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
