Keynote Address with Author Tonya Bolden Library of Congress

Keynote Address with Award Winning Author Tonya Bolden
Hear from Tonya Bolden, award-winning children’s author, for an engaging conversation facilitated by elementary school librarian, Tom Bober. Tonya Bolden’s books have garnered much praise and earned countless starred reviews, including the James Madison Book Award, and have been named the School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, YALSA Best Book of the Year, and CCBC Best Book of the Year. Bolden’s works were twice nominated for an NAACP award for her books Searching for Sarah Rector and Beautiful Moon. She won a Coretta Scott King Honor Award for Maritcha: A Nineteenth Century American Girl. Bolden’s acclaimed works include Capital Days: Michael Shiner’s Journal and the Growth of Our Nation’s Capital; Emancipation Proclamation: Lincoln and the Dawn of Liberty; and more.

Transcript

>> Hello and thank you for joining us this afternoon.  My name is Kathy McGuigan and I work on the Education Outreach Department at the Library of Congress.  We are thrilled to welcome you to the second annual online conference for educators.  I'd like to introduce you to Lee Ann Potter, the Director of Educational Outreach.
>> Thanks, Kathy.  Good afternoon, everyone.  As Kathy said, I am the Director of Educational Outreach at the Library of Congress.  And I also am delighted to welcome all of you to our second annual online conference for educators.  And specifically, to this very special keynote session.  It is my pleasure to introduce award-winning author, Tonya Bolden.  Tonya was born in New York City and grew up in Harlem.   As a child, she loved to read.  She attended a public elementary school and a private secondary school in Manhattan.  She graduated from Princeton with a degree in Slavic Languages and Literature with a Russian focus.  Bolden is the author of more than 20 books for young people.  A skilled researcher, she has harnessed the power of the past in her books.  She combines vivid story telling with links to primary sources and firsthand accounts of life during the time period when a particular book takes place.  She has received a Coretta Scott-King Honor, a James Madison Award, a Carter G. Woodson Award and a National Council for Teachers of English Orbis Pictus Honors.
Today's presentation will focus on four specific works of hers.  ^IT Maritcha, A 19th Century Girl ^NO, ^IT Searching for Sarah Rector, The Richest Black Girl in America ^NO, ^IT Capital Days, Michael Shiner's Journal and the Gross Growth of our Nation's Capital ^NO, and her most recent work, ^IT How to Build a Museum, the Smithsonian National Museum of African-American History and Culture ^NO. Which chronicles the history behind the development and the building of the latest museum on the National Mall.
Elementary school librarian and past Library of Congress Teacher in Residence, Tom Bober, will facilitate our conversation this afternoon.  Tom, a librarian at RM Captain Elementary in Clayton, Missouri has used primary sources on historical and scientific topics from the Library of Congress to help students construct knowledge.  And I might add, Tom has a particular skill with audiovisual materials in the Library's collections.
We are thrilled to welcome both Tom and Tonya and thank you all for being here.
>> Thank you so much, Lee Ann, for the introduction.  And I just wanted to say that I am really honored too to be here with you all and to be having the [inaudible] opportunity to talk to Tonya and to facilitate today's keynote.  We're going to start off Tonya with talking about ^IT Searching for Sarah Rector ^NO, a book that I was familiar with before we had the opportunity to meet up just recently.  And it's one that I think really speaks to a lot of people because we have a book that is about someone who is really unknown but is what we also have revealed is this time in history, this moment in history through the information about this young lady.
And so I wondered, Tonya, if you would start off by telling us just a little bit about the book?  But also telling us about the inspiration for the book.  Where did you get the idea to tell us Sarah's story?
