Congratulations are in order for English and History major Sarah Cole, recipient of a Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Undergraduate Summer Research Internship! Sarah received the internship for her project on the Sir John A. Macdonald papers which are housed in Library and Archives Canada, here in Ottawa.
As Sarah explains in her blog, “Adventures in the Archive,” (updated every Friday for the duration of the summer) the goal of her project is not to study Sir John A., himself, but rather how his papers came to be curated, categorized, and preserved in the way that they are and what this means for how we understand our national history. What’s it like to do research at our national archive? How did the decisions of others – archivists, bureaucrats, family members – affect what we know and don’t know about Sir John A? How can we use the papers of dead famous people to study the histories of those who haven’t had their materials as readily preserved? Does the digitization of collections change how we think about history? Sarah will take up all these questions and more as she embarks on her own archival odyssey. Her work this summer will culminate in a research essay on the agency of family members in the Sir John A. MacDonald papers.
Follow Sarah Cole’s blog at adventuresinthearchive.wordpress.com and look for new updates every Friday!