How The Social History Archive supports research and teaching
In this blog, Professor Elaine Farrell of Queen's University Belfast, member of the Editorial Board of The Social History Archive, shares how our newspaper and record collections have supported her research and teaching over the past year. From writing a book chapter and preparing a conference paper to teaching a third-year history module, she outlines the many ways this platform has supported her historical practice.
To find a person
In April 2024, Fiona Ahern approached me to write a chapter on Dr Dorothy Gardner, a graduate of Queen's University Belfast, for a book celebrating the centenary of the Irish Federation of University Women. I didn't know too much about Gardner, beyond that she was president of the IrFUW (1929-31), and was heavily involved in the Queen's Women's Graduates Association. Manuscript material at the Queen's University Special Collections and Archives proved a fascinating read but I also wanted to see what information might have made it into the newspapers.
A name search of The Social History Archive newspaper collection revealed more than 1,500 hits for 'Dorothy Gardner'! Name variables gave me even more results. I used filters to narrow this down by 'County of publication' or 'Place of publication'. The 'Collections' filter enabled me to restrict results to the Irish collection. Amidst many reports of IrFUW and QWGA activities, which included Gardner, I found fascinating glimpses of her social life – and her wardrobe!
To the Queen's summer graduation in 1930 she wore a 'striking frock of scarlet georgette patterned with big flowers' (Belfast News-Letter, 11 July 1930), while in December 1931, she wore 'bronze lace with a coatee to match' (Belfast News-Letter, 5 December 1931). In March 1933 she had a 'long scarf shawl of black Spanish lace, with a black frock' (Belfast Telegraph, 16 March 1933), while a few months later, she wore a 'dull lemon chiffon frock patterned in green and a big hat to correspond' to the garden party to celebrate the opening of the Queen's pathology institute (Belfast Telegraph, 8 July 1933).
To research a theme
While researching infanticide for my PhD, I happened upon several cases of abortion in nineteenth-century Ireland. I decided to present on this theme at a symposium on motherhood and reproduction organised by Prof Cara Delay at Boston College in June 2024. While The Social History Archive enables research on an individual, it also facilitates research on a theme. Using 'abortion' as my keyword, and leaving the name fields blank, led me to cases in prison registers that I had not come across previously, including the case of Kate Walsh, suspected of attempting an abortion in Galway in 1872 and documented in Grangegorman Prison Register.
Most historians are well used to using digitised newspaper databases and are aware of search engine challenges and pitfalls. I found The Social History Archive newspaper search function useful for researching a theme because the results page includes 4-5 lines from each article. This facilitated an easy scroll to see which of the many 'abortion' results were relevant without needing to click through to every article.
To teach
As part of my third year 'Crime and punishment' module at Queen's University Belfast, students prepare videologs on primary sources. This year, I asked students to research a convict of their choice listed in the Tasmania Convict Records, 1800-1893. This collection is one of over 2,800 record sets that can be browsed via The Social History Archive.
The nature of the search function poses a challenge for a task like this. Since records were not indexed with academic research in mind, researchers need to come up with strategic workarounds in the filters. The names of convicts, dates and ship names have been indexed rather than the crimes they were suspected of having committed. This meant that students who wanted to talk about a particular crime had to view each record because there was no ability to filter the results by crime. Researchers looking to identify a particular cohort by age, gender, place of crime or marital status would also be unable to narrow down the results with the current filters.
Despite these challenges, the task proved very worthwhile. Many of the resultant assignments were brilliantly done, with students using the Tasmania Convict Records as a starting point to build a case study of an Irish transportee. Some students identified previous convictions in Ireland, while others found out more about the lives of these women, men and children after transportation, using records available via The Social History Archive to which they otherwise would not have access.
Student Megan Bonner, for instance, researched twenty-eight-year-old Maria Collins from Dublin, who was transported for seven years for larceny. The physical description columns in prison registers hinted at how Collins looked, ship details (which Megan supplemented with records from the Female Factory Research Centre) pointed to experiences on board the Martin Luther, and details of Collins' marriage, work life, and conditional pardon in Tasmania offer glimpse of lived experiences beyond the criminal record.
The task highlighted how historical fragments and genealogical records can be pieced together to build up a picture of the life of an individual from the past, how search engines and filters can affect research, and the difficulty of tracing someone with a common name!
Author
Elaine Farrell is Professor of Irish History at Queen's University. She writes on Irish social history in the nineteenth and early-twentieth century. Her most recent monograph, Bad Bridget: Crime, mayhem and the lives of Irish emigrant women, was co-authored with Leanne McCormick and published by Penguin Sandycove.