With the support of the Bard Graduate Center Travel and Research Fund, I traveled to Chicago in January to conduct research related to my Qualifying Paper. Titled “Teaching Citizenship and Difference through ‘Cliff Dwellers’ in American Progressive Schools, 1901–1930,” the project came out of a paper written about Clara Kern Bayliss’s 1901 children’s book Lolami: The Little Cliff Dweller for Meredith Linn’s Archaeologies of American Life class. Bayliss’s book was taught in progressive schools around the country, and I wanted to think about how those lesson plans connected to John Dewey’s pedagogy. So, last fall, I requested items from the University of Chicago Special Collections, and bought a ticket to the Field Museum.

For my original paper, I wrote about how Clara Bayliss was inspired by the “cliff dwelling” exhibits at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. I knew, to some extent, how close the University of Chicago campus was to the original fairgrounds, but I was struck by the huge scale of the event as I walked around. I had spent weeks looking at maps and photographs of the Fair, and thinking about what it would have been like to be there. While the main purpose of my trip was to visit archives and museums, this experience ended up being the most exciting part. So much of my research had taken place on my computer, and while walking around Hyde Park did not explicitly make it into my paper myself, it was still important.

John Dewey started the Laboratory School in 1894, and I requested materials related to his school from Special Collections. I was interested in the school’s museum and study collection, and how they taught Native American history. It would have been ideal if I could find some explicit connection to Clara Bayliss and her book, but this proved unsuccessful. The school still exists, though, and I walked past kids playing on the black top on my way to the library.

On my second and last day in Chicago, I visited the Field Museum. I had never been before, and the building is on the lake, and huge—it was hard to even find the entrance. Most of the anthropology collections from the Chicago World’s Fair were donated to the Museum; it was founded after the Fair. I was surprised how busy it was on a January weekday, and I thought about how nice it was to be surrounded by people looking at the same things as me, especially in contrast to the slightly isolating experience of looking through old papers in archives. I knew that in a few weeks I would have to start writing my Qualifying Paper, and while I wasn’t confident about the shape of it yet, my trip to Chicago helped me to think about history in a more dynamic, hands-on way, outside of my computer and the BGC library. Thanks to support from the Travel and Research Fund, when I returned to West 86th Street later that month, I felt ready to start writing my paper.