On-Site Research: The Value of Being Where It Happened

By Christy Mihaly

NF Fest author Mary Kay Carson has explained the role of field research in science writing. Well, on-site research is also important when writing about history. Of course, unless you keep a time-travel portal in your treehouse, you can't directly observe long-ago events. But you might be able to travel to where they happened.

I learned the value of on-site history research eight years ago, at the beginning of my writing career. I had pitched an article for "Cobblestone" magazine's issue on "The Age of Exploration." I got the assignment—my first assigned article. Then I panicked. How to start writing?

statue of two of the Pinzon brothers

I was living for a year in Spain with my family. My daughter attended a Spanish school, and I was intrigued with something her teacher said about Christopher Columbus: The Italian explorer's expedition would have failed without the courage, skill, and leadership of the Spanish sailors who sailed his ships—in particular, the Pinzón brothers. I pitched my article based on this tidbit.

I'd done some background research, but when the assignment came through, I wasn't ready to write. I knew that in 1492, Ferdinand and Isabella directed the seagoing townspeople of Palos de la Frontera to provide Columbus with ships and crew. The people rebuffed Columbus until the Pinzón brothers—Martín, Vincente, and Francisco—stepped up. The Pinzón brothers agreed to finance Columbus and signed up to join the expedition: two as captains of the Pinta and Niña, the third as navigator. And they recruited capable sailors as crew.

Interesting stuff. But to bring my facts to life, I needed some onsite investigation. I traveled to Palos, Spain, for the town's annual Pinzón Day celebration. For several days, I toured the Pinzón homes (brimming with nautical gear), prowled around the docked replica of one of Columbus's vessels (cramped and tiny), and visited a historical fair and re-enactment. I gathered many more facts and photos than I'd ever use in a 250-word article. I also gained a more three-dimensional understanding of the Pinzón brothers, their family, and their times, and finally felt qualified to write their story.
I consider this kind of on-site research well worth the commitment and time it requires. Consider these three benefits:

Experience the sensations of being there

Not all historical sites are well-preserved.

Written sources teach you many facts, but they don't give you the physical sensation of rough wooden planks under your feet or handwoven wool garments scratching your skin. Inside Columbus's ship, I was struck by its small size: I couldn't stand upright belowdecks, and the stores of food and water were terrifyingly sparse. You'll write more authoritatively about a medieval dungeon if you've personally seen and felt the damp, cramped darkness, and heard the slam of heavy iron doors behind you. Sensory details like these will enliven your writing.

If the place that you're writing about is inaccessible or has drastically changed, look for other ways to "travel" to the time period. Many living history museums and re-enactments transport visitors to bygone days. The Boston Tea Party Museum, for example, re-creates a meeting of the Sons and Daughters of Liberty and re-enacts the colonists' rebellious vandalism in the harbor. You can find similar historical re-creations and re-enactments from St. Augustine, Florida to Dearborn, Michigan to Sutter's Fort, California, and beyond.

Even at home, you can investigate those sensory details with a little creative time-traveling. If you know that a person in your book loved eating her mother's home-cooked posset, locate a recipe and make your own. Learn to play an instrument from the time period you're writing about; try sewing or crafting something that people made back then; read the books that were popular at the time. "On-site" investigations like these let you experience the details that bring history to life.

Nail down geographical features

Geographical details can be critical. If you tour the Vermont Statehouse in Montpelier, you'll be impressed with the Cedar Creek Room, which is dominated by Julian Scott's massive, mural-size oil painting. It depicts the Battle of Cedar Creek, a Civil War battle in which the arrival of the Vermont Infantry helped win a Union victory in the Shenandoah Valley. When Scott was commissioned to paint this, he searched out and interviewed veterans of the battle.

Then, he traveled to the site. According to survivors, he portrayed the battlefield accurately. That's our goal in writing history – to paint a faithful enough picture that those who lived through the events would agree you got it right.

Today's writers and artists can also conduct virtual geographical research. Google offers a stunning level of detail on satellite views, and you might find video footage of your site on YouTube or other websites. These tools can help you get the vital physical details of your historical site just right.

Find your story's heart

For compelling writing, you need to identify the essential truth, or heart, of your story. For history writing—nonfiction and historical fiction alike—on-site research can help you discover that nugget.

Author Andrea L. Rogers provides a powerful example in the endnote to her middle grade novel, Mary and the Trail of Tears: A Cherokee Removal Story (Capstone 2020). Rogers, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, recounts that growing up out west, she thought she understood the history of forced removal, and wasn't interested in writing about it. Then she visited New Echota, the capital of the Cherokee Homeland in Georgia. There, she finally comprehended how much the Cherokee people lost when forced from their land. "As we walked around the site," she explains, "I realized how much I hadn't understood." Rogers knew then that she wanted to share the story of her people's great loss, "the loss of the places where our stories were born and our ancestors were buried." From this essential truth, Rogers built her moving novel.

So, history-writing friends, whether you travel by foot, ship, train, or Internet, go to the site of your story. There are sensory details waiting for you there.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Christy Mihaly writes nonfiction for all ages. Her forthcoming picture book, Free for You and Me: What our First Amendment Means, introduces young readers to the five First Amendment freedoms. Other books include Hey, Hey, Hay! A Tale of Bales and the Machines That Make Them (about haymaking); the YA nonfiction Diet for a Changing Climate: Food for Thought, co-written with Sue Heavenrich, and a couple dozen books for the educational market. Christy also writes articles, stories, and poetry. She lives in Vermont, and loves taking her dog for walks in the woods and playing the cello (though not simultaneously).



ABOUT THE PRIZE

Christy will give away a signed copy of Free for You and Me.

