Interview

I interviewed Doris Sudduth, who is a junior here at UWG. She is also in my U.S. History Honors class. When I asked Doris about research papers that she has done, she could only think of one that she is currently doing. It is for her Sexual Revolutions in American History class, which is taught by Carey Pitzulo. Doris said that she is writing a paper on 18th Century Midwives. Her teacher is requiring 7 primary sources and 7 secondary sources. This just blew my mind and definitely does not make me look forward to papers that I have to do in my upper grades. Doris said that she is finding her 7 primary sources on GALILEO, through diaries of midwives. As for her 7 secondary sources, she said that those are more difficult to find. Looking through GALILEO for those as well, she stated that they are difficult because her teacher specified that the secondary sources have to be journal articles published since 1995. You could imagine that there may not be a plethora of journal articles by midwives; one has to persevere in their search. Doris did mention two of her primary sources that I thought were interesting to report. She stated of one midwife’s journal, that she was very professional and only recorded the medical issues. As for another midwife’s journal, Doris said that this woman was a gossip. This woman spoke of the affairs by men and women and stories that were supposed to be kept quiet. I thought this was interesting, one, because little did either of these women know that their journals were going to be read here in the 21st century, and second, that one of the women recorded the gossip of that time. I enjoyed this interview with Doris and saw that there is much hard work to do in my upper grades.