Ongoing Research
Oral Histories
Goucher College Archives and Special Collections sponsors the creation of recorded histories of marginalized members of its community. These efforts have largely been led by students working through a class or a fellowship. Each oral history collection was curated by students who selected the topic and its participants, created the questions, conducted the interviews, and transcribed the words.
Jane Austen Collection
The Jane Austen Collection at Goucher was founded with the bequest of Alberta Hirshheimer Burke (1906–1975), a 1928 alumna of the college. Goucher College received more than a thousand early editions and books as well as personal correspondence. As the home for Jane Austen in North America, Goucher College welcomes all interested readers and fans to make discoveries about her life and authorship, the publication and reception of her novels, and her global legacy.
Course Research
CPEC 213: Inventing Nature
In this CPE-C, students with a passion for Natural History museums and the History of Science will collaborate as a curatorial team to research, curate, design, and mount a public exhibition drawn from Goucher’s Natural History Collection. First assembled and displayed in the late 19th century Museum of the Woman’s College of Baltimore (Old Goucher), Goucher’s Natural history collection has been hiding in plain sight in the basement of Hoffberger Hall, in nooks and crannies around campus, and in area institutions since the 1940s.
VMC 230: Stimson Project
The Stimson Project originated with students in the Historic Preservation program in the spring of 2019. Following the closure of Stimson Hall in 2018, these students, who were keenly aware of the importance of preservation, resolved to launch a major research effort to document the history, architecture, and memories of this once beloved dormitory. Opened in 1966, Stimson Hall was for many years a popular residence hall and a center of campus life.
ART 383/BKS 383: The Art and History of the Book
This course surveys the history of the book and book illustration, with emphasis on the expressive design of word and image from ancient scrolls and the medieval codex to the printed and hypertext page.
VMC 287: Preserving a World War II Diary
In the summer of 2013, Mary Goetz of Aberdeen, Maryland donated the World War II diary of her husband, Vernon Goetz, to the Special Collections and Archives division of the Goucher College Library. Fascinated with this remarkable diary, students in the Historic Preservation program transcribed and annotated the diary and its many inserted documents during the spring of 2014. In the spring of 2023, another group of Historic Preservation students studied the diary, reviewed the transcription and annotation work of the 2014 students, and then incorporated it into a digitized version of the Vernon Goetz Diary.