I have been interested in the exchanges under this heading on this list as
it is a thread which seems to be capable of running longer than the usual
factual enquiries which seem to be the backbone and rightly so of this
list.
Jane Knight's comment on achieving the acceptance of local research at a
professional level ,I am sure ought to attract more comments.
I feel that that any historical research that produces new conclusions
based on old sources or new conclusions based on previously unused sources
and can be written up in an acceptable manner will be accepted whether it
is written by full time historians or those of us whose who are either
retired or have to do research in our spare time. One also needs access to
a good library to be able to look at work already done in the area one is
researching. The advantage of projects like 'Swing' seem to me to be that
one is not alone and has access to others working in the same field. It
also means that at the end, one can place the patch you are interested in
in context of the national picture which is the difficult and sometimes
impossible task when working at the local level remote from libraries and
other sources.
It could I think be of interest to hear of others experiences which may
help,here is what happened to me in the case of one topic.
I have been fortunate enough to achieve a move from working on a
particular topic at a local level to an extension to the national level.
This was on the first period of income tax 1799-1802 where after finding
the local payments of tax in Warrington, I went to the PRO to look a
particular matter relating to Warrington in the E182 series of papers there
and discovered a source of records of individual payments of income tax.
These were receipts for direct payment to the Bank of England.There was a
discount for prompt and direct payment. I then realised that in order to
set my Warrington work in context it would be best to work through the
material in the PRO.
I then found out about the LeverhulmeTrust and worked up a research
proposal and obtained a grant which facilitated visits to the PRO which I
would otherwise have been unable to make.
I was also fotunate enough to be able to correspond with academics who had
worked in this area who encouraged me to continue and write my work up. The
comments by referees and the guidance of Editors then enabled my initial
write up to be turned into a publication in a professional journal,the
Economic History Review.
It is important to avoid isolation and I think this is what the Internet
will make increasingly unlikely except for those local historians who like
to keep secret what they are working on. I hope they are dying race.
Tom Jackson
Message text written by "From: Local-History list"
>Sorry Michael. This really was a question of interest rather than
accusation. I have just received my MA reading list. The books recommended
are a million miles from anything local and I am obviously going to suffer
severe culture shock. I really don't understand the process whereby the
local research becomes accepted at a professional level and I am looking
forward to finding this out over the next 3 years. The way you plan to
present your results sounds very fair to me.
Has the Internet influenced the way you would look at presenting the
results of the research?
Jane Knight<
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