hums096-exercise2

[hums096-exercise2]

For this exercise you’ll be working in groups in breakout rooms looking at a Yale publication from each of the past three centuries (1774, 1846, and 1970, to be exact). Yale publications are a significant part of the collection in Manuscripts and Archives, and are used heavily by students for research projects and just out of curiosity. If you’re interested during your student time at Yale in exploring over three centuries of Yale publications, there’s a guide to the collection here.

Groups and their publication

Brandon and Carmen: 

The Laws of Yale-College, in New-Haven, in Connecticut, Enacted by the President and Fellows (New-Haven: Printed by Thomas and Samuel Green, 1774).  [Orbis call number: Y20 A14 1774]  This was the first year that what was essentially the early Yale College student handbook was printed in English. Previously it had been printed in Latin. Note: Don’t get tripped up by the 18th-century “s,” which looks like an “f”!

Kayla and Ethan:

The Yale Gallinipper, Volume 1, numbers 1-2 (February-March 1846).  [Orbis call number: YYg11 G137] A sharp-witted “humor” journal, the first of its kind published ostensibly by “three brothers,” or anonymous Yale College undergraduates. A gallinipper is a female mosquito, the one that delivers a sting, and after many decades it was revealed that The Yale Gallinipper was produced at its outset by three bright, well-connected, young, New Haven women with family associations to Yale: Louisa Torrey (future mother of William Howard Taft), Henrietta Blake (great-niece of Eli Whitney), and Olivia Day (daughter of Yale’s president Jeremiah Day).

Christina and Sean:

Yale Break: A Newspaper By and For Women, Volume 1, Numbers 2-4 and Volume 2, Number 1 (1970-1971).  [Orbis call number: Y88 +B74] An anonymously written newsletter published by women working in clerical and other low-paying jobs at Yale during a time of intense struggles to form a clerical and technical workers union.

Exercise instructions

Spend around 20 minutes (2:15-2:35ish) in your breakout room looking at the publication linked above for your group. For the Kayla/Ethan and Christina/Sean groups, just focus on the first issue included in your PDF, since we don’t have a lot of time.

After about 10 minutes, one of us (Anna, Chris, or Bill) will be dropping into your breakout room to see if you have any questions.

Talk with your groupmate about the following questions as they relate to the publication you’re looking at:

Did you learn anything in the publication itself about who was responsible for it?

What are one or two interesting things you learned from looking at the publication?

Did you find anything surprising or unexpected in the publication?

What are some differences and similarities between the Yale depicted in the publication and the Yale you’re experiencing as first-year students today? 

If you were writing a research paper based on this publication, what is one research question you’d like to explore?

When we come back together around 2:35, each group will have about 3 minutes to share their thoughts on the above questions with the class.