page discussion of the office of
constable as it was transplanted to New England in the
17th century. It sounds really interesting. The University
Library has it on microfilm and in electronic form.
I realize, of course, that you may not be able to talk
your way into the University of Houston Library's microfilm
collections, Caitlin. But don't give up. There are other
ways we can try to get these sources for you:
1. You can go to your local public library and ask
to speak to the librarian in charge of "interlibrary
loan." Explain what you need and ask the librarian
how long it would take to get copies of the two articles
from the University. (They'd probably just FAX them,
so it would be faster than getting a book on loan.)
If your local librarian says that might take too long,
we'll look at the next method.
2. Do you or your teacher or your family know anyone
who works or studies at the University and has Library
privileges? If you do, you can ask that person (very
politely) to spend 15 minutes getting the copies herself
or himself. I'll be glad to send along the full information
from the University Library's online catalog if that
will help.
3. If all else fails, I've emailed a friend of mine
who teaches American history at the University and whose
oldest granddaughter is just a year older than you.
I'll let you know what he has to suggest.
Please, please let us hear back from you. We all want
to know what you're able to find out.
Best wishes,
Mary-Jo Kline
From:
Darla Barge
Question: Dear
Dr. Kline,
My
son has to do a school project on immigration. He has
to find journal entries from immigrants. Do you know
of any websites that would have this kind of information?
Thank you so much for your help!
Darla Barge
Answer: Dear
Mrs. Barge,
This one proved to be harder than I expected. There
don’t seem to be any good Websites with a selection
of immigrant journals and diaries that aren’t
fee-based; i.e., they can be accessed only if you have
privileges at a library that’s subscribed to an
online publication such as Alexander Street’s
excellent, North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries,
And Oral Histories.
Is there some special reason that your son has to use
a website? Unless you’re hundreds of miles from
the nearest public library, there are many good printed
collections of such diaries and journals. If your nearest
library branch doesn’t have any or all of them,
they can be obtained quickly by interlibrary loan (a
secret weapon of the American public library system).
These are printed sources that seem to be likely candidates
for you and your son:
McCarthy, Angela. Personal Narratives of Irish
and Scottish Migration, 1921-65 : 'for spirit and adventure'
(Palgrave, 2007)
Nancy Woloch, ed. Early American Women: A Documentary
History, 1600-1900 (Belmont, Calif. : Wadsworth,
c1992)
Thomas Dublin, ed. Immigrant Voices : New Lives
in America, 1773-1986
(Urbana : University of Illinois Press, c1993) This
one gives you the broadest variety of sources.
Robert A. Rockaway. Words of the uprooted : Jewish
immigrants in early Twentieth- Century America (Ithaca,
N.Y. : Cornell University Press, 1998)
Let me know if you and your son need more help.
Mary-Jo Kline
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