Sports Museums

    At this point I have just about figured out my research question. I would like to take a look at how marginalized groups are represented in sports museums, using the National Baseball Hall of  Fame in Cooperstown as a case study. From my research I have learned that the study of sports, and sports museums, is a fairly new field that is receiving more attention from scholars. Sports can provide insight into different cultures, and their values throughout history. For example, one can learn a lot about the history of African Americans in the United States by taking a look at how they were represented in baseball. Baseball in particular has the most literature available because it is considered to be America's pastime.
     I still need to do more research on the history of marginalized groups in sports, particularly baseball because I am using the Hall of Fame as a case study. From this additional research I will be able to conclude which groups are considered to be marginalized, and then decide which groups I would like to focus my paper on. I would also like to have a good idea of how much space sports museums typically devote to these marginalized groups.

A working research question on Historic Brewing in Rochester

As I've continued my research, and thought about what I want to do with my thesis paper, I've wavered back and forth, and gone up and down on what I want the scope of my paper to be. Do I focus on specific aspects of historic brewing, or do a certain time period, or the cultural aspects of it, or even all of the above. So I've started to craft a very influx research question for this paper. What were the historic limitations and opportunities of brewers in Rochester during the early 1800s, and what bearing this has on modern brewing culture in Rochester?

The primary mash tun at the GCVM

I feel that a research question along this line allows me to look at both the cultural, and agricultural aspects of historic brewing, both of which I'm interested in, while also being able to connect it with modern brewing practices like 'farm breweries' which share similar limitations with their ancestors from 200 years ago.  

History of Baseball in Rochester

Chapter 2 of the Turabian text suggested searching your interests when considering a topic, and that is how I began my project. I love history and I love baseball, and so I chose to look at the history of the Rochester Red Wings as the topic for my thesis. I contacted Michelle Finn of the Rochester Public Library and found out from her that the library has quite a few baseball related items in its collection, such as scrapbooks, photographs, yearbooks, and other memorabilia related to the Red Wings. Through the research that I have done so far, I know that the Rochester Public Library had an exhibition on the history of baseball in Rochester, called "Pride and Passion," a couple years ago. So I think that it would be interesting to create an online exhibit that the public would be able to view on the library's website. As I continue with this project I will need to figure out what story I want the exhibit to tell. Right now I am entertaining the question of whether baseball is still considered to be "America's Pastime." I think this question might help my topic to "fit into a larger context"(Turabian, p.15).