>> Hi, Tom.  I stumbled upon the story.  It was, I think, in 2010?  A librarian in Connecticut sent me an email and there was an attachment and it was an article from ^IT The Crisis ^NO about Sarah Rector.  And I thought, never heard of her.  I don't know that much about Oklahoma.  And I just said, "I want to do this story."  And after I got the green light to do it, then I went into panic mode because, you know, there are very few secondary sources.  So I had to comb through newspaper articles and legal documents which is a long story on how I acquired them.  And it was really, really very scary because, you know, with that book, with that story, the story that everyone told was that during this oil boom in Oklahoma and Texas, only white men were allowed to be guardians of oil-rich black children and Indian children.  And that all the white guardians ripped all the children off.  And as I'm doing the research and using common sense, I'm saying, "I don't think that's true."  So I did a lot of second guessing of myself but in the end, I decided to go with my gut and go with what I saw was true.  Yes, some children were ripped off but not all.
>> And as I'm reading -- as I read Sarah Rector for the first time, one thing that I learned was the history of enslaved blacks and that they were held by Indians from the Southeast.  It wasn't something that I was previously aware of.  It was this piece of American history that was new to me and it made me wonder.  Was there a piece of history around Sarah -- or any of your other books that surprised you or caught you off guard or maybe even changed how you viewed a moment or an event or a group in history?
>> Well, Tom, that's a good question.  I'm always learning because you know, when you see a finished book of mine, maybe when I started the book, I knew about 5% or 10% of what's in the book.  So yeah, I didn't know anything about the so-called Five Civilized Tribes holding blacks in slavery.  And so, and I didn't -- I had no idea that there were people of African descent on the Trail of Tears.
I remember in a book -- my book on the New Deal, ^IT FDR's Alphabet Soup ^NO -- I found an article at which there was a man who had been released from prison.  And a few months after he was released, he was back at the prison gates, begging to be let back in because he was broke and hungry.  And I thought, "Wow, this really happened?"
>> Yeah, you get these moments and I think this really comes forth in your writing too when you share all of this research out that there are these small moments in history that were not things that we learned in school or not things that you see maybe when you're watching some kind of broadcast.  That there's these more nuanced things that are happening in historical moments that maybe aren't what we expect and really kind of reshape what we thought to be true.
>> Well, Tom -- that's the wonder.  This is why I love doing history so much.  Because it's an adventure.  It's discovery.  It's a journey.  It's lifelong learning.  And you often find in history things that are stranger or more wonderful or wondrous than in fiction.
>> Speaking of fiction, you mentioned in your author's note of Sarah's story this idea of separating fact from fiction when you're doing research.  And I was wondering how you sorted through conflicting statements about Sarah's story or any of the people and events you've researched.  Was there this rule of thumb that you could follow that you could share with us?  Or was it more of a case-by-case basis?
>> Well, it depends.  I mean, one rule is that generally, the source that's closest to the subject is more accurate.  So you had newspapers in Chicago saying this happened to Sarah, that's happened to Sarah, this is wrong.  And then I started to notice also that a lot of newspapers just cut and paste from other newspapers.  So everyone's saying the same thing and I said, "You know, she lived in Muskogee County."  And I started to find that in Muskogee County, articles about her.  You had less outrageous things, claims being made.  So that's one rule of thumb is the source closest is generally more accurate.  And then it was common sense because I realized, wait a minute, this is the early 1900s.  They don't have investigative reporters going from Chicago to Oklahoma.  Few people had telephones.  So I said, "How could they verify any of this?"
>> Yeah, I think the one thing that really came across in the story too and I think you're speaking to this is there is this -- there is this perspective, there is this -- bias might be too strong of a word that really comes across and comes through in newspaper articles.  So for example, you speak or write a lot about the Chicago Defender.  And they were really defenders of Sarah and her well-being.  I was wondering what benefits you see in sources that have this really clear perspective?  They have a slant.  They have a -- something that they're really pushing for when you're researching a story like Sarah's.  Does that make a difference in how you accept the source or how you deal with the source or come to understand what it's saying?
>> Yeah and I understand it too because at the time, there were a lot of children, black and Indian being ripped off by white guardians.  But we always know that, you know, we can't generalize.  Nothing is always and everyone.  So like I said, you take things with a grain of salt.  You know if a newspaper has a certain agenda.  You know, and this is at a time when you had, you know, lynchings and all -- you know, Jim Crow.  So I could understand the bias.
But even in secondary sources, there are certain scholars that I found to be, you know, really balanced and not have an agenda.  And others, I always know to take this with a grain of salt.  They kind of have an agenda.
