After looking through my three topics of choice I have finally decided to narrow down and finally decide on what to research for my final project. At first look, all three topics look interesting and appear to be good topics, however after looking into each topic with some mild research, I came to the conclusion that the easiest topic to find information on would be the history of the slave trade in Washington D.C. I would like to look into any abolitionist movements and any history about the underground railroad. I think it will be interesting to find out my information about what slavery meant in Washington D.C. throughout history. In order to do this research I would first go to the George Mason University libraries website linked here to try and find information on both the online databases as well as on the library catalogue. I really enjoy the research capabilities that the University provides because it gives you access to both primary and secondary reliable resources. I hope this ends up being a great topic of research for me and am excited to take a closer look at the history of slavery in Washington D.C.
February 25th, 2014 at 4:25 am
The slave trade in Washington is a very rich topic, and you’ve outlined some of the key issues with it. Now, you’ll want to start your reading, thinking, and question-asking part of the iterative process to narrow it down. Do you want to focus on abolitionism in the District? OR on the presence of the underground railroad? Both of them are very broad topics and need refinement. Within the topic, might there be a particular event or time period that you would focus on that provides an example of the context or larger picture of what was going on?