By Janice Lindsay
Contributing Writer
It’s February, so I’m conducting extensive research for yet another history paper, which I will present to friends some time in February or March, as is our custom.
Each year, the five of us tell each other we must be crazy, this paper-writing is so much work, we’re not going to do it again. Then we do it again. This is our ninth time.
It started quietly in 2016 when we were among 30 or 40 students who took an adult education class about 12th century Europe. We didn’t know each other then, except as nodding acquaintances from being in other classes. Somebody mentioned that it would be interesting to keep learning about the Middle Ages, in a seminar outside the class structure. Our instructor, a retired college professor, offered to facilitate. We five signed up, along with a few others who have since wandered away.
Every year, we pick a broad theme – the 14th century, medieval cities, Joan of Arc – then we each choose a specific topic to delve into. For the 14th century, one of the subjects was treatments for people who caught the Black Death. For Joan of Arc: Joan as a cultural icon in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (odd but true). For medieval cities: how rules of prostitution varied among cities. Those are just examples – at least five papers for each of eight big topics.
Some people think that history is boring. Not us. How could someone be bored learning about mudlarks, people who have earned money digging artifacts out of the mud of London’s Thames River? Or a 16th century pirate who was such an accurate observer and note-taker that his maritime charts can still be used today? Or the history of the thimble? Or 18th century English gardens?
Research always turns out to be more work than we anticipate. We think we’re picking a small topic and find there are no small topics. Once we get into a topic, it goes deeper and wider than we expected. Even the littlest thing (like the thimble) has a cultural context, historical context, materials context, etc. Then we find those rabbit holes, those subjects that look interesting and invite us to dig deeper, but are a bit outside the topic. Some year, our theme might be “rabbit holes I managed to avoid.”
Why do we keep doing this? It’s partly our shared interest in history and our enjoyment of the research. But also, over these years, we’ve developed a deep friendship among us. We enjoy each other’s company, presenting or not. We like to intrigue, entertain, inform, encourage, and appreciate each other. Each of us lives in her own world of work, volunteering, family. Our worlds intersect here, in the past. That’s how friendship works, at intersections.
For this year’s series, we’re studying events that were happening during our own childhoods and/or that affected us. Our subjects, as always, range all over the place. The history of laundry and how the washing machine changed women’s lives. Tin Pan Alley and what it meant for American popular music. Resistance to Adolf Hitler within Germany. The post-war reconstruction of West Germany. Senator Joe McCarthy and the “Red Scare.”
We began our journey in Europe in the 12th century. We’ve worked our way into our own centuries, into the Arab world, Asia, and to the Americas. Who knows what we’ll study next? Or maybe we won’t. Maybe this year, we will finally decide “We’re not doing this again.” But we’ll probably continue. Our own history argues in favor of it.
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