^M00:10:01
Like for example, when I'm in the 19th century, Eric Foner or is it Foner?  He's usually my go-to guide because I found him to be very thorough and very balanced.
>> And how do you just -- how do you kind of discovery that thoroughness and that balance, I guess is something I'm wondering about when I hear you say that.  Is that bringing in those primary sources along with these secondary sources that you're mentioning?  Or what reveals that to you?
>> I think that comes with time.  I think when I first started out, I just -- with anyone that had a PhD so okay, well they must be right.  And then after a while, you -- it's like a gut thing, you know.  When people will say with Abraham Lincoln certain things he said, they'll kind of downplay it.  And I think, no, okay.  I know I really can't trust you.  But it's a gut -- it's a gut thing.  And like you said, after a while, if you've read a lot of Eric Foner's work, you know -- you feel like you know him and you can trust him.
>> You said something there that just, that made me kind of want to circle back to the primary sources that you dealt with.  You said that you really felt like at a point that you knew him, that you knew his work, his secondary source work. And it made me wonder then about something like -- going back to the Chicago Defender, if you'll let me. I'm guessing at a point when you read enough of their work as well, do you feel like you know their work and who they are and what their priorities are?
>> Yeah, you do because you could tell, you know, their interest in sensation, you know.  And they want to sell newspapers.  You know and you just -- you kind of, yeah, get a feel for it.  And then too, along the way, I started to [inaudible].  I can't remember any now but discrepancies, things that I knew were not true -- small things that they were claiming.  And so then you start to you know, the red flags go up and you say, okay, let me take this with a grain of salt.
>> Wonderful.  Well, as I'm going through and we're looking at different images that are either directly from searching for Sarah Rector or are related to the time period and the event that Sarah Rector really has revolved around.  And Tonya, we're going to transition, if we can into Maritcha now.  This book also focuses on one individual and one time period.  And was actually, as I mentioned earlier, and I misspoke.  I apologize but one of the books that I was really very familiar with, kind of right off the bat and have used with my students and students have really connected with it as well.  Can you tell us a little bit about this book and where it came from and where that inspiration for you came for Maritcha?
>> Once again, I owe it all to a librarian [laughter].  Diana Lachatanere at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, one day said to me -- I was there researching something.  And she said to me very casually, "You know, we have this memoir unfinished of this, you know, black woman, a New Yorker."  She just said very casually, "You might want to take a look at it."
And so I went to the microfilm, micro page and I, you know, read it and I said, "I have to do this story because you know, if I were around in the 19th century in New York, you know, I would want to be Maritcha.  I would want to be her friend."  And also because it's -- sometimes, you know the way black history, black lives are presented, it's very narrow.  So you either think that everybody was enslaved and I do descend from people who were enslaved.  And most were in the 19th century.  And if they were free, you'd imagine that they are bedraggled and poor and, you know, and downtrodden.
And yeah, there was some of that but there was always a black middle class.  I remember when the book came out, and one teacher said, "You know, I never thought about, you know, there being a black middle class in the 19th century."  And I said, "Who did you think Frederick Douglass hung out with?"
>> [Laughter] Absolutely.  You're absolutely right.  And it is -- you did such an amazing job of revealing that.  I'm sorry, go ahead.
>> I was going to say the other inspiration is that and when I work with kids, I tell them this.  I said, "Maritcha represents who most of us are, ordinary people doing our jobs, helping in our communities."  You know, for example, she was among the women who did that fundraiser for Ida B. Well that allowed her to publish her anti-lynching pamphlets.
And I think the other thing is that Maritcha grew up to be a teacher.  And when I was a little girl and people said, "What do you want to be?"  I used to say, "Teacher."  So there was that connection like -- and she devoted like 50 years of her life.  And that was at a time, as you know, when women, if they will -- if they wanted to remain school teachers, they could not marry.
>> That is right, absolutely.  So yeah, you've got these -- what I'm hearing you're making these wonderful connections between -- in some ways, yourself and Maritcha, and I'm wondering when you read her piece that inspired this work, you mentioned I need to tell this story.  Did you know right away that this was a book or was it more an idea of I need to know more or I want to know more?
