Part time job as a Historian by Graham

Part time job as a Historian by Graham - December 2016 Scholarship Essay

I am very proud of my accomplishment in the part time job I have held as a high school student. This accomplishment was rewarding in that I learned the history of one our founding fathers first hand. Over the past two years, I have had the amazing opportunity to work for a historian and author based in Gordonsville, Virginia.
Dr. Billy Wayson and I worked on gathering letters from President Thomas Jefferson and his estates. My job was to search for President Jefferson’s letters that he sent to business colleagues using a website called Founders Online. Once I found the applicable letter, I read it and documented dates and whom the letter was going to. Some of the letters contained financial statements stating that President Jefferson owed money due to a business dealing. Once I finished reading the letter I would copy and paste the letter into a Google Document. For ease of searching, Dr. Wayson asked that I create a unique heading so it would be easy to find once I was finished putting the documents together. I archived the documents using Google Sheets. Once my part of the project was completed, Dr. Wayson synthesized my data and wrote a book using my research. The name of the book is Martha Jefferson Randolph: Republican Daughter & Planation Mistress.
I am very proud that I was able to contribute to this scholarly book. It gave me a better understanding of United States history subject in high school and helped shape that I want to become a lawyer. I continue to work for Dr. Wayson on a similar project for his next book on President Jefferson focusing on Jefferson’s financials.