Brief Bio:

 So, this is Shaun and I'm finally adding to the Wiki.

My bio...hmmm...I grew up in a small village (365 people, one for every day of the year) near Bowling Green, Ohio, which is near Toledo in Northwest Ohio. I graduated from Bowling Green State University with a degree in education (social studies, basically dooming myself to unemployment forever). Before that, I got married in 2003 (March 13th) and literally the next day was sent off to fight in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Fortuantely I did not fight, but rather spent most of my time sweating and drving around in a big Humvee (which was actually kind of fun).

Things I Like: Baseball, local history, documentaries, photography (and art in general). reading, playing video games, and of course Coroner Case Files.

Things I Dislike: Hearing criticism about me secondhand, theory (most of the time), pompous people, and relying on others to drive me anywhere because I almost inevitably want to leave before the person who drove me does.

Now I'm here in the 'Burgh hoping to get a MLIS (again, probably dooming myself to perpetual unemployment, but a boy has to have dreams) at the University of Pittsburgh.

Working Notes:

 Since I'm interested in the develoment of cities (how they grow, why they grow, where they grow, etc.) I've been very interested in seeing and learning about how people died in Pittsburgh throughout the 20th century. To me, it's very interesting to see the deadly affects of modernity and increased old age on a population and looking at the files is a sort of grounds-up way to observe this first hand, often in the form of very intimate firt-person accounts. It's vouyreistically(?) and intellectually stimulating at the same time.  (09-13-07)

One of the first "interests" I developed when working on the files was the deaths I saw resulting from botched abortions. Being married to a feminist I've grown gradually interested in the evolution of female rights in America and it's sad to see the results of a lack of family planning options in a city although, at the same time not surprising due to the time period and the Catholic culture which I understand was prominent in Pittsburgh during the earlier parts of the 20th century. I've taken paritcular interest in the folk medicines women at the time used to induce abortions and I plan on adding what I can about these on the Wiki as I learn more about them.  (09-13-07)

One thing about the Great Depression that hadn't occured to me until working on this project and seeing all of the suicides that were a result of it is that when people mention the Great Depression, they usually just talk about unemployment and the stock market crash. What seems overshadowed is the human toll. We read about all of these suicides in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County alone. Who knows how many people in the US, and even the world, committed suicide because of the Great Depression?

And that's really just one side of it. Who knows how many stress-related murders and health problems resulted from it? When people are under constant pressure from being unemployed and poor, people snap. They get sick. You see more things like murder-suicides, etc. People die of malnutrition and exposure, which I think we've seen already.

I guess my point is that I've never heard a human toll attached to the Great Depression, and that's what we're getting a small slice of right now. It's very interesting. (SH 10-10-07)

One source of frustration for me in this project is that I personally only process one or two boxes a week. It seems that as a group, we're going through around 12 per week, and I feel like I'm missing out on a great deal of information and stories. I know this Wiki is designed to alleviate that to some extent, but I can't help but feel that there are great patterns and concepts that I'm not picking up on that I would be if I were more involved with the project. The issues inherent to this project, such as urban history, history of medicine and disease, etc., there are all things I'm very interested in academically, and it bothers me that I'm not being exposed to as much of it that I feel I could be.   SH 10-28