>> It was both.  It was this is a story that needs to be told and I want to know more.  And the other connection we had is that as you know, when she went to Providence, she was the first black girl in the Girl's Department in the high school and for the first year, no one spoke to her.  I mean, she really got the cold shoulder.
And I sort of had a similar experience.  I mean, no one gave me the cold shoulder but you know I went to a predominantly white secondary school so there was that connection.
>> I want to jump in and move -- kind of take those connections and move into one thing that I noticed as I was connecting with your book.  And that was the amazing images within it and really within all of the books that we're going to be talking about today.  It's just chockfull of these images and they really, for the reader, play a role in the storytelling that's going on.  And so it really made me wonder what role images, photos, maps, drawings, all of those played in your research and your understanding of in this case, Maritcha's story.
>> Well, to me, the narrative and the artwork, they're all of a piece like I could say tomorrow whatever project I'm working on, I'm going to get up and I'm going to write chapter one or chapter three or whatever.  And then find like it's not happening?  And then sometimes, I'll just start searching the internet for images and then I find something that inspires the narrative.  So they go hand in hand.  I mean, I always want the images to tell some more of the story, not just be decorative.
And I try to avoid stereotypes.  You know, I think that's very important for the children's books.  Well, in everyone's books.  For example, there was a case in my book, IT Cause on Reconstruction ^NO when I covered the transcontinental railroad.  And there's in one way, a wonderful image of workers, Chinese men and Irishmen working on it.  But their caricature was in stereotypes and I knew I had to say in the caption, even the Harper's Weekly considered itself, you know, liberal and sophisticated.  It wasn't -- they still sometimes engage in stereotypes.
>> One other thing, Tonya, that this story did for me was reveal another moment that I was unaware of and that was the 1863 New York draft riots.  And you did an amazing job connecting these riots into Maritcha's life experiences as I'm sure she did in her initial writing as well.  It made me wonder what you knew about the riots before reading Maritcha's autobiography.  And specifically as a researcher, what about that moment in her life led you to research it as thoroughly as you did?
>> Well, what led me to research it thoroughly was because, you know, her home was attacked.  And you know, the kids, the family had to flee.  So it could have been -- I mean, they could have been killed.  But I think also because I thought I, as a New Yorker, never heard of the New York City draft riots.  You know, it just reminded you too about like, you know, what history has left out because you know, we have those.  So what I was coming up, history with flashcard history was very simple, right?  And so during the Civil War, all of the people in the North were virtuous and righteous.  All of the people in the South were bad.  And you realize when you learn about the draft riots that that wasn't -- it's not true.  And so, like I said, this happened in my city.  And I never knew about it.  And I believe today, it's still considered the worst riot in the nation's history, I think.
>> You know what?  I don't know.  It certainly said -- I can imagine that from the description in your book and from then some follow-up research that I did because you're writing intrigued me and made me want to look further into it.  Is -- are there pieces I would imagine that are parts of Maritcha's story or really any of the stories you want to tell, but you just can't quite work into the book that you wished that you would share? Be able to share with people are these little nuggets of knowledge that you pull from these primary or secondary sources that are out there that just don't have an opportunity to make it out into the final product?
^M00:20:02
>> You know, Tom, definitely, yes. Can I think of one now? No. Maybe [laughter].
>> It's okay.
>> You know, sometimes it may be -- because sometimes I can be like a dog with a bone, like, I want everything in and I realize, you know what, this is too much information. I remember, once I was working on something else and I kept insisting and going on, and on, and on about the My Lai Massacre and my editor was younger, and she was like, that's enough. And I realized because I lived through that, I mean not through the massacre itself, but that was huge news when I was young. So sometimes I can go overboard with things that are -- you know, touch me. But I'll try to think of an example.
