North Columbus News

The students working with Margaret Newell in her historical research lab at The Ohio State University over the summer spent significant time examining original documents. It was challenging for them, said Newell, a distinguished professor of history.

“Looking at 18th-century manuscripts isn’t easy,” she said.

Despite some unfamiliarity with script handwriting, Newell’s students persevered and gained valuable research experience during the four-week lab. In its second year, the lab is funded by a grant from the Mellon Foundation. Over three years, Newell’s team, including faculty from Case Western Reserve University and the University of Victoria who earned their PhDs at Ohio State, will receive $493,000 to research African and Native American citizenship.

“The grant is under a rubric of civic engagement and higher learning,” Newell said. “So, I think Mellon expected applications about the modern Civil Rights Movement, but we surprised them by pitching and asking questions about this instead.”

Newell’s research focuses on the years between 1780 and 1920.

“We’re seeking ways to get at these questions: What’s going on with Native Americans and African Americans in terms of voting, in terms of citizenship, in terms of other expressions of community and belonging – the founding of schools and land ownership rights advocacy, access to public ‘goods’ like parks and streetcars, and the creation of independent political organizations?” she said. “Native Americans had to decide at different times and places whether the benefits of U.S. citizenship outweighed the loss of sovereignty and citizenship within their tribal nation.”

In the first year, Newell’s team worked locally and primarily with digital resources. For the second year, she and co-researchers Noël Voltz, John Bickers, and Niiyokamigaabaw Deondre Smiles wanted students to experience more fieldwork. The lab has traveled to different parts of Ohio, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island to meet descendants of people who were removed from land they owned as well as those who were able to stay.

“We’re interested in both: the communities that persist and the communities that don’t,” she said. “What are some factors that cause these communities to disappear? Do people move voluntarily or were they subject to race massacres happening in different parts of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois before and after the Civil War?”

Interviewing subjects in person on their original land was a first for many students.

“Talking to these descendant communities has been particularly moving,” she said. “The idea that we can assist in telling their stories is interesting to students.”

Students leave the lab with extensive research skills useful not only in academic settings but professional ones as well.

“It’s an employable skill,” she said. “I have this question; how do I answer it? What sorts of things can I look at? … It’s being a detective. It’s being creative. It’s thinking about what might help me answer these questions.”

Newell's lab has become a model for research practices.

“The National Park Service is interested in what we’re doing,” she said. “They want to send their scholars and researchers to the lab. They’re interested in helping smaller historical sites get recognition… We’re talking about workshops not just for higher ed but for people broadly researching American history.”

This kind of lab-based research is valuable for humanities as it is for STEM fields.

“Labs are where research occurs,” she said. “And history is a research-based discipline… We’re trying to ask questions that haven’t been asked before or answer questions that people may think can’t be answered.”

For Newell, an essential question remains: “What is the purpose of humanities?”

“Is it to reaffirm what we already know or break new ground?” she asked rhetorically.“We think there’s plenty new ground to be broken into larger history United States.”