By Joya Xu Class of 2025

The Evolution of Mental Health Treatment in America Through the Lens of Danvers State Hospital

Editor’s Note: The History Fellowship program offers students the opportunity to conduct college-level independent research on a historical topic of their choice, resulting in a substantial academic paper and oral presentation. Through guided discussions, structured support, and access to both on- and off-campus sources, students learn and apply the practices of professional historians.

In the 1940s, a mother who could no longer discipline her son sent him to a towering state hospital on Hathorne Hill to receive treatment. When officials asked him to sign his name forty years later, he held a pen up to the paper and drew a rough sketch of the hospital. The consequences of neglect and inadequate treatment this story, a feature in a September 6, 1987 issue of the Lynn Sunday Post article entitled “Too Many Patients to Treat, Human Flood Turned Hospital into Madhouse,” exemplifies was not an uncommon occurrence at the State Lunatic Hospital at Danvers, which later came to be known as the Danvers State Hospital. Although many patients entered for mental health reasons, several of them ultimately became prisoners at this snake pit of a hospital.

By Eliza Visconsi Class of 2025

Dual Lenses: Art and Documentation in the Photography of Dorothea Lange

Editor’s Note: The History Fellowship program offers students the opportunity to conduct college-level independent research on a historical topic of their choice, resulting in a substantial academic paper and oral presentation. Through guided discussions, structured support, and access to both on- and off-campus sources, students learn and apply the practices of professional historians.

“We’ve had no work since March. The worst thing we did was when we sold the car, but we had to sell it to eat, and now we can’t get away from here. . . . This county’s a hard county. They won’t help bury you here. If you die, you’re dead, that’s all.” Nettie Featherston, a migrant woman, wife, and mother living in the impoverished Texas Panhandle during the height of the American Great Depression, said these words to Dorothea Lange. Lange was a photographer working for the New Deal’s Farm Security Administration, traveling across rural America to tell the stories of its suffering inhabitants through photography. By saying, “they won’t help bury you here,” Featherston verbalizes a sense of government abandonment and a lack of solidarity with others. This quote explicitly describes her exhaustion and hopelessness, and the accompanying image implies it. By viewing both, one could observe and understand her fatigue, a feeling shared by many Americans during the Great Depression.

By Linda Li Class of 2025

Peace Or Chaos: The Media’s Legacy of Woodstock & Altamont

Editor’s Note: The History Fellowship program offers students the opportunity to conduct college-level independent research on a historical topic of their choice, resulting in a substantial academic paper and oral presentation. Through guided discussions, structured support, and access to both on- and off-campus sources, students learn and apply the practices of professional historians.

It all started in 1967 with an ad in The Wall Street Journal: “Young men with unlimited capital looking for interesting, legitimate business opportunities and business propositions.” What followed was an unlikely collaboration that would culminate in one of the most iconic cultural events of the twentieth century. Two years later, half a million people gathered on a farm in Bethel, New York, for what would be billed as “three days of peace and music,” witnessing the most iconic musical performances of the decade. However, Woodstock was far from the utopia we remember it as; plagued with heavy rain, food shortages, deaths, and overdoses. Still, Woodstock became a culturally defining moment that lived on through movies, books, and songs, symbolizing the peace and love of 1960s counterculture.

By Justin Lu Class of 2025

Unit 731: The Haunting Legacy of Ishii Shiro

Editor’s Note: The History Fellowship program offers students the opportunity to conduct college-level independent research on a historical topic of their choice, resulting in a substantial academic paper and oral presentation. Through guided discussions, structured support, and access to both on- and off-campus sources, students learn and apply the practices of professional historians.

Six prison guards forcibly submerge a man’s arm into a tub of ice. The man screams and begs them to let go, seeking any last ounce of humanity. The guards stare coldly at him, their faces devoid of expression. A doctor in an all-white lab coat stands behind a glass panel and barks an order in a foreign language. Then, the guards finally release him. The man realizes that, to his horror, his arm is now frozen solid with a thin film of ice covering every inch of his skin. He falls to his knees, catching his breath, but the doctor shouts something from behind the glass. The man looks up to see the guards with a lit blowtorch.

By Jamie Li Class of 2025

The Cost of Progress: Black American Sign Language and the Cultural Paradox of Integration

Editor’s Note: The History Fellowship program offers students the opportunity to conduct college-level independent research on a historical topic of their choice, resulting in a substantial academic paper and oral presentation. Through guided discussions, structured support, and access to both on- and off-campus sources, students learn and apply the practices of professional historians.

