Local Schools: Exploring Their History.
By Ronald E. Butchart. Nashville: The American Association for State and Local History, 1986. Illustrations. Bibliographies. Index. 124 Pages. $9.95 Paper.
Schools are an important topic in local history. The history of schools can touch on many social, economic, intellectual and even religious aspects of a community. Anyone planning to write a history of a local school should consult the new volume in the American Association for State and Local History's Nearby History Series, Local Schools: Exploring Their History, by Ronald E. Butchart. The author will help you understand the nature and importance of the history of a school. He will assist you to focus your research topic more precisely; will explain the kinds of sources available, where and how to find them, and how to evaluate and use them. The three chapters on sources -- written, oral, visual and material -- are the best parts of the book. Those chapters contain information which will be useful to any historian writing on virtually any topic in local history.
