BLOG # 6: Roy Baker et al
This is odd, only two people have sent in a blog so far, and it's late on deadline night. Hmmm....could it be that, like Rick, we are all pulling our hair out? I know I am! (By the way, Rick, I too --unlike the fortunate Dan-- am not sure who the heck killed Roy. I've been too busy just trying to READ the thing!)
What I have gleaned most from our Roy Baker packet so far is probably not what Dr. Petrik was shooting for. First of all, I have almost fallen off my chair with laughter over the mistranslations undertaken by us all (thanks, Kent, for forcing us to take on this useful and eye-opening exercise!). I also want to thank the classmate who saw panties instead of parties, as well as our fellow history cohort who misquoted Private Miller as saying “if there was a woman in it to drop it right there as he wouldn’t believe the best G.D. woman in Christendom [Cheyenne!].” Seeing just how easy it is to contort meanings in history by only one word is a lesson we should all learn as we deal with primary documents.
Like probably most of you, I had to go over the wonderful transcript Jim prepared for us to try to fill in the questionable words. There were so many that it was hard to read the document smoothly. It is very interesting, by the way, to see how handwriting has evolved in only one hundred years (e.g., the 1890 rendition of the lower-case “r”). While certainly beautiful and fluid to look at, the handwriting was shockingly hard to fathom without the crutch of context. It was much easier to figure out words when the whole transcribed text was before me to read, so I'm glad I plowed through it again.
I’m not going to spill the beans on my opinion of whodunit---I’ll save that for the paper. However, I will share that I learned a lot of social history from this inquest. I never dreamed military privates had so much "fun" and stayed up all night so often (at least in THIS town!). I was amazed at the great volume of drinking going on. I don't know if this is a fair cross-section of the average military post in the west, or whether Laramie, Wyoming was an awfully boring place. The corollary plots reminded me of some of our busted western myths: a small group of soldiers were thinking of going AWOL to live a great life in the wilderness. Our next author Elliott West is going to comment especially on just such myths about the west. Also, I know Dr. P. has done research on prostitutes, and I’m looking forward to her take on the many “popular” females who pop up constantly in the inquest. Oddly, sexuality didn’t seem the focus---did these men mostly miss women to talk to, wives, mothers, sisters? In short, I guess I’m trying to say that this document has made me stew about a lot more than who killed Roy Baker. It’s obvious that I’m going to have to make a chart to keep up with all the different versions of The Truth (no offense, Joaquin Smith). Coming on the heels of our Tombstone book, I am beginning to have a much greater appreciation for attorneys (sorry to pick on you again, Dave, but we’ll be looking to you for your take on it all), judges, jury, historians, and anyone who has to take such a plethora of testimonies (with a dose of lies thrown in for good measure) and sift them to get at “the truth.” This has been a very odd assignment, but an extremely valuable one.
What I have gleaned most from our Roy Baker packet so far is probably not what Dr. Petrik was shooting for. First of all, I have almost fallen off my chair with laughter over the mistranslations undertaken by us all (thanks, Kent, for forcing us to take on this useful and eye-opening exercise!). I also want to thank the classmate who saw panties instead of parties, as well as our fellow history cohort who misquoted Private Miller as saying “if there was a woman in it to drop it right there as he wouldn’t believe the best G.D. woman in Christendom [Cheyenne!].” Seeing just how easy it is to contort meanings in history by only one word is a lesson we should all learn as we deal with primary documents.
Like probably most of you, I had to go over the wonderful transcript Jim prepared for us to try to fill in the questionable words. There were so many that it was hard to read the document smoothly. It is very interesting, by the way, to see how handwriting has evolved in only one hundred years (e.g., the 1890 rendition of the lower-case “r”). While certainly beautiful and fluid to look at, the handwriting was shockingly hard to fathom without the crutch of context. It was much easier to figure out words when the whole transcribed text was before me to read, so I'm glad I plowed through it again.
I’m not going to spill the beans on my opinion of whodunit---I’ll save that for the paper. However, I will share that I learned a lot of social history from this inquest. I never dreamed military privates had so much "fun" and stayed up all night so often (at least in THIS town!). I was amazed at the great volume of drinking going on. I don't know if this is a fair cross-section of the average military post in the west, or whether Laramie, Wyoming was an awfully boring place. The corollary plots reminded me of some of our busted western myths: a small group of soldiers were thinking of going AWOL to live a great life in the wilderness. Our next author Elliott West is going to comment especially on just such myths about the west. Also, I know Dr. P. has done research on prostitutes, and I’m looking forward to her take on the many “popular” females who pop up constantly in the inquest. Oddly, sexuality didn’t seem the focus---did these men mostly miss women to talk to, wives, mothers, sisters? In short, I guess I’m trying to say that this document has made me stew about a lot more than who killed Roy Baker. It’s obvious that I’m going to have to make a chart to keep up with all the different versions of The Truth (no offense, Joaquin Smith). Coming on the heels of our Tombstone book, I am beginning to have a much greater appreciation for attorneys (sorry to pick on you again, Dave, but we’ll be looking to you for your take on it all), judges, jury, historians, and anyone who has to take such a plethora of testimonies (with a dose of lies thrown in for good measure) and sift them to get at “the truth.” This has been a very odd assignment, but an extremely valuable one.
posted by Audrey Haugan | 7:45 PM
1 Comments:
Audrey-
Maybe the reason you don't get comments is that your blogs are long and soporific.
Anyway, as I said the Roy Baker story is not about the "truth;" it's about conflicting versions o0f events that historians must sort through in an attempt to make a plausible argument for a certain conclusion.
Yours truly,
Yoaquim
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