Leave one comment below about what struck you in the post.

You’re eligible to win if you’re a registered NF Fest participant and you have contributed one comment below.  

Voices From Our Past, Stories For Our Future

By Lesa Cline-Ransome

As a child, I was not a fan of history.  For me, history was battles, dates and old white men.  What I loved was English.  Words.  Language.  Stories.  I even looked forward to Friday spelling tests.  But when my teachers pulled down the oversized map at the front of the room or asked us to open our social studies textbooks, my eyes glazed over.  It would be years before I realized that stories are the foundation of both history and English. 

In the early 1970’s, I stood out in my class.  Not because of my academic abilities, but because as the often only African American in my class, there were topics that would cause noticeable discomfort among my classmates and ultimately myself. The discussions of slavery painted my entire ancestry with one broad brush of victimhood and were portrayed in stark contrast to the narrative of the kindly white abolitionists and Union soldiers and a tall bearded President who did all of the work in navigating the freedoms of their black brethren.  

Our textbooks noted only a smattering of African Americans who made contributions to the country throughout the hundreds of years of American history--Martin Luther King, George Washington Carver, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Tubman--notable figures who were painted as rare exceptions, a credit to their race, among a host of whites who seemingly built this country, unaided, from the ground up by their sheer ingenuity, tenacity, intellect, and perseverance.  

The more I began to read outside of my classroom textbooks, the more I learned about my own history and the history of other marginalized and underrepresented groups.  And it was then that I started writing.  I began writing picture book biographies to fill in the gaps where my history belonged.  I wrote stories of athletes in  Satchel Paige, Game Changers:  The Story of Venus and Serena Williams, Major Taylor:  Champion Cyclist, and Young Pele:  Soccer’s First Star, and how their struggles to compete, to be recognized, to overcome racism and segregation in sports meant I never saw their names alongside those of Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio.  I wrote stories of freedom fighters Frederick Douglass, Ethel Payne and Harriet Tubman, whose quest for freedom, equity and truth meant they left behind a legacy of courage. 

I write of artistic legends Louis Armstrong, Teddy Wilson, Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Joseph Boulogne Chevalier de Saint George, whose authentic words and music refused to be silenced and forever altered our cultural landscape.

Diving into history to uncover the stories of the vital roles people of color have played in the shaping and building of this country has led me across the political, cultural, educational, and religious spectrum.  It has at times filled me with frustration, exhilaration, contemplation, and nearly always led me to the question, “How did I not know this?”  The answer is so simple and abundantly clear--These stories were never there for me to read.  

But the beauty of writing comes in discovering your subjects anew, and introducing them to the world.  By allowing their voices to be heard on the pages of each book we write, we hear their struggle and sacrifice, their hopes and dreams.  Placing them in historic context links together moments in history like connecting the pieces of a puzzle. 

In my elementary classrooms, the history that centered on the role of African Americans was focused in slavery or in the Civil Rights movement.  But the richness of our experience didn’t begin and end with those milestones.  We can’t begin to discuss the Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s without discussions that include Jamestown, the role of resistance throughout slavery, Reconstruction, Westward Expansion, The Great Migration, African Americans in the military, and The Harlem Renaissance.  

Textbooks today are seeing modest changes in their attempts to provide a more balanced, less Eurocentric view of history, but there is a long way to go.  In the recent New York Times article, “Two States. Eight Textbooks. Two American Stories,” Albert S. Broussard, author of the Texas and California edition of McGraw Hill textbooks stated, “American history is not anymore the story of great white men.” 

As a nonfiction author, the job I have is to tell the truth. The sometimes very ugly, hurtful, painful truth. While textbooks have, and often still do, omit the crucial stories that provide a complete, unabridged version of events, my history cannot be erased. 

 Non-fiction biographies help to bridge the gap by revealing the crucial role of African Americans in the building of this country and demonstrate how the lessons from a troubled history can provide a roadmap for a better future.  They give young readers a broader understanding of our shared history, our culture and our strengths.  

These stories hold value not only for the underrepresented children sitting in classrooms, but for all children. 

 When I look back to find voices from the past, I am looking forward, too, into a future that remembers that a history that tells the honest, balanced, authentic, stories of everyone, is a history that belongs to all of us.  

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lesa Cline-Ransome’s first book was the biography Satchel Paige, an ALA Notable Book and a Bank Street College “Best Children’s Book of the Year.  She later created Major Taylor: Champion Cyclist, Young Pele, Words Set Me Free,  Light in the Darkness, Benny Goodman and Teddy Wilson, Light in the Darkness, Freedom’s School, My Story, My Dance, Just a Lucky So and So: The Story of Louis Armstrong and Germs: Fact and Fiction, Friends and Foes, and Game Changers: The Story of Venus and Serena Williams.  Her verse biography of Harriet Tubman, Before She Was Harriet received five starred reviews, was nominated for an NAACP image award, and received a Coretta Scott King Honor for Illustration.  Her debut middle grade novel, Finding Langston, was the 2019 winner of the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction and received the Coretta Scott King Award Author Honor.  The sequel, Leaving Lymon will be released in Spring 2020.  

Lesa’s books have received numerous honors and awards including NAACP Awards, Kirkus Best Books, ALA Notable, CBC Choice Awards, two Top 10 Sports Books for Youth, and an Orbis Pictus Recommended Book. She lives in the Hudson Valley region of New York with her husband, and frequent collaborator, James Ransome and their family.  Visit her at www.lesaclineransome.com.

 

ABOUT THE PRIZE

One lucky winner will receive an autographed copy of Before She Was Harriet.

Leave one comment below about what struck you in the post.
You’re eligible to win if you’re a registered NF Fest participant and you have contributed one comment below.