>> So Tonya, I love this -- this video for several reasons, but I want to just point out a few that I -- since I have the opportunity that I really connect to. This idea that you've got one student here who's really personalizing this look at history when she says that Maritcha, for her is a role model. She wants to follow her. She saw something in her beyond that flashcard history that you mentioned again. If I can bring that up. And I think that that was powerful. And the other thing that I love about this is -- is sometimes the little nuances that you can find in book primary sources and secondary sources. And that you include so wonderfully in your book, are these little nuances that the young lady at the end says, well, this one thing that was interesting that her parents ran an ice cream shop. It was again like this very --this kind of loose connection, but something that's so endearing and that, I'm assuming, really brought that student into the moment and into the learning that was going on -- around Maritcha and her life and the events that were surrounding it.
>> Yeah. You know, the thing is, you know, you write books, you put it out there, you know, we do school visits and things, but you never know, like, how many people you touch. And that's why it was so wonderful to hear that she sees Maritcha as a role model. And on the ice cream shop, yeah, it's kind of intuitive, I guess, when you're writing for young people, you know, you think they will enjoy this, you know, it'll mean something to children because I remember what it was like to be a child. For example, if I'm -- talking about something with money and trying to give a value to it, I think I did it in Sarah Rector, I think -- it wasn't an ice cream. It was maybe a sundae, when I was trying to say what, you know, what you could get for a dollar or whatever. I always try to make it something that a young person can relate to. And during the pause, Tom, I did think of an example of what I left out.
>> Wonderful.
>> In Sarah Rector, I read a few articles, probably in the Muskogee Times Democrat, that her father sometimes, like, got into fights. You know, got a little tipsy. And I didn't think I needed to put that in, but one of the things that that information did for me was boost my confidence in what I believe was a truth in this story. Because when I would tell people, you know, well it seems like the parents asked this other person to be the guardian and they would say, well maybe he was -- a gun was put to his head or maybe he was threatened. Now seeing these articles where he was a kind of a rough and tough guy, I said, nah, I don't think this is the kind of man who'd be bullied into anything. But I didn't feel, as I said, that I needed to include that her father got into fights in the book.
>> Wonderful. So it kind of informed the narrative, but it didn't necessarily show itself in the final narrative, which I think is --
>> Exactly.
>> Yeah, which I think is a wonderful example of these -- again, all of these wonderful nuances when you bring all of these different types of sources together, that really informs the story that you end up wanting to tell.
>> Tom, you know what? I don't think it's really me. I feel fortunate. It's like stories choose me. And my process is messy, you know. I feel like I just stumble upon things. So maybe it's a case of when the student is ready, the teacher appears. But it's like, I -- really I stumble upon so much stuff -- and I think --
>> Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry.
>> -- because [inaudible]. I'm sorry. My philosophy is that, you know, writing is acting and research is getting into character. And that research is not just fact finding and getting dates of things. It's really immersing yourself in a subject. It's surrendering to a subject. And I think when you -- you do that, good things happen to you.
>> I'm writing this down because I love it and I might need to share this with my students. Writing is acting. Research is getting into character. And I think you're right, I mean, this is -- a really -- a wonderful way for us to think about the stories that we tell, but the preparation for the stories that we tell. That research is so important to being able to give a full picture and the picture that -- that is really out there as best as we can.
>> The research is everything. Everything is in the research. I find, in my -- my experience, the voice, how you open, like I said, with the F. D. R. book, that -- I used that example of that man begging to be allowed back into prison in the opening and saying, you know, and lots of -- millions of people were broke and hungry. I don't plan these things. I just -- like I said, I immerse myself, I surrender and then it comes. Titles, maybe not so much titles, but openers, endings come out of -- I stumble upon things during the research and I think, oh, this is the way to start. You know, I -- never really have a map. I've sort of have a map, but the map usually is -- is nothing like the final journey.
>> Well, I love that idea that, yeah, you have this idea of where you're going and maybe that's not where you end up. Let's go ahead and explore that a little more as we move into Capital Days: Michael Shiner's Journal and the Growth of Our Nation's Capital. In it you tell, not only the story of Michael Shiner, but also the story of Washington, D.C. from the burning of D.C. during the war of 1812 to the Civil War and the end of slavery and much in between. And in some ways, for me, this book felt the most familiar because there are events and places that, I think, most of us are familiar with, but because of this, I think, it was also the most revealing in some ways. Showing me a depth to those familiar moments that was new to me. And I want to ask you, if I could, about something in your author's note. You can tell I love author's notes. I think they're very revealing. You mention in your author's note from Michael Shiner's story that you're not afraid as a researcher to say, I don't know. How does that freedom of being able to say that impact how you approach your research and how you share that research in your writing?
