{"id":24768,"date":"2025-08-07T12:07:35","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T16:07:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/?post_type=story&#038;p=24768"},"modified":"2025-08-15T11:01:21","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T15:01:21","slug":"we-have-so-many-people-we-still-have-to-account-for","status":"publish","type":"story","link":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/2025\/08\/07\/we-have-so-many-people-we-still-have-to-account-for\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We have so many people we still have to account for\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" \/>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Syllabus: Clark in the Classroom<\/h2>\n\n\n<div style=\"color:var(--clarku-color-deep-red)\" class=\"eyebrow  has-text-align-left\">COURSE: American Print Culture, 1700 to 1900<\/div>\n\n\n<div style=\"color:var(--clarku-color-deep-red)\" class=\"eyebrow  has-text-align-left\">teacher: Meredith neuman<\/div>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" \/>\n\n\n\n<aside class=\"wp-block-group boxout has-light-warm-gray-background-color has-background has-small-font-size is-horizontal is-content-justification-center is-nowrap is-layout-flex wp-container-core-group-is-layout-95da4d9e wp-block-group-is-layout-flex\" style=\"margin-top:var(--wp--preset--spacing--10);margin-bottom:var(--wp--preset--spacing--10);padding-top:var(--wp--preset--spacing--10);padding-right:0;padding-bottom:var(--wp--preset--spacing--10);padding-left:0\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"400\" height=\"495\" src=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/Magazine-Cover-spring-summer-2025.jpg\" alt=\"Cover of Clark University Magazine, spring\/summer 2025 issue\" class=\"wp-image-21068\" style=\"width:220px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/Magazine-Cover-spring-summer-2025.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/Magazine-Cover-spring-summer-2025-242x300.jpg 242w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Story from <br>Clark University Magazine, spring 2025<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n\n<p>Mention print culture in America from 1700 to 1900, and someone invariably brings up Benjamin Franklin. \u201cI\u2019m not worried about his legacy disappearing,\u201d says Meredith Neuman. \u201cJohn Adams isn\u2019t going anywhere, and neither is Abigail, at this point.\u201d Instead, the English professor focuses on voices that have been overlooked and underappreciated throughout U.S. history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Why teach about these centuries?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s a vast time period, isn\u2019t it? I started teaching this course to get students into the archives at the American Antiquarian Society [in Worcester], which is the most important library for printed material in the American colonies and the U.S. through 1876. Because it\u2019s such a broad scope, I have a special topic each time I teach the course. We\u2019ve done Black and Indigenous print culture, and early Black print culture. These topics help shift the center of a history that can be very elite, very white, and very male. People of color wrote. Women wrote. And women of color wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright size-full is-resized is-style-default\" style=\"margin-top:var(--wp--preset--spacing--20);margin-bottom:var(--wp--preset--spacing--20)\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/The-Age-of-Phillis.jpg\" alt=\"Cover of &quot;The Age of Phillis,&quot; a book by Honor\u00e9e Fanonne Jeffers\" class=\"wp-image-24771\" style=\"width:130px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/The-Age-of-Phillis.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/The-Age-of-Phillis-200x300.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>This fall, the special topic will be \u201cThe Age of Phillis,\u201d which is the title of a book by Honor\u00e9e Fanonne Jeffers about Phillis Wheatley Peters, the first Black person to publish a book of poetry. We\u2019ll look at her and her world\u2014the people with whom she corresponded and was engaged politically and intellectually, like Benjamin Banneker, an early Black almanac maker, who corresponded with Thomas Jefferson. So now we\u2019ve got Jefferson, a very complicated figure, in the picture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Who enrolls in this course?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s a split-level course, so there might be undergrads and grad students in the same class. Students might need to fulfill a period or theory requirement for the English major, or they might be history students, especially if they\u2019re interested in the AAS. The course also fulfills a requirement in the Media, Culture, and the Arts major. It\u2019s wonderful to have these multilevel, multidisciplinary conversations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Do your students enjoy their visits to the American Antiquarian Society?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"791\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/Meredith_Neuman_Syllabus-web-secondary-791x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Meredith Neuman in the reading room of the American Antiquarian Society\" class=\"wp-image-24770\" style=\"width:380px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/Meredith_Neuman_Syllabus-web-secondary-791x1024.jpg 791w, https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/Meredith_Neuman_Syllabus-web-secondary-232x300.jpg 232w, https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/Meredith_Neuman_Syllabus-web-secondary-768x994.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/Meredith_Neuman_Syllabus-web-secondary.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 791px) 100vw, 791px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Professor Meredith Neuman in the reading room of the American Antiquarian Society.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>They love it. The AAS has Phillis Wheatley Peters\u2019 broadsides and many almanacs, a genre that includes information about moon cycles, tides, planting schedules, and even poetry and illustrations. People of that time might have looked at one of those almanacs every day. And now my students will, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Part of the course involves coming up with a research project proposal, evaluating their classmates\u2019 proposals, and deciding which projects to fund. It\u2019s a helpful exercise because it\u2019s transferable to any profession\u2014they\u2019re going to have to be doing these presentations for the rest of their lives, no matter what field they go into.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Students always want to do more work in the archives. They want to make space for all the people who wrote things, and read things, and thought about things. We have so many people we still have to account for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Comedians have riffed that we\u2019re going to lose history because no one can read cursive anymore.<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>I have not yet met a student who couldn\u2019t read cursive. It\u2019s different, but they figure it out. The digital generation seems to truly value print. If the printing press was a revolution in the way that words work, we are currently in another revolution. And Clark students are good at recognizing that we\u2019re in a historical moment of great technological change, analog to digital. They can see both the continuities and the changes, and they\u2019re applying things of the present to the past \u2014 and things of the past to the present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Top: Professor Meredith Neuman with \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.americanantiquarian.org\/node\/6989\">Old Number One<\/a>,\u201d the printing press owned by American Antiquarian Society founder Isaiah Thomas.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:25px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons has-custom-font-size has-small-font-size is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-9d0ad828 wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\" style=\"border-radius:0px;padding-top:0;padding-bottom:0\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button has-custom-width wp-block-button__width-100 has-custom-font-size has-medium-font-size\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link has-text-align-center wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/departments\/english\/undergraduate-programs\/\" style=\"border-style:none;border-width:0px;padding-top:var(--wp--preset--spacing--10);padding-bottom:var(--wp--preset--spacing--10)\">Study English at Clark<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In American Print Culture, 1700 to 1900, English Professor Meredith Neuman focuses on voices that have been overlooked and underappreciated throughout U.S. history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":24769,"template":"","meta":{"story_color":"var(--clarku-color-gray-800)","story_headerImg":24769,"section_label":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[225,239],"displayed_author":[258],"featured":[494],"topic":[518,277,117,519],"class_list":["post-24768","story","type-story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-humanities","category-worcester-world","displayed_author-melissa-lynch-95-mspc-15","featured-secondary","topic-american-antiquarian-society","topic-clark-university-magazine","topic-english","topic-syllabus"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.4 (Yoast SEO v27.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>\u2018We have so many people we still have to account for\u2019 | ClarkU News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, 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