{"id":166,"date":"2017-09-20T07:59:04","date_gmt":"2017-09-20T12:59:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/dh\/?page_id=166"},"modified":"2024-06-05T10:44:32","modified_gmt":"2024-06-05T15:44:32","slug":"blake-scholarship-2017-2018-recipient-jessica-delong","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/dh\/blake\/blake-scholarship-2017-2018-recipient-jessica-delong\/","title":{"rendered":"2017-2018 Blake Scholarship Recipient Jessica DeLong"},"content":{"rendered":"
The Rosanna Blake Library of Confederate History at Marshall University is one of the largest private collections of Confederate literature and artifacts in America, housing photographs, newspapers, journals, stories, sermons, and even work by students of the era, as well as present-day writings on both the Confederate states and the collection itself\u2014and, according to Jessica DeLong, \u201ca plethora of weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n

But of particular interest to DeLong\u2014Marshall\u2019s 2017-2018 recipient of the Marian Alexander Blake and Merrill Clifford Blake Scholarship in Confederate Literature\u2014are the collection\u2019s schoolbooks. Her digital humanities project will involve researching, digitizing and analyzing the texts, among other things.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese texts are designed for mathematics and language use\u2014a fill-in-the-blank story, adverb practice, addition and subtraction,\u201d DeLong says. Though they were created primarily for very young children, the schoolbooks present, in no subtle terms, pro-slavery propaganda designed to indoctrinate the youngest members of society. \u201cPredictably, they\u2019re often difficult and challenging\u201d for today\u2019s readers, DeLong says.<\/p>\n

Like other texts in the collection, the schoolbooks are a tremendously important point-of-study, both as a reminder and a cautionary tale.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to research the collection for pedagogical purposes, looking at language and considering the rhetoric of Confederate educators and the impact these texts had in the classroom and outside of it\u2014their place in perpetuating this worldview,\u201d DeLong states. \u201cI want to see how we can apply the study of these pedagogical materials to the present-day, identifying rhetoric that may still favor toward that mindset, and as a tool to better understand these things as they happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of DeLong\u2019s interest has to do with location: \u201cAs far as the places these texts were used, it\u2019s not just entirely in the South. It\u2019s broad and varied. States, especially this area, naturally had pockets of communities and areas that sided in opposition with their state\u2019s declared side.\u201d<\/p>\n

DeLong is familiar with this area, having grown up in Louisa, Kentucky. After receiving her bachelor\u2019s degree in music education and her master\u2019s in music, she taught at Lawrence County high school. Wanting to further her career, she sought a second master\u2019s in English here at Marshall.<\/p>\n

She says she loves the university, being on campus and in the classroom. \u201cThe students are responsive, I love the faculty here,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019ve found that, though I enjoyed working with the kids back home, I think teaching at the college level might suit me better.\u201d Currently, Jessica teaches English 101 and 201\u2014Beginning and Advanced Composition courses.<\/p>\n

And, thanks to the Blake Scholarship, during her final year of study Jessica is performing important research on a collection of great weight\u2014and difficulty.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile valuable in many ways as a record of the past, the work here, and the items and artifacts, are often, as you could imagine, extremely troublesome,\u201d DeLong states. \u201cIt makes for challenging research. Some are really difficult to get through.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cStill, they\u2019re valuable in certain ways. Particularly as a reminder of, not just our past, but just the fact that we\u2019re even capable of doing something so dark at all. It\u2019s unbelievable, but it\u2019s true all the same. And maybe any part of anything I can put under the microscope or shine a light on, in the areas I know best, maybe it will help. Maybe next time we\u2019ll see it coming.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Rosanna Blake Library of Confederate History at Marshall University is one of the largest private collections of Confederate literature and artifacts in America, housing photographs, newspapers, journals, stories, sermons, and even work by students of the era, as well as present-day writings on both the Confederate states and the collection itself\u2014and, according to Jessica […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":605,"featured_media":0,"parent":18,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-legacy.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-166","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/dh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/dh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/dh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/dh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/605"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/dh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/dh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1215,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/dh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/166\/revisions\/1215"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/dh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/18"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/dh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}