In the fall, thesis and dissertation level graduate students submit grant
proposals to travel to London and learn to use the major archives. Under
the expert guidance of Professor Paula Backscheider and a group of curators
and archive specialists, students become familiar with the holdings of the
National Archives, the London Metropolitan Archives, the Corporation of the
City of London Records Office, as well as the Guildhall and British Libraries.
With access to records that date from before the time of William the Conqueror,
students learn to work efficiently in the holdings while working on individual
research projects.
The class of 2004 received support from the Stevens Fund, the English Department,
the College of Liberal Arts, and, in almost all cases, the Graduate School.
The Provost's Office and the Office of International Education/Study Abroad
actively assisted students in making travel arrangements.
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In preparation for the trip, students met in occasional
seminars in the spring. They learned basic paleography, how to read
gaol (prison) records, and how to search the National Archives and
British Library on-line. The students left in mid-May for a 45 week
stay in London, luxuriating in the flats at 130 Queen's Gate (with
only a few complaints about the notorious London plumbing).
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| One of the groups' first experiences was a walking tour of the Old
City, the one-square mile City of London that was inside the Roman Wall.
The tour included visits to the London Museum, the Spitalsfield Market,
and Bunhill Fields Cemetery, where such Nonconformists as Daniel Defoe
and John Bunyan are buried. |
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