Research flotsam & jetsam

[breathedout]

I had today off work and spent the whole afternoon starting (or... continuing, but it's still early days) the process of taking apart my novel outline and looking at interweaving a second, home-front narrative arc. So far I can say that I really like what this does for the early section of the story; it solves some problems with events that formerly seemed overly coincidental and authorial and are now solidly character-arc-driven; and it also sets up some productive tensions for later in the book between my two POV characters. But I'm also feeling a bit overwhelmed by how to target my research at this point; it's a big project and there are so many areas to explore and flesh out. Which, I knew that was true before I started the restructure—it was true even with my old high-level outline—but even more so now. As I was telling greywash earlier today, I get so much joy out of working inside these very detailed, solid historical frameworks... but constructing said frameworks for myself is a lot of work! I'd been working inside the Unreal Cities framework for so long that I kind of forgot how much work it was to make.

Anyway, a few notes of interest that I happened across in my reading:

• Did you know that "hinterland" has a technical definition? Apparently, in maritime terms, the area which brings its goods to a port for export and receives the imports processed through that port, is that port's "hinterland." (In more general economic terms the same can be said of an area outside an urban center, even if that center's not a port.) I always just thought it meant "the boonies." *themoreyouknow.gif*



• Three of the four surviving issues of the Atlantic Advocate, which today I learned was Nova Scotia's first Black Canadian newsmagazine (starting publication in 1915) are available online to browse at one's leisure: January 1917; April 1917; and May 1917. I haven't had time yet to read them all in full, but skimming through, they're an interesting read: extremely moral-suason-y—the January issue promises "All the news of interest: Of the Race; Their Doings; Their Progress"—but it gives a sense of how a certain group of Black Canadians were talking about their lives & activism at the time.



• You can also browse the entire run of issues of the Dalhousie Gazette, the Dalhousie University student newspaper, from its inception in 1869 right up until the present day. In case you wanted to know what Professor Martin had to say about dreams in his lecture to the medical school, or what happened on the Senior Night Walk of November 30, 1916.



• Archives of mainstream Nova Scotia newspapers are, on the other hand, bizarrely difficult to find online?? Apparently I need to track down a ProQuest membership in order to look at back issues of the Halifax Chronicle(/Herald)?? My life is hard, etc. etc.



• Speaking of Halifax, did you know that the Great Halifax Explosion, in which a ship laden with high explosives exploded in the harbor, was the largest man-made explosion in history prior to the atomic bomb? Now you do.

Comments

[verymorstan]

*_* to your research prowess. so glad you are, in addition to being awesome, enjoying yourself. :D

[breathedout]

Haha, why thank you! I occasionally need to remind myself that research is productive too; but I think yesterday's session was.

[lobelia321]

\o/

[breathedout]

\o/

[anelith]

I do know about the Halifax Explosion, because to this day Halifax still sends an enormous Christmas tree to Boston in thanks for the help Boston sent. Explanation from Wikipedia: "Boston authorities learned of the disaster by telegraph, and quickly organized and dispatched a relief train around 10 pm to assist survivors. A blizzard delayed the train, which finally arrived in the early morning of December 8, and immediately began distributing food, water, and medical supplies. Numerous personnel on the train were able to relieve the Nova Scotia medical staff, most of whom had worked without rest since the explosion occurred."

Old newspapers are so interesting. When we remodeled our kitchen we discovered several sheets of newspaper from 1959 stuffed into the walls as insulation. It was fascinating. I wish now that I'd put something from the current Boston Globe into the walls for future finders, but the contractor might have objected.

[breathedout]

Oh that's right! I knew this story about the Boston Christmas tree but had forgotten that the disaster in question was the Halifax explosion. I just ordered a book on the disaster so I'll probably learn more Bostonian tidbits as I get around to reading it. Something to look forward to.

[chestnut_pod]

I did know about the Halifax Explosion, and I have to say, it’s always frightened me!

I have ProQuest access of some kind - if you feel like telling me what exactly you’re looking for, I can see if I can access it and send it to you?

