Exciting Thesis Update!

Okay, so, despite my brain doing its normal "you are a failure who will never do anything with your life you stupid person you" thing, I actually managed to write a good 1300 words today, and by that I mean an actual good 1300 words today as opposed to my usual dreck. I think this latest draft will actually be the one that goes someplace other than dead fish land. I'm very happy about that. I've also added a bunch of notes at the end so I remember what I wanted to add in at that point, which is great. It's nice to end because I know what I want to say rather than because I am just sitting there in helpless sadness.
( Read more... )

There's a ghost in this picture, can you find it?

Today is awesome!

1) My taxi-driver's grandmother used to teach at the School for the Deaf when it was still out in the North End and he told me stuff about the School and it was awesome and it matched a lot of my assumptions which means I am smart!

2) There's another researcher here at the Archives! She is doing her PhD on vision & seeing and was looking for details about the Home Teaching Society for the Blind and I had all these notes on it so I could tell her where to look in the Annual Reports and stuff for more details because I am awesome yes I am.

Helpful Anna!

Delicious ending? :( Diigo stuff

I backed up all of my bookmarks to Diigo a while ago. Diigo! It will import everything from Delicious should you wish, and it can also mirror delicious for you so you can maintain a delicious account until delicious goes down.

Diigo, I note, does not play well with DW. I have to C&P links into Diigo rather than using the Diigolet for DW links. It works fine with LJ.

Historical Apocrypha

So, there's this mythology about C. F. Fraser that I've seen repeated a few places: that he refused to be paid as a teacher or Superintendent at the Asylum for the Blind until such time as it was making enough money.

I know that Fraser was offered money when he started at the Asylum as a teacher, because I noted that he was offered more money as a male blind teacher than the former sighted female Superintendent was making. There's nothing in the Minutes of the Board of Directors saying he'd refused the payment. They do discuss having met with him, though. I was going through financial records today but was looking at the credits and not the debits, so I don't know if his wages are in there. I know he was paid for the Concert Tours he went on. (So was everyone else, including the students, which I found surprising.)

I haven't looked at any of Fraser's Obits yet, so it may be in one of them. So the earliest mention I have is from this little pamphlet-type book published in 1939 (and last signed out of the library in 1979). Fraser died in 1925.

I think I first read the claim in Reading Hands, which is... I had a long discussion with some people about some issues with the book. Reading Hands and The Blind Knight of Nova Scotia (that's the pamphlet of never being read) are oft-cited by people doing fast bios of Fraser for things about Blind education in Canada written by people who think archival records in Nova Scotia are way too much trouble to consult. *cough*

So I'm suspecting the story is apocryphal, although I should figure out how much money was being spent every year paying staff and that should cinch it.