Graduate Student Research Diary: Caroline Kennedy goes to Los Angeles
History MA candidate Caroline Kennedy, doing innovative research on television history, describes her experience discovering primary sources in libraries and archives in Los Angeles.
“Having the opportunity to travel to Los Angeles was paramount to my Master’s research project. Without this funding, my research project would have had to rely heavily on secondary sourcing, and the interpretations of others. Having this funding allowed me to add a whole new and important element to my research by incorporating production documents of important television shows of the 1960s and 1970s. Without the funding I was given through Scholarship in the Arts, I do not think my research would have been as strong, and I do not think that I would have been able to answer the questions I was asking.
Travelling to Los Angeles gave me the opportunity to be engulfed in the culture that I was researching and also gave me the chance to visit two amazing archives: The Writers’ Guild Foundation Shavelson-Webb Library, and the Special Collections archive at Loyola-Marymount University. At these locations, I was able to physically handle and photograph production documents of many of America’s most influential television shows, most notably All in the Family and The Donna Reed Show. For hours I was able to unravel the process of television production and learn first-hand from the writers, directors, producers and actors that are no longer around to speak about their experiences. This was something that I would not have been able to have here in Newfoundland, but an experience I was able to have because of the grant I received.
What was the most rewarding aspect of my trip and what meant the most to me, as corny as it may seem, was being able to handle documents of a subject I love, from television shows I have loved for years and to feel for the first time in a while like I was touching a piece of history. To see the faded ink and all the hand-written notes from so many decades ago truly reinvigorated my love for research and for history overall. This is something that I know will keep pushing me to make the most of the rest of my degree and my research project.”
Caroline Kennedy, MA candidate, Department of History