Barret Daniel Lybbert and Dr. Brian Roberts, English/ American Studies
Experiences:
This past summer I was able to travel to New York City from 5 July to 12 July. My initial plan was to stay a few days in a hotel and a few in a student hostel. However, I saved money by networking with a few of my father’s contacts and found an LDS family (BYU alumni) to host me while I was staying in the city. It was very helpful to have a New Yorker to guide me through my first few days in the city. I spent the first day navigating the library and acquiring and completing the necessary documents to request access to the archive materials I wished to see. I was permitted to research in the Berg Collection of English and American Literature at the Schwartzman main branch of the New York Public Library. Here, I found the librarians helpful and was pleased with my experiences.
Problems/Adaptations:
In my communications with the librarians before I arrived it was discovered through extensive catalogue searches that there were very few documents in their collection pertaining to F. Scott Fitzgerald, and nothing on Tender is the Night. I considered this situation and decided that the goals and purposes of my project would still be achieved if I chose another American writer’s papers to research. I quickly redirected my research to John Steinbeck, specifically the novel, Travels with Charley: an autobiographical, novel-like retelling of Steinbeck’s cross-country travels in the mid 1960s with his French poodle, Charley. Approach: My first day in the archives I read through the catalogue making notes about the various manuscripts, letters, rare books, and documents for John Steinbeck. I then decided that I would be able to find something in these items to focus on and develop a new thesis for my paper. The next few days I carefully examined and read nearly everything Steinbeck related in the Berg Collection’s catalogue.
Successes:
I found several interesting items in the catalogue. Particularly relevant to my research was one of a few existing drafts of the Travels with Charley. The major differences between this final draft and the published version is a particular encounter Steinbeck had in the South where he visited a school that had begun to integrate the students. Both versions contain the encounter, but the unpublished one includes vulgarities that I suspect Steinbeck and his editors found perhaps too vicious and ugly to include in the final draft.
Further research required:
Though my methods of research, and my overall goals remained the same, I did have to change my topic of research. Therefore, the preliminary research that I did on Fitzgerald, before I left to New York was irrelevant. I have had to conduct new research concerning the academic conversations regarding Steinbeck and Travels with Charley. At this time I am still doing additional research on these subjects.
Plans to finish project:
I have found to focus my research on the journey that Steinbeck made, and what in particular made him want to go. Through these journey’s many Americans (and foreigners) have attempted to “know” America; they have attempted to define, discover, and describe the uniqueness and the “stuff” through which America exists–lives. I plan to finish this paper during the 2012 Winter term and submit it to the BYU Student Journal–Americana for publication.