Here you will be able to find each reading log I wrote for Hist 1120, under Reflections on the Past. In addition to the logs, I have included both my final Research Project, which focused on Scottish immigration to Upper and Lower Canada, and my Document Analysis on the 1861 Census of Nova Scotia. The final addition I made to my site was including some of, but not all of, the sources used to write my final paper and my document analysis. Any sources not listed on the source page can be found at the end of each document.
I believe that with each piece of writing I completed in Hist 1120, I gained a better understanding of what it means to “do” history. By using various sources, I was able to see the value it utilizing more than just written documents to reconstruct a time that we have no further access to. This course also made me see that while relying on written documents is good for reading into the past, they can often be misleading, or depict only what the author wants to discuss. By the end of the semester, I left this class understanding that history cannot be written with a bias, it must be written with the sole intention of shedding light on the events of the past, regardless of who was involved.