Jump to Content

Collection Guide
Collection Title:
Collection Number:
Get Items:
Register of the Routt Tokay High School Local History Collection, 1989-1995
Mss287  
View entire collection guide What's This?
Search this collection
Collection Details
 
Table of contents What's This?
  • Descriptive Summary
  • Administrative Information
  • Access Points
  • Biography
  • Scope and Content

  • Descriptive Summary

    Title: Routt Tokay High School Local History Collection,
    Date (inclusive): 1989-1995
    Collection number: Mss287
    Creator: Steve Routt
    Extent: 33.5 linear ft.
    Repository: University of the Pacific. Library. Holt-Atherton Department of Special Collections
    Stockton, CA 95211
    Shelf location: For current information on the location of these materials, please consult the library's online catalog.
    Language: English.

    Administrative Information

    Access

    Collection is open for research.

    Preferred Citation

    [Identification of item], Routt Tokay High School Local History Collection, Mss287, Holt-Atherton Department of Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library

    Access Points

    personal name

    Routt,, Steve

    coporate name

    Tokay High School (Lodi, Calif.)

    subject

    San Joaquin County (Calif.) -History -Sources
    Lodi (Calif.) -History -Sources
    Stockton (Calif.) -History -Sources
    Women -California -San Joaquin County -Interviews
    Asian Americans -California -San Joaquin County -Interviews
    Businessmen -California -San Joaquin County -Interviews
    Historians -California -San Joaquin County -Interviews
    Police -California -San Joaquin County -Interviews
    Physicians -California -San Joaquin County -Interviews
    Farmers -California -San Joaquin County -Interviews
    Clergy -California -San Joaquin County -Interviews
    Educators -California -San Joaquin County -Interviews
    Fire fighters -California -San Joaquin County -Interviews
    Mexican Americans -California -San Joaquin County -Interviews
    African Americans -California -San Joaquin County -Interviews
    Muslims -California -San Joaquin County -Interviews
    Amador County (Calif.) -History -Sources
    Vintners -California -San Joaquin County -Interviews

    Biography

    Steve Routt (b. 1943) has taught English at Tokay High School (Lodi, California) since 1982. Routt, a fourth generation Californian with a considerable interest in the history of his native state, holds a Master of Arts in Education from California State University, Chico. In about 1987 someone gave Mr. Routt a copy of Eliot Wigginton's Sometimes a Shining Moment: The Foxfire Experience (1972). This book, which chronicles Georgia English teacher Wigginton's efforts to involve his students in writing by interviewing locals and chronicling the life and history of their region, inspired Steve Routt to create an Oral History Project at Tokay High School.
    The Tokay High School English curriculum requires that sophomores be exposed to some sort of research project. Steve Routt found that students liked exposure to "real people" and enjoyed doing work that wasn't classroom oriented. Routt's plan was to assist the students to realize the role of history in their lives through the wealth of information they could garner by means of personal interviews with those who had "been there." Initially the Oral History Project focused on government and on general topics like the Vietnam War. Subsequently, these were displaced by San Joaquin County topics with a past history of at least fifty years. Since spring 1993, each semester's best papers have been published in The Grape Press, the Oral History Project's own local history magazine. Students have a semester to interview at least one person, transcribe the interview and write a ten page paper based on the transcript. Each completed project contains photographs, the written report, the interview tape and transcript. All students find the project challenging, and, although they are neither accomplished writers nor sophisticated research scholars, they make a substantial contribution to future San Joaquin County history research through their record of the comments and observations of individuals who have spent considerable time in the County. It is Routt's hope that future generations will have a better understanding of the twentieth century through the work of his student researchers and that the students themselves will come to realize that the work they have done will be valued long after they are gone.

    Scope and Content

    The Routt Collection contains local histories by Tokay High School (Lodi, Calif.) students together with audio tapes of interviews with source persons which formed part of the basis for the student papers (1989-1995). Subject matter ranges from general topics like "juvenile delinquency" to very specific ones such as "The Lodi Muslim Mosque." The bulk of the essays and interview tapes focus on San Joaquin County where Tokay High School is located.