TRAVELING is defined not only by the places you see, but also by the people you meet along the way. While traveling this Spring Break, I happened to sit next to an elderly woman who quite unexpectedly taught me an invaluable life lesson.

She was what one might call a personal historian. She had chronicled each and every chapter of her life, preserving all different forms of records obtained since she was a young girl. She told me with pride about the multitude of scrapbooks, letters, journals, photos, crafts and even shadowboxes preserved in her house documenting her life from her elementary school years to retirement.
Awards and honors, report cards, job records and even old academic exams with mediocre grades — she had kept them all. Years from now, she hopes that her children and grandchildren will look at her successes and failures and learn from her life story. She also had documented her family’s history, one deeply fragmented as a result of slavery. Nonetheless, oral storytelling from her grandfather helped fill in some of the gaps of her genealogy, and she has since copied down his memories so that they never would be lost.

Though we spoke for a little less than an hour, this woman managed to instill in me an appreciation for historical preservation and family history. As young individuals, we seem to be in a perpetual state of motion toward something “more,” a distant future. Yet each day we form memories that will be valuable to future generations and particularly to our future families. Just as the history of our ancestors remains central to our identities, our own histories and life accomplishments likely will be of interest to our descendents. By keeping well-organized and detailed records of our years, we are able to map our own growth and chronicle our personal histories.

Looking back, many histories have been lost as a result of social restrictions, death or natural tragedy. In particular, histories of blacks, American Indians, women and immigrants were fragmented as a result of low social status. History was kept by the wealthy — particularly those who knew how to read and write. The history of the common man or the second-class citizen was given little thought. The dominant theory of history, popularized by Scottish writer Thomas Carlyle, understood it as “but the biography of great men.”

Influential philosophers including Friedrich Nietzsche, Georg Hegel and Oswald Spengler also upheld the “Great Man” theory, and it is evident in historical records such as the Encyclopedia Britannica Eleventh Edition, published in 1911. By World War II, though, the “Great Man” theory had been replaced by theories of history that focused on more complex social, political, economic and geographical factors.

Today, history is no longer focused on the version of the past that is told only by world leaders, but instead focuses more intently on the scientific investigation of society and social relationships. Theories of historiography vary, however, and different historians place emphasis on different forces at play. In the United States’ democratic society, for example, emphasis has recently shifted to the study of “history from below” — that is, the study of the past through the accounts of ordinary individuals. By collecting the history of the everyday man, we have been better able to understand the varied experiences of our culturally diverse population.

Therefore, preserving records of our cultural and personal lives is of great import since family history and individual narratives provide for educational growth. For minorities whose histories were once silenced, it is particularly pressing to document life experiences in the 21st-century United States. If we learn about and maintain individual histories, we can commemorate the resilience of past generations that struggled against social forces such as poverty, war, disease or racism.

As university students, we are building our own biographies. Our individual histories continually are being shaped by our daily struggles and accomplishments. These experiences are not inconsequential and will, in fact, be of great significance to us in our later years. In addition, our experiences will be valuable to our children and grandchildren as they begin their lives. For this reason, rather than tossing that term paper at the end of the semester or recycling that difficult exam, we should consider preserving our work and building our own historical narratives. We also can ask more questions of our elder relatives, search our genealogies and learn more about our family histories. Though we hardly can predict where our futures may lead us, we can move toward our destinies with our pasts in mind.

Ashley Chappo’s column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at a.chappo@cavalierdaily.com.