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Lafayette Journal and Courier Purdue students chronicle Tippecanoe County history March 12, 2005 Just ask Johnathan Fluitt. The Purdue University grad student sits in the Tippecanoe County Historical Association's Genealogy and Research Center, cataloging crime scene photos compiled by the Lafayette Police Department between 1911 and 1955. "I got to pick this project. I thought it would be kind of exciting and kind of important," Fluitt says as he pages through black and white glossies of mangled cars, lifeless bodies and ghastly suicides. "I feel that I'm doing something helpful to the community. It's their history, their past," he says. "These photos are pretty shocking. You hear about getting used to violence from seeing it on TV, but this is different." His class is different, too. Taught by Susan Curtis, professor of history and American studies at Purdue, it is introducing nine graduate students to the theory and practice of archiving. "I want them to develop double vision, as researchers and archivists," Curtis says. This semester, they're working with the "stuff" of history: old photos, newspapers, letters ... even furniture. Everything they touch is part of the past. It's a win-win partnership. The students learn, and the historical association gets help with a job that never ends. Sorting, filing and compiling inventories make the material easier to find and use. "They are primarily working with unprocessed collections and those not completely processed," says Paul Schueler, former TCHA collections manager, the consultant on the project. "They have unprecedented access to archives here," he says. " ... Many of the students are not from this area; it gives them a sense of belonging." "We're really excited about this," says Kevin O'Brien, TCHA executive director. "We have been in a difficult financial situation around here, making it difficult to get some things done. "Purdue is able to come in and do a lot of organizational things," he says. "We're happy to provide the raw material they need." Here is what some of Curtis's students are doing: Won't you be my Valentine? Katie Armstrong, a graduate student in American studies from Salt Lake City, Utah, is archiving scores of valentines. They date from 1817 to 1920. Some are romantic, some are silly and some are comical. "I think it's interesting how they reflect relationships," Armstrong says. "You think of valentines being sent by sweethearts but most are between family members." She is recording inscriptions and descriptions on a computer. "These meant something to someone," Armstrong says as she examines some circa-1900 pieces. "There was some reason why people held on to them." The project has deepened her appreciation for the written word. Phone calls and e-mails won't be retrievable in 100 years. A valentine, she says, "is tangible evidence of a relationship between two people." News of the day ... 175 years later Lafayette newspapers, many from the 1830s and 1840s, are being sorted by Mark Bousquet, a grad student in American studies. Competing papers had been filed together, chronologically. He is separating them into separate "runs" to make them more useable. "Newspapers are the way a community records its own history. They have always served that function," says Bousquet, of Winchendon, Mass. Each news story presents a slice of Lafayette history, often written by eyewitnesses. "It is like going back in time, a different experience," he says. "As a researcher, to work as an archivist is a pretty powerful experience." That's not an old table ... it's history Five pieces of 19th-century French-style furniture are the focus of documentary research by Natalie Federer, of Francesville, a grad student in history. The table, cabinets and conversation seat were left to Dr. Richard Wetherill by his uncle, Charles Mayer, in 1889. Wetherill was a founder of the county historical association. Federer loves French art, and she hopes her work enables the TCHA to secure a grant to restore the showy, lavishly decorated pieces. The table, for instance, is losing its tortoise shell inlay. "You don't see things like this in very many communities," she says. "You see them in Chicago, at the Art Institute." African-American history Hundreds of document boxes fill the archives, but only one is devoted solely to African-American history. That creates a challenge for Lisa Penn, a grad student in history from Houston. She plans to select key events in black history, then see how Lafayette newspapers localized them. "You have to take into account that there was no African-American paper. It was all written by the Anglo community," Penn says. "I can't expect much," she says. " ... but any type of reporting gives a face and a voice to people omitted for various reasons." Providing a foundation for other historians to build upon, Penn says, "would be a contribution." A Lafayette pioneer lives again The Mathias Peterson Collection, given to the TCHA in the 1920s, is being read and inventoried by Craig McLochlin, a grad student in history from Lafayette. Peterson moved to Lafayette from Tennessee in 1828. He was a toll collector on the Wabash & Erie Canal and founded The Lafayette Advertiser. He lived on Lingle Avenue and died in 1879, at age 76. "I wanted to work with primary sources. He was one of the first settlers. (The collection) is all written in his hand or the hand of someone else," McLochlin says. Most of the 100-plus letters and receipts are canal-related, but others date to the 1820s. McLochlin says that although he grew up in Lafayette, "I didn't know the archives existed. I've been amazed. I wish I had known in high school; it would have added an extra layer to my history projects." "There's a kind of excitement you get from this," he says. "It's a whole new ballgame when you handle the document itself. It's almost indescribable to me."
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