Saturday, August 11, 2007

Working

I’m in Los Angeles on a research trip—almost like a real historian. I’ve been knitting in the evenings, and have made a good bit of progress on the back of my very first adult sized sweater (woot!), but most of my time has been spent in my archive or stuck in traffic between my family on one side of L.A. and the archive on the other.

Here, in all its glory, is a picture of my archive:


Can you see it? It’s in the corner, behind the chairs and curtain and stuff. That’s right! The boxes back in the corner. That’s the stuff dissertations are made of. What may (or may not) be goldmine of untouched, untranslated Jewish activism. Lovely.


And really, my research setup is quite nice. They gave me a key to the building, there's plenty of room to spread out, and no one cares if I take off my shoes while I'm going through stuff.


You should see some of the pictures I've found. Just imagine: socialists in the 1940s dressed up like pirates for a costume party. Too cute!

5 comments:

Batty said...

That's great. I spent months cataloging publications from Finnish socialists in Minnesota. It was a hoot. They never dressed up as pirates, though, so I'm a little disappointed.

Anonymous said...

This reminds me of the closet from the Girl Scouts office I worked in for some exploratory research after Lynn's class. Sounds like you're making yourself at home in the office over there. That's so trusting of them to give you a key to use and everything; that's a great sign that they support your project! And I know how horrible driving in L.A. is. Just turn on the radio--there are some good alternative stations there--and try to forget about the traffic.
Hey! I can see your sunglasses in the picture too!
I start my first day as a research assistant today in San Francisco at Beth's house, and I decided to take the DC job. We both have had exciting weeks! Talk to you when you get back!
My stupid Malabrigo worsted shrug from speedknitting was too small so I have to start over. Worse yet, I bought three balls from the same dye lot, and the two that I used for the shrug are totally different shades of the color blue. Plus, it's already pilling and fuzzing up like crazy! I'll never use malabrigo wool again.

Liz said...

So Jewish Socialists in the 1940s definitely preferred pirates to ninjas?

Are your archives smelly? Book dust gives me such a headache.

Mick said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mick said...

Hey Amanda,

Hope your research is going well. Are you still in LA?
After doing nothing for a couple months I am back to working full time, indexing Alice's new book.
David Palter is back in town getting ready to start his QE stuff.

I must say that Lulu Carpenter's is just not the same place without you. Hope you're well,
Michael