During the 2023 Super Bowl halftime show, Rihanna’s performance fascinated millions. At the same time, her American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter drew substantial attention with her confident and expressive performance, inciting millions of likes on social media. As the first Black Deaf woman to perform in a Superbowl show, Justina Miles, the interpreter, received praise on social media, including comments like “sis was Rihanna in her other life,” “She was the real halftime show,” and “sis should’ve performed on stage.” Little did most viewers know that she was using Black ASL, a dialect of ASL born from segregation and shaped by the intersection of Black and Deaf cultures.

By Gregory Li Class of 2025

CISC versus RISC: The Rift at the Heart of Modern Computer Design

Editor’s Note: The History Fellowship program offers students the opportunity to conduct college-level independent research on a historical topic of their choice, resulting in a substantial academic paper and oral presentation. Through guided discussions, structured support, and access to both on- and off-campus sources, students learn and apply the practices of professional historians.

On December 1, 2024, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger resigned in a surprise move that left the company scrambling to find a successor. During his tenure, from 2021 to 2024, Gelsinger led the company through one of its toughest downturns; Intel’s market value plummeted from $250 billion when he took over to a measly $100 billion today. Once a tech powerhouse, Intel now pales in comparison to AI giants like Nvidia and Microsoft. Its $100 billion valuation is a mere rounding error next to the trillion-dollar market values of its rivals. How did this happen? The answer to this, and many other broad shifts within the technology industry, lies in a decades-long ideological clash in computer architecture –– something that has foundationally molded the development of modern computer technologies.

By Vanessa Leung Class of 2025

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: How Feminism Was Founded in Dominant Patriarchy

Editor’s Note: The History Fellowship program offers students the opportunity to conduct college-level independent research on a historical topic of their choice, resulting in a substantial academic paper and oral presentation. Through guided discussions, structured support, and access to both on- and off-campus sources, students learn and apply the practices of professional historians.

“But I still insist, that not only the virtue, but the knowledge of the two sexes should be the same in nature, if not in degree, and that women, considered not only as moral, but rational creatures, ought to endeavour to acquire human virtues (or perfections) by thesame means as men, instead of being educated like a fanciful kind of half being.” These words are taken from A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft, an English writer and Enlightenment Thinker in the late eighteenth century. She is also considered one of history’s first feminists. Many of her written works promote gender equality by arguing or equal education for both sexes and opposing female stereotypes. In the quote above, Wollstonecraft argues that values and knowledge should be the same for both sexes because women are as capable as men and should be respected as “rational creatures” instead of sentimental “half being[s].” In the spirit of the Enlightenment, which strove for liberty and rights, Mary Wollstonecraft lived a daring life, testing boundaries and contesting social norms. Self-educated and bold, she took inspiration from her personal life and used knowledge to spread her belief that change for women was possible and defiance could lead the way.

By Lori Cui Class of 2025

Rainbow Berlin: The Rise and Fall of Queer German History

Editor’s Note: The History Fellowship program offers students the opportunity to conduct college-level independent research on a historical topic of their choice, resulting in a substantial academic paper and oral presentation. Through guided discussions, structured support, and access to both on- and off-campus sources, students learn and apply the practices of professional historians.

One evening in 1899, a young, male soldier stood on the doorstep of Magnus Hirschfeld’s medical practice in Magdeburg, Germany. He came to confess that he was an Urning, an old German word for homosexual. At that time, Germany criminalized homosexuality under Paragraph 175 of its Constitution. The soldier faced legal punishment for his sexuality. That night was also the eve of his wedding. Distraught, the soldier wanted to take his own life. Hirschfeld tried to console the soldier, but the soldier nonetheless subsequently killed himself. After his death, the soldier bequeathed his private papers and a letter to Hirschfeld, writing that “the thought that you could contribute to [a future] when the German fatherland will think of us in more just terms, sweetens the hour of death.” The soldier thought of himself to be a “curse” because of his sexuality, and saw no place in the world for him to live under heteronormative standards and pressures. The tragedy became a turning point for Hirschfeld, who set out to combine his medical experience and identity as a homosexual man to become an activist for
homosexual rights and against Paragraph 175.