UNDERFOOT: An Everyday Guide to Exploring the American Past

by David Weitzman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1976

Interest aroused by the Bicentennial and focused by Alex Haley's Roots may be pursued with the aid of this thoroughly engaging, well-informed guide to the sources of family and community history. An extensive section on tapping family reminiscences leads off, featuring an excerpt from Roots along with other samples, and pointers on conducting tape-recorder interviews. Others take up old photographs (how to organize family prints and negatives; how to copy photos and documents, including difficult daguerrotypes); compiling genealogies from family and public records; learning from cemeteries; researching and recording old skills and industrial sites; purposeful, professional-style collecting (with bottles as an example); studying and recording historical buildings; delving in the library. In the last instance, indicatively, the reader is advised that checking out old books prolongs their shelf-life, and is provided with directions for producing a general or subject index of a local newspaper, ""a valuable community resource."" Ideal for energetic students and older folks with spare time.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1976

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Scribners

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1976

Categories: NONFICTION