What a productive week it’s been! Since my last blog post, I met with my undergraduate intern who is already doing a fantastic job on the tasks he’s been assigned! After our meeting, he got right to work and has already produced a draft on Charles Lord and Lake Eola’s Swans. A main component of my supervisory efforts this semester will involve editing my intern's drafts and helping to guide his research and writing when necessary. The way I have structured his assignments this semester, he will submit an entry draft to me every other week and I will provide him edits so that he can make revisions the following week before starting his next topic. Since some of the topics are more thoroughly researched than others, there may be weeks that this is a quicker process and some that take more time. I’m very pleased that he’s already created a bit of a “pad” for himself by turning his first assignment in a week early.
My own research has kicked off this week on the six topics that I’ve chosen to work on this semester as well. I will be following a similar research and writing format to last semester and will be spending the majority of my time researching and gathering data and then beginning my writing process towards the end. There are a few stories I may try to get done in time for Halloween (if we decide to proceed with using Clio as a platform) since these topics are high on the lists of those interested in the spookier side of Greenwood and might lend themselves to an updated version of my beta test.
The topics I will be working on are as follows:
Dr. William Monroe Wells and the Wells’Built Hotel
City Origins and Street Names
Fred Weeks
Mayor William Henry Jewell
Jessie Branch and “The City Beautiful”
The Wilmott Family
There are obviously some BIG topics that I’ve left out (like Jonestown and Sunland Hospital) that I know my supervisor is anxious for me to get to, however, I’ll still be working on researching those, but since they are SO BIG, I want to be sure to do them justice. It's my goal that they will be completed next semester, which should give me enough time to track down all the sources that I'm hoping to find.
While we still have to meet formally as a grant committee with the rest of the team at the City of Orlando and our community partners, it does look like we’re finally rounding the corner! Dr. French, Dr. Giroux, and I met with my supervisor last week to start hammering out some details. I’m very much looking forward to getting fully in the swing of things. This Friday’s Lunch and Learn at the Orange County Regional History Center should be a great opportunity to connect with some of the individuals who will be involved in the grant, including my supervisor and some members of the City Clerk’s team! I’m also excited that I was able to obtain an extra ticket and arrange a tour of the OCRHC archive for my intern before the Lunch and Learn event with assistant curator, Jeremy Hileman, who has been helping me in my research these past several months.
I know this has been another “cart before the horse” entry, but with the impending storm brewing and the concentration of activity at the end of the week, I wanted to make sure to post my weekly update now. Stay tuned next week for a recap of the Lunch and Learn and my research progress on some of Orlando’s purportedly most haunted history as I dive into the tales of Fred Weeks and the Wilmott Family!
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