This past February, Ms. Eszter Rakita presented her paper entitled “Social-Economic Reasons and Consequences of Mass Migration from Hungary to the USA at the End of the 19th Century” at the 58th Annual Florida Conference of Historians. Eszter is an archivist at the Institute of History/Tittel Pál Library at Eszterházy Károly University. Here, Eszter works with primary sources, creates databases, writes articles and gives presentations at conferences.
Hosted by New College of Florida, the annual meeting provides historians a unique opportunity to participate in one of the nation’s most rewarding regional history conferences. Accompanied by László Ambrus, Eszter had the opportunity to work with other noteworthy historians, improve her English, and learn about life in American academia. She observed how how American historians cooperate, solve problems etc. and discovered new methods that she can incorporate into both her research and teaching.
“Professionally, I have gained a lot of valuable experience. I presented my paper to American experts, who made some interesting comments which will help me further my research.”
The knowledge and experience Eszter gained can be best used in her research and publication activities. At the FCH Annual Meeting she heard many resourceful presentations in which the presenters spoke about their researches, and research methodologies. Eszter also saw first hand how a professional organization like the Florida Conference of Historians arranges an event as big as this, which provided her with useful knowledge she can use when organizing future conferences.
“I could learn a lot from these presentations, and I plan to build these learnings to my work at home.From these, and the remarks I received after my own presentation, I could discover some new approaches for the future forming of my PhD-dissertation.”
According to Eszter, the leaders of FCH, Dr. David Proctor and Dr. Jesse Hingsman were very helpful and responsive to the idea of future cooperation. One such opportunity will be the next issue of the FCH Annals, a professional periodical edited and published by FCH, in which one of her papers will be published next year. The organizers also invited both Eszter and László to attend next year’s conference.
“I would like to thank Hungary Foundation for supporting my work by making it possible to attend this conference. It was very resourceful for my research and my professional career.”