>> Again, it comes down to thinking, for example, one point in Capital Days, I mention that he lived in X place, you know, and he was enslaved at the time and I said that we don't know exactly where because enslaved people weren't in the directories. You know, sometimes you can figure out why you don't know something and other times you just have to say, for example, he wrote very little about his family, his immediate family. He never mentioned whether he had siblings or not. So you -- could just say we don't know, and I think we all, especially our young people need to understand that, you know, as I said, almost every book is a work in progress and that we don't know everything because we never know -- we don't know what's been lost. That's what I think we forget. Because a -- you know, especially in D. C., right, with fires and other cities in the 19th century. You know, there were fires. There were, you know, natural disasters. There were wars. So we don't know how much we lost.
>> And I think you're actually supposed --
>> I think it's liberating to say we don't know. I remember once, some young person said to me about Maritcha when I said, she may have played this, she may have played that. He said, so you don't really know. And I said, "Bingo, right." But what I can do is do the research and see what games were popular in the 19th century and then say maybe. Because I think before, a lot of times for children and for adults, people would -- you know, just kind of maybe make things up or, you know, skirt around it, but I think we have to say we don't know.
>> I love that word, also, you just used, that word maybe. And I think it's very -- another kind of probably freeing word to be able to say that maybe this is what it was like. And it's based off of that research that you've done. I think in -- in Capital Days, I'm going to guess just maybe because of the location, maybe where you've done your most research with Library of Congress resources. And I know from reading author's notes that you've done research with other major institutions as well. After researching several books -- for several books, excuse me, how is your approach to research changed over the years? How have you honed that ability and what are some tricks that you know now that you wish you had known when researching for an earlier book?
>> Good question. Well, Tom, I've become bolder. As I tell young people, you know, you don't -- to write something, you don't need to know everything, but you need to be able to find people who know more than you do and then convince them to help you.
^M00:30:02
So I guess I'm at a point now that I could be -- I don't know. The President has some information, I would try to get it -- get to him. So for example, I reached out to John G. Sharp for Capital Days because, you know, he had transcribed Shiner's journal and I found his email and said, I'm interested in doing a, you know, book for children. Could I pick your brain sometime? And he said, great, I wanted his story to get out there. And then I sent him a copy of Maritcha's -- kind of this kind of book. Also, with Dr. Adrian Cannon at Library of Congress, there was -- I had mixed information -- or conflicting information rather, on who sold the book and how much it sold for when it was sold to the Library of Congress. So, I didn't know her. So it was like, Hi, I'm Tonya Bolden, you know, and I want to know this. Can you please tell me? And she gave me the information and then, you know, I always say to people, if you want to know more about my work, you can check out my website. You know, and let them know that -- you know, I'm not trying to get other people to do my work for me, but I just need help. And I find that, especially librarians, of course, and teachers, and archivists, they're there to help. So, you know, too, when people ask me about process, I often say read my acknowledgements. So I wish when I was younger, I wish I had been bolder about reaching out to experts. I once emailed Eric Foner about something. I was looking for an image of a black Representative, I think, from South Carolina and I just wanted to know, you know, have you ever seen an image of this man? And I don't know if it was him, but somebody for him, you know, responded to me saying that, no, we've never seen it.
>> This is a whole new type of sleuthing, like digging up email addresses and contact information for individuals to make these connections. To really reach out there and go beyond what maybe is right in front of you. How do you make that decision? How do you make the decision to say, I think this may be here, or is it more of a -- an intuition of saying, I want this and so I'm going to contact someone who may know more about it?
