Your assignment instructions will walk you through all the parts of this project. Refer to them often. Use the NPS link below to browse possible sites/parks to use for this project. Explore a few of them- make sure you can connect them to Economics- before you select one.
The "best" option below will depend largely on your topic, keywords, and context. Start in JSTOR (use "Images" to find primary source photographs) and Library of Congress, then explore more as needed.
Try our multi-database search tool for more sources!
The National Park Service App and National Parks Service Pocket Maps are two apps that may be useful too.
Keywords are the terms you use to search for sources. As you learn the basics about your park or site (from the park ranger and/or NPS website), look for answers to these questions- they can provide you with keywords to use as you look for sources:
To have successful searches for the Kalaupapa National Historic Park (the site of a former leper colony), a variety of search terms is necessary. They are roughly sorted by different ideas (the disease, the colony aspect, the location, important people related to the forced isolation, etc.):
These terms can be mixed and matched to find valuable sources (both primary and secondary)!
You may find, and need to use historical terms that we don't use today (i.e. Hansen's disease is the preferred term for leprosy as leprosy has a lot of stigma associated to it).
You can do a search for the time period of the person/event the park/site was built for and add "economics" as a starting point. For example:
Use other economics terms you've learned in class as needed.
You need three primary sources related to the person or event that your selected National Historic Site or Park was named or built for. To be considered a primary source, it should be from the time you are studying (or from someone who was there during the time/event) and represent a "first hand" account or evidence. Think of things like: maps, personal diaries, letters, photographs, artwork, music lyrics, transaction receipts, bills of sale, hospital records, government pamphlets or documents, meeting minutes, data, speeches (written or recorded), legal documents, advertisements, etc.
If you find a source that interprets, analyzes, or provides a second-hand opinion, it is considered secondary. These provide us some "distance" from the original event, idea, research, etc. Think of things like books (they may base their research off primary sources but are putting them together in their own way), articles, literature reviews, book critiques or reviews...
Check out the video below or the Primary and Secondary Sources page linked in the menu for more on primary and secondary sources.
Part of your NPS project is to answer this question: What about this historical park is economically significant/important? Use economic terms and theories as you can to explain its significance and its impact on socioeconomic situations both then and today.
I've always wanted to visit Hawaii and I'm interested in public health, so the Kalaupapa National Historic Park was really interesting to me.
I searched the internet for the terms Kalawao leper colony economy and discovered that because it was a state-sponsored forced isolation, there wasn't much of an economy as they relied on outside sources. There's an article about the development on Molokai from the Smithsonian Magazine that provides historical and current context into the economy of the island (and Kalaupapa peninsula). And what looks like book chapter called "Sugarcane and Lepers: U.S. Health Policy and the Colonization of Hawa'ii (1860-1900)" by Emily Kern, which looks like a very in depth discussion that discusses how the plantation economy tied into health policy and colonization.
I should reach out to my instructor to see if I can go further with this in terms of "plantation economy" (being a big reason Kalawao was created in the first place), or if I need to go another direction. Maybe I should have done this first... oops!
