Loyalty and Memory: A Civil War Scrapbook in Baltimore

Abstract

This paper is evidence of the power that a primary source can have over a researcher when that source inspires more questions than answers. When I was first introduced to the series of Civil War Scrapbooks in Goucher’s Special Collections I had not planned to write a paper about American history. My majors are in Spanish and History, and I had expected to write about Latin America, or at least to use a primary source in Spanish for my research paper. The mystery of the scrapbooks, however, was too tempting to resist. The resources in Goucher’s library were central to my research. I spent many hours in Goucher’s Special Collections looking at the six scrapbooks, and whenever I needed to give my research direction I would study the shelves of the library, looking for titles that could give new insight to my research. As a result, the majority of my secondary sources are books that I found in the library. The process of writing this paper showed me how much research is driven by curiosity. When I first saw the scrapbooks I immediately wanted to know more about who made them, what the creator’s life had been like, and whether there were more scrapbooks like these. I realized that the newspaper clippings of the scrapbook were not going to give me the answers that I wanted; I would need to learn more about Baltimore during the Civil War and follow the clues the primary source gave me to find out more about these scrapbooks. The only answers I would get were the ones that I found for myself. This project gave me the opportunity to use my research skills to solve an intriguing mystery.