Hello again. This is my first post regarding my research project, and for now I am just brainstorming ideas. See, there’s a ton of things that I’m interested in researching, but the limitations of this particular project make it more difficult to decide on something. The topic has to be local. Local, for me, means Millville, NJ. To be honest, there’s not a whole lot going on here. Further complicating things is the fact that this local thing has to have at least 8 academic sources that go with it. So coming up with a decent topic is by no means an easy task. So far I have thought of a couple of possibilities, but there are problems with each of them.
The topic that is most likely to be in academic articles, I think, is a man by the name of Leon Henderson. Henderson was a Millville man who became involved with politics in the 1930’s and 1940’s and worked as an economic advisor to President Roosevelt (according to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Henderson). One of my high school history teachers was a Leon Henderson enthusiast, and he talked about him a lot. So the good news is that, if I went with this choice, I could probably set up an interview with that history teacher. The bad news is that I really don’t have an interest in politics, especially politics from that long ago, especially very unpopular politicians. I just don’t see this topic sustaining my interest for an entire semester, or more than a couple of days, for that matter.
I am slightly more interested in writing about either Wheaton Arts or the Glasstown Center Arts District. In the early 2000’s, Millville tried to improve its image and business by revamping High Street. They opened several art galleries and many new shops moved in. There’s currently a campaign going on to renovate the long-closed Levoy Theatre. And the more I write about this, the better the idea sounds. In high school and my early years of college, I loved to go to the monthly “Third Fridays,” when all the businesses and galleries were opened late and there was live entertainment and many artists willing to chat with the public. I’m thinking how great it would be to write an article about the Glasstown Center Arts District in general and Third Fridays in particular. But the problem with this idea is that I don’t think I will find the number of academic articles necessary for the assignment. That’s actually sort of sad. How are you ever supposed to write something new if everything has to be based on other people’s academic articles? The one way I think it could work would be to use academic articles about other, larger cities’ attempts at building arts districts. The topic of Wheaton Arts, formerly Wheaton Village, is less appealing but might actually tie into a project about Third Fridays and the Glasstown Center Arts District.
I don’t know if I can make it work, but the idea of writing about Third Fridays sounds like a better idea. I think I might give it a shot. Thoughts, anyone?
