A Public History Student's Blog

  My classmates and I have been starting to work on our project for Arva Flour Mill. We have decided that we are going to create an interactive timeline. We looked at materials from the mill at Western's archives last week and we are going to visit the mill itself tomorrow. In my spare time, I have been learning how to sew 18th and early 19th century clothing, mostly with youtube videos and other online sources. I really enjoy researching fashion from this period. I have already completed several projects, two neckerchiefs, a petticoat (worn as an outer skirt in this period) and a bedgown. I also have several projects in progress. Right now I am making a second bedgown out of linen. I found a linen dress at a thrift store a while ago, which had some bleach stains/fading at the shoulder, so I didn't feel bad about cutting it up. I have finished a large part of the bedgown at this point. Here is an image of the dress from ebay, I didn't take a picture before I cut it up but t...

          My name is Helen. I am currently an MA student at Western University in London, Ontario studying Public History. This blog is intended to chronicle my studies and what I am working on in my classes (this blog is one of my assignments). My classmates and I have a number of interesting projects planned for this semester. One of them is to research and create some sort of project to educate the public about the Arva flour Mill (the exact nature of the project is TBD). This mill in Arva, just north of London, has been around since 1819. Intrigued, I started some initial research online, which did yield some information about the mill, including who owned it, which is useful since the mill seems to have been identified on that basis, at least in the sources I looked at.           For those of you who are wondering what the difference between History and Public History is, the field of Public History focuses on teaching His...