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Author Archives: mdilwort

Celebrating the Constitution and Your Right to Vote

constitution, Elizabeth South, voting September 14, 2020 Programs mdilwort

September 17, 1787 – Thirty-nine of our founding fathers, delegates of the Constitutional Convention, signed and put into effect the United States Constitution. The Constitution outlines the “checks and balances” of our three branches of government: Judicial, Executive, and Legislative. That was 233 years ago, and we continue to celebrate that achievement with Constitution Day on September 17, 2020. The celebration first started in 1940, as the “I Am an American Day,” based on a resolution passed by Congress and President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was observed on the third Sunday in May. In 1952, the name was changed to “Constitution Day” and moved to September 17th, to reflect the date it was originally signed back in 1787. In 2004, … Continued

Your vote counts! Then and Now: a brief timeline of women’s suffrage

KT Lowe, voting, women September 7, 2020 Research mdilwort

On August 26, 1920, women in the U.S. secured the right to vote. It was a victory 80 years in the making, opening voting rights on a national level to all women for the first time. While the Constitution first extended voting privileges, it did so only for property-owning men. Eventually, all men were allowed to vote, via a patchwork of state laws and the Fourteenth Amendment, which granted black men the right to vote. But women were continuously denied the same privileges, under charges such as “wom(e)n would run into excesses” or that they would abandon their “proper place” as homemakers, wives and mothers. The fight for suffrage began in 1840, when abolitionists Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, … Continued

African American History – Finding free, quality resources online

african american history, free resources, good information, open access August 31, 2020 Jesse Whitton, Research, Website mdilwort

What are Open Access Resources (OARs)? These are research materials that have been made freely available to the public, allowing users online access to information that otherwise may not be available. Here we feature a curated list of Open Access Resources about African American History. The Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History (AARL) was the first public library in the Southeast U.S. to offer specialized reference and archival collections dedicated to the study and research of African American culture and the history of those who are of African descent. Every Thursday, the AARL hosts a series of instructional workshops supporting the ongoing “development of foundational information and literacy and research skills, while promoting library resources and … Continued

Learning About Daily Life

good information, history, reference databases August 24, 2020 Library Resources, Matt Dilworth mdilwort

Cultures, customs, and routines have been as diverse in the past as they are today. But for a long-past civilization, there is no longer a means of direct intercultural communication to learn about it. Still, knowledge of the inner workings of a society and culture are vital to many types of researchers. Greenwood Press’s database Daily Life Through History offers a unique exploration of these questions, shedding insight on what life was like in any given era or part of the globe; not just for the elites, but also for those of more modest estate – what was it like obtaining necessities, like bread; or to what degree people were free to move about and make life choices such as … Continued

How to Master Research

good information, reference databases, Research, scholarly resources August 17, 2020 Library Resources, Library Services, Matt Dilworth, Research, Website mdilwort

You can become a research expert and the librarians at the IU East Campus Library are here to help! Doing library research may seem quite complex at first. How do you distinguish what the scholarly sources are, and where to find them? What about ‘primary’ sources? The interface of a library research database can look more complicated than you are used to. However, in order to get better information for academic work, you need better tools. You need to know where to look, how to choose the words you will search with, what syntax to use, how to exclude information you don’t want, and how to critically evaluate what you get back. The library has created a multidisciplinary guide to … Continued