>> Yeah, it's like -- like, I want to know this, I want to know this. I went overboard in Sarah Rector because, even though I knew I had the information on when she sold her allotment, the land on which she had oil, but I wanted to know what happened to that land. So I tracked someone down at the Oklahoma something or something Oil something and they referred me to someone else, and this wonderful woman ended up tracking -- she had like 30, I think, oil wells, and -- giving me the documentation, showing that years later some were -- when they were capped. When each oil well was capped and then years later, that with new technology, some of the wells were being drilled again. And at the time of publication of the book, there were still some of her wells that were in operation. That wasn't really vital to the story, but I was just like, I want to know what happened to her oil wells. Oh, -- yeah, with John G. Sharp, there was -- there's a scene in Capital Days when Shiner has a pass to go someplace for the holidays and on his way back -- Christmas holiday, on his way back some people in Fort Washington stop him and think he's a runaway enslaved person, and they want to, you know. And I'm thinking, why doesn't he just show them his pass, right? Because every time I've heard about people having passes -- blacks having passes, they had to have them on them. So I -- I emailed John and said, why didn't he just show the pass? He said, no, for the Navy Yard, you gave your pass to the sentry when you left. I said, oh, okay.
>> And some of these primary sources I'm seeing, as I'm talking, you're talking about the Navy Yard, which we had an image of earlier. You were talking about the oil wells which we had some imagery, maybe not of Sarah Rector's oil wells, but just that area and the oil wells on them and what that looked like earlier. Really providing a rich visual to accompany these pieces of knowledge that -- that really -- that you reach out for and get from these experts out in the field. Those people who, as you mentioned, know more than you and you need to convince them to help you out. Tonya, I wanted -- oh please. Go ahead.
>> I always send them a copy of the book.
>> have you had people reach out to you, Tonya, in the same vein and say, well maybe even a younger student and say, I want to know more about Sarah, or Maritcha, or Michael and -- and maybe they've got a specific question that isn't in your book?
>> I've had a few adult people, I think some -- one of them wanted to find -- she thought that there was a connection with someone in her family and Maritcha and she inquired. I don't get that many from young people. Sometimes, to be honest, I will get an email and -- and they really want me to do their work for them. You know, it's like, can you tell me who George Washington Carver is? [Laughter] One thing, can you back up to the -- are we able to back up photos?
>> Yeah. Wherever you would like to go.
>> Lincoln's Inauguration. Some might say, oh but it's blurry, right. But that's why I love it, because in the caption, because I know Shiner was there, and I can say, in this crowd might be Michael Shiner. And the imagination can look at, you know, do I see a black man in the -- we don't know if he was light-skinned. We don't know if he was dark-skinned, but with the blurriness and all of that, -- so I don't know. I can even make use of mistakes.
>> I think that -- yeah, absolutely, just as you mentioned, let the imagination, the maybes come out there. And Tonya, I don't want to -- don't want to cut the conversation off, but I do want to spend just a moment talking about, if we could, How to Build a Museum, your newest book. I really enjoyed it. I just -- I received an advance copy to look through, so I could get a little bit of a preview, but I have my -- my brand new copy that just kind of came hot off the press here. And just one quick question and that is, you know, it seems like that a large part of your research for this book, unlike your others, was researching a more recent event. An event kind of as it was happening. You're writing about the museum being put together as it was actually happening. So, if you could tell us briefly, how was that different, or similar to researching for some of your other books that maybe took place a century or more ago?
>> Well, it was similar in a way to Shiner, Maritcha, and Sarah Rector because all I had to do -- most -- what I had to deal with, when I got to the actual part of the book that deals with the building of the museum was first drafts of history. So newspaper articles, interviews, and in newspaper articles sometimes, or magazine articles, sometimes have mistakes. And in interviews, sometimes people misspeak. So, you know, I would have to confirm -- get a lot of things confirmed because I'm like, is this really true? Do they really own this item? Do they have this in the collection? So that was -- that was exhilarating. Also, things were constantly changing. So at one point, because this is what I was -- the information documents I got. The base of the museum was going to be like a platform or plant, and then it changed. So it was just -- it was just staying alert and then, too, I also knew that in the end of the day, the deputy director, the director, and other members of the staff were going to read it and they would, you know, update me if I needed updating. So, but it was -- it was exciting. Sometimes I would do things like, say if this was this time last year, I would just search engine NMAAHC and the day's date to see if anything new had come because it got so much coverage, so much press, that things were always changing. Things were always being acquired. So it was, like I said, it was a thrilling ride.