[breathedout]

Oh, that's so kind of you! Unfortunately, I'm not really looking for a specific thing at the moment; I'd just like to be able to browse the archive of a mainstream Halifax newspaper for the year+ between October 1916 and December 1917. I'd like to read a few issues front to back but mostly just browse headlines and the women's/society section, if there is one, over the course of that year. Which is the kind of fishing expedition that really does kind of require archive access, rather than sending someone in pursuit of something. I know UC Berkeley offers university library membership for sale to the general public, so I'm thinking I'll look into that in hopes that I can access these archives through them.

[chestnut_pod]

Alas! I'm sorry they're difficult to access, then, although Cal's option sounds like a good one.

[achray]

Mainstream historic Canadian newspapers are famously frustrating to researchers! Rather than allowing a digital commercial/library enterprise like the UK/US, or just digitising everything for free, like NZ, Canada made a unilateral decision that I think means that you can mostly only access historic Canadian newspapers if you are in Canada? Things may have changed, not really my field, but I remember a friend telling me all about it over drinks one night with great fury.

That's an aside, this is all fascinating!

[breathedout]

Oh my godddddddddd

I hope things have at least changed enough that I can pay someone (i.e. UC Berkeley) money to give me internet access to old Canadian newspapers! Why such a Scrooge with your old newspapers, Canada?? What's up with that?? Have you hidden state secrets in them??? I am baffled.

Anyway! Glad you found some things of interest.

[felinejumper]

I was also going to offer Proquest access if it's helpful, but I see I've been (a) beaten to the punch and (b) sadly not useful anyway! :(

I think I've said elsewhere, but if not I LOVE love love seeing inside your research process; everything you write is so overwhelmingly detailed and grounded and sourced. Seeing the research bits on DW then show up in the ficlets is almost ludicrously fun for me, the reader who is not doing the research. wishing you infinite luck on managing the overwhelm management <3

[breathedout]

Aw, thank you! Hopefully I can get my hands on ProQuest access on my own dime, & spend as much time as I want to trawling through 100-year-old issues of the Halifax Chronicle. Hot Friday nights, I got 'em.

And that's so lovely to hear that you get some enjoyment from the documentation of my research process. A lot of the time it feels pretty self-indulgent, but I'm also trying to remind myself that I actually am, you know, making progress on this project: a fact that can be easy to lose sight of when I'm not increasing my count of actual words of fiction, or even seeing immediate changes to my outline. (Or rather: there have been changes to my outline, but they're absorbed so quickly into the whole of the project that it's difficult to track "progress.") Anyway, hooray that it's also fun for other people!

[pennypaperbrain]

I'm glad the second arc is working for the book! I guess this means no Petrograd tho?

[breathedout]

Ennnnh, I'm still pretty far from being able to answer that question. Lots of things I need to know about the second arc first. I really do intend to email you one of these days!

Next steps are, I think, doing what I can to get my hands on a day-to-day record of what a female journalist on the club circuit would have been doing with her days between late 1916 & late 1917 in Halifax/New Glasgow. I emailed a researcher I might be able to hire to go look into this for me since APPARENTLY Canada keeps their historical newspapers on lockdown. We'll see what comes of it...

[pennypaperbrain]

I'm looking forward to infodumping! It's a bit 'omg someone is interested in my Thing! Which is so obscure nobody's interested in it! DID YOU KNOW THAT...'

If it'd cover the general more ground more quickly we could Skype. Then I could pass on the actual information in written form if you decide it's going to be important.

You're hiring a researcher, wow! Though I am distracted by the revelation that there is a place called 'New Glasgow'. When we colonise Mars are the colonials going to call it New New York??

[brigdh]

Isn't the word "hinterland" neat? In my discipline, archaeology, the very definition of a city depends on it having a hinterland. That is, even today it's difficult to draw an exact line between "city" and "town" or "village" or other small cluster of homes and businesses, but it gets even more difficult when population estimates are wild guesses and you're dealing with vastly different cultures and environments and economies. So, how does one tell what's a city and what's not? A city has a hinterland! That is, a much broader rural area that is interdependent for survival with the city itself, primarily for food (cities generally can't feed themselves), but also for markets, politics, religion, etc. And a hinterland that exists with and for a city is organized very differently than boonies that are small self-supporting farms and herds without any larger center.

[breathedout]

Wow, this is FASCINATING! Thank you so much for commenting with this additional information; not only did I make "huh!!" noises to myself while reading, but I then read it out loud to greywash so that she could learn about the archaeological definition of a city as well. Great stuff!