Lee Willis, assistant professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, looks at notes prepared by Blake Marlowe, right, a history and social science student assisting him with research on the resettlement of former slaves during the early 19th century.
 
 

Student’s professor, research influence career plans

When people ask Blake Marlowe what he plans to do with his University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point history and social science majors, the future teacher has an answer ready.

“I want my students to use history to imagine things in new ways and put themselves in someone else’s shoes,” Marlowe said. “It has surprised me how vast a discipline history really is. People see it as finite, as distinct markers of historic events. There’s so much more to explore and new things to discover.”

Discovering history is just what Marlowe has been doing as he prepares for teaching through an undergraduate research project with Lee Willis, chair of the history department at UW-Stevens Point. By transcribing old court cases and newspaper articles from the mid-19th century, Marlowe has been exploring what happened to freed slaves and those taken from slave ships that were resettled in Liberia by the U.S. government between 1808 and 1861.  

Slavery was legal in the United States during this time, but importing slaves was not, Willis said. Slaves were being smuggled into the United States, then auctioned off or sold. To stop this, the U.S. Navy began intercepting the slave ships and, following a British resettlement of former slaves in Sierra Leone, took the slaves to the Liberian settlement. This caused overpopulation and conflicts with the natives of that country.

“We want to find out what happened to these people when they got there and what impact they had on Liberia,” said Willis, who hopes to publish articles and a book about the project. He asked Marlowe to assist because of his outstanding record as a student and for his experience in paleography, the study of old handwriting.

“I knew Blake had the abilities needed for a long-term project that is really master’s degree-level work,” Willis said.

“I didn’t know what the research would entail, but it has been beyond my expectations,” Marlowe said. “It’s a lot of fun and I’m learning a lot. I’m not just writing down facts, I’m condensing and processing information and taking an active, engaged role in a very interesting topic.”

Undergraduate research opportunities help students in a variety of ways, Willis said.

“Historians need to be as objective as possible and cover as many perspectives as possible. How you pull together the research fragments influences the story, so it requires thinking on your feet, troubleshooting and developing analytic skills that can be transferred to any type of work.”

“Trying to connect the dots between seemingly unrelated sources has been a big part of this project,” Marlowe said. “It’s incredible to get the full story – one I’ve never heard before.”

The three students working on Willis’ research will present some of their findings as part of the College of Letters and Science Undergraduate Research Symposium from 2 to 5 p.m. May 1 at the UW-Stevens Point Science Building.

“Before this, I didn’t know what it was like to be a historian,” Marlowe said. “Professor Willis has a great passion for what he does, and that rubs off on everyone he’s worked with in his classroom and with his research.”

A West Allis native, Marlowe hopes to teach in Milwaukee both during his student teaching semester in fall and in his career after graduating in December. His research on slavery is preparing him for teaching and will be a part of his curriculum where he feels he can have the greatest impact – in inner city schools.

“Minority studies in general should be taught in more schools,” he said. “I hope to validate my students as individuals and relate what they are learning to their own experiences. Students learn better if it is relevant to them. They want to learn their own history.”