>> Absolutely. And I -- I think, actually, that -- that answer that you shared with us really kind of leads into one of our audience questions that I'd love to pose to you. Is there an average amount of time that you spend researching before you begin writing? How do you know, I guess, when it is time to write and how does that idea of researching and writing work together?
>> Oh, it's all like a messy jumble. It was like I'd research to a point and then I'll find something and I'll say, okay, this is my way in. and then I'd know where I'm starting. But it could be -- what -- after that will be a big TK because I don't know what I'm doing. But I -- have to have a way in. And then once I'm in, then I fumble and stumble around. It's really -- yeah, I'm not a person who says, I want to do all the research then I'm going to write. Sometimes I may write something that's not based on research, but it's like a concepty thing. Like I said, my process is really, really messy. I just sort of, you know, follow the spirit in a way.
>> And with that, is there a -- I know you say it's messy and I guess -- I think -- I wonder if some of our audience members are kind of a little more curious about what some of the messiness looks like, in addition to what you shared already. This idea of -- is there a process that you go through? And someone asked this question; do you have a preferred method of processing through a book, or does each book proceed in its own manner? And I'm going to guess from the messiness, there's some uniqueness to it. I guess I'm -- I'm kind of more interested in some of the similarities maybe.
>> Yeah, when I've gone into starting a book thinking, okay, I know how this is going to work, it doesn't work. Because Michael Shiner is based -- Capital Days is based on a journal and Maritcha's is based on a memoir, I thought they going to have the same structure.
^M00:40:05
But it didn't work because they're totally different people, you know, she was Victorian and prim and proper, and he was rough and tumble, and it didn't work. And I needed to start -- he was a man of action. I needed to start that book with action. So I started with the War of 1812. What I mean by messiness, is -- is I -- I flit. You know, like I said, I may start writing and then say, okay, this is not happening. You can feel it when you're not in the zone. And I'll say, so go do picture research, or I know when I can't write on say -- I don't know, a bill or a war or something like that, I know. You know why? Because you don't really understand it, you need to go do more research. Because when I start a book, I'm usually in a panic.
>> When you start researching or you start writing?
>> When I have to start working on it. Like once it gets to -- before it gets to greenlight I'm like, I can do this. Yes, I can do this. And then after it gets to greenlight, I'm like a mass of insecurity and it's like I can't do this. I won't be able to do this.
>> And I guess there's something else I'm hearing too, and I'm wondering if you can speak towards this, and I'm thinking about myself as a researcher, as kind of a casual researcher, my students as researchers, this idea of flitting. The word maybe that came to my mind maybe also is backtracking, when you're saying I don't know enough about this.
>> Yeah.
>> How does that work for you? And -- it almost feels like that could be like a really freeing kind of thing while also, maybe, a little panicky sort of feeling as well.
>> Yeah, well, when I was younger, I would just write things and know that it had no heart and soul and it was cold and then just hope an editor didn't notice or something. But now, I'll stop and say, wait a minute, the reason you can't write this is because you don't understand it. You know, and it made me more work, but go do more work.
>> Absolutely. And Tonya, yeah, and I think, I think this is a wonderful point to kind of wrap, but I -- first of all wanted to thank you, not only for sharing some of the insights into that messiness that you described, but also giving us the opportunity to think about ourselves as researchers and our students as researchers through you. I think much as the way as you are making connections to Maritcha and I'm sure in many ways, to all of the people that you've researched, I'm making connections with you right now, and the things you're telling me. Giving me some things to think about. And -- expanding kind of my base of what I am able to do. Maybe encouraging me, as you mentioned, to be a little more bold. A little more daring with who I reach out to. And so, I want to take this opportunity to thank you for starting us off with our Library of Congress Online Conference.
>> Thank you. Thank you, Tom. Thank you everyone at Library of Congress.
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