Ellen Farney Earns Spot on SUNY Potsdam Dean's List
The State University of New York at Potsdam recently named Ellen Farney of Lowville, NY to the SUNY Potsdam Dean's List. Farney, whose major is History, was among 295 students who were honored for...
June, 09 2020 - Verified by SUNY Potsdam
Ellen Farney Set to Graduate from SUNY Potsdam
Ellen Farney of Lowville, NY, is set to graduate from SUNY Potsdam with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History. The State University of New York at Potsdam will recognize Ellen and the nearly 900 c...
May, 20 2020 - Verified by SUNY Potsdam
Ellen Farney Named to SUNY Potsdam President's List
Ellen Farney of Lowville, NY was recently named to the President's List at The State University of New York at Potsdam. Farney, whose major is History , was among 909 SUNY Potsdam students who wer...
June, 04 2019 - Verified by SUNY Potsdam
European Missionary Influence on African Nationalism: A Case Study of Edward W. Blyden
Abstract.
This research project explores the influence of the activities of European missionaries, specifically missionary education, on the development of an early form of African nationalism through a case study of Edward Wilmot Blyden. Blyden was a West African intellectual during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries who influenced later nationalists, such as Leopold Sedar Senghor and his Negritude movement beginning in the 1930s. Drawing on Blyden’s biography, relevant historiographical material, and, most importantly, Blyden’s own written works and transcripts of his numerous speeches, I came to understand how interactions with missionaries throughout his life shaped Blyden’s intellectual perspective. His views would lead him to encourage other Africans, in his native Liberia and throughout the continent, to adopt racial and national pride into their lives.
May 2020 -
Articles
Newspaper Portrayals of the Lynching of African Americans Between 1880 and 1960: How they were Covered and Why it is Still Important.
This article looks at the ways in which the printed media influenced the lynching of African Americans in the southern United States between 1880 and 1960. This influence is compared to the influence of modern-day violence, especially racial motivated violence, on young people.
April 2020 -
Articles
Green Revolution or Green Delusion: Has an innate feeling of racial superiority caused some to see non-existent agricultural problems in Africa?
This is a research project I did for an African environmental history course. I looked at the concept of the “Green Revolution” in Africa and what different voices were saying about the needs of African agriculture. Specifically, I wanted to know what Africans were saying compared to what western companies were pushing. The final product of this project was a research poster.
November 2019 -
Research Projects
“Leopold Sedar Senghor and Negritude”
In this article I focused on Leopold Sedar Senghor, the first president of Senegal, and his concept of Negritude. I argued that influence of the French policy of assimilation in West Africa and Senghor’s belief in the depth of African personality were the key factors in his development of the concept of Negritude. Due to further research in the area of African nationalism, I would change and /or add to various parts of this article including the argument. However, this article shows my growth as a student of both history and Africana Studies, as well as my growth as a writer.
May 2019 -
Articles
North Country Transcription
I had the opportunity to be a part of this project which included two History Department faculty members and a few other history students. A community member and former professor provided a box of letters that had belonged to her great-great-grandmother. The letters were the courtship letters between herself and the man she would go on to be married to for over seventy years. Each of us were assigned a certain number of letters to transcribe and then we came together to discuss our findings. We used the information in the letters to draw conclusions about social norms in the North Country during the 1870s. We presented the findings at the 2019 Research and Learning Fair at SUNY Potsdam.
April 2019 -
Research Projects
“The Inherent Need for Birth Control in Early Nineteenth Century America: as Represented in Letters Written by Mothers to the Federal Children’s Bureau Between 1915 and 1932”
This is an article I wrote for a United States History Course that focused on the 1920s and 1930s. A book by Molly Ladd-Taylor, Raising a Baby the Government Way, Mothers’ Letters to the Children’s Bureau, 1915-1932, was recommended to me by my professor. I was fascinated by the letters it contained and the struggles that so many women in the United States faced during pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood. Using primarily Ladd-Taylor’s book and census along with a few secondary sources, I created an argument for the importance of birth control being available to mothers in all parts of the United States.
December 2018 -
Articles
“Native Reactions to Increasing European Presence in the Inland Niger River Basin: a Comparison of Dr. Edward Wilmot Blyden and Reverend Samuel Ajayi Crowther”
This is the first research project I completed for an African history class. This article looks at the documented reactions of Blyden and Crowther, two relatively westernized African intellectuals, regarding the increasing presence of Europeans in West Africa, specifically the area around the Niger River Basin. I argued that, based on their writings, Dr. Blyden identified more with the inland natives of West Africa. Writing this was a critical learning experience for me, and if I were to go back and edit it there are many things I would change.
December 2018 -
Articles
