MHS News
Current newsletterNational History Day Finalist Uses MHS Collections
National History Day (NHD) finals took place at the University of Maryland in College Park, Md., from 10-14 June. The staff of the MHS was excited to learn that Isabel Nelson, a junior at Padua Academy in Wilmington, Del., made it to the division finals and won the best overall project at a senior level in the state of Delaware for her paper “Mercy Otis Warren: Foremost Female Patriot of the American Revolution,” which she researched at the Society. Isabel said that she has always been interested in 18th-century history, literature, and politics. Studying Mercy Otis Warren gave her the opportunity to combine all of these interests in researching one person. Her teacher, Carol Anderson, suggested that she visit the MHS to do research.
Isabel writes, “Being able to research Mercy Warren’s papers at the MHS was immensely helpful to my paper. There are too few accessible editions of her correspondence, and I could never get as much from them as I did researching in her complete collection of papers at the MHS.” She continues, “Working with her papers helped me gain a greater understanding of her thought and historical context. Having access to these primary sources, I was able to take notes on the letters I read and quoted them throughout my paper. I even used a picture of the original copy of a letter Mercy Warren wrote to John Dickinson that I was able to handle at the MHS, and chose a quote from that letter as the epigraph to my paper. It was especially exciting for me to hold one of her letters!”
To learn more about the NHD finals from a judge’s point of view, read Massachusetts Goes to Nationals.
National History Day (NHD) finals took place at the University of Maryland in College Park, Md., from 10-14 June. The staff of the MHS was excited to learn that Isabel Nelson, a junior at Padua Academy in Wilmington, Del., made it to the division finals and won the best overall project in the state of Delaware at a senior level for her paper “Mercy Otis Warren: Foremost Female Patriot of the American Revolution,” which she researched at the Society. Isabel said that she has always been interested in 18th-century history, literature, and politics. Studying Mercy Otis Warren gave her the opportunity to combine all of these interests in researching one person. Her teacher, Carol Anderson, suggested that she visit the MHS to do research.
Isabel writes, “Being able to research Mercy Warren’s papers (http://www.masshist.org/findingaids/doc.cfm?fa=fa0235) at the MHS was immensely helpful to my paper. There are too few accessible editions of her correspondence, and I could never get as much from them as I did researching in her complete collection of papers at the MHS.” She continues, “Working with her papers helped me gain a greater understanding of her thought and historical context. Having access to these primary sources, I was able to take notes on the letters I read and quoted them throughout my paper. I even used a picture of the original copy of a letter Mercy Warren wrote to John Dickinson that I was able to handle at the MHS, and chose a quote from that letter as the epigraph to my paper. It was especially exciting for me to hold one of her letters!”