Jessie Edens is…

I’m a world history student at Kennesaw State University, graduating with a B.A. in July 2010. World history and culture has so far been a very rewarding realm of studies, allowing her to study including public history, Asian politics, the Ramayana epic of India, the fascinating history of Stone Mountain, and Chinese language.

Born in Upper Michigan to Yooper parents, I’ve lived in the North eleven years, and in the South for nearly twelve. I’ve spent the last three+ years in the Metro Atlanta area, except for the two months spent earning an Asian Studies minor in China, in the summer of 2007.

I spent two-and-a-half years reporting and editing at the Sentinel, KSU’s student newspaper. After a year as Arts & Living editor, I became Editor in Chief, and managed the paper for two semesters (spring and fall 2008) in that role. It was a weekly, tiring, and immensely rewarding job.

Since those days at the newspaper, I have really grown to admire the field of public history, finding the challenge of coordinating historians’ hopes with the public’s needs thrilling, a chance to strive for a meeting point between the two. In the fall of 2009, I co-curated an exhibit on the Tuskegee Airmen alongside peers in the public history program at KSU (there’s a post on that). This was an amazing first step into working history, being able to turn the primary sources on aviation history and the racial and social history of the twentieth century into a traveling exhibit. I am currently working on getting into graduate school to pursue this field further, as it combines research, writing, education, public relations–all great things.

I’m a bit of an expert on Rev. Young J. Allen, a Methodist missionary who traveled to China in the nineteenth century to spread the gospel, and wound up spreading education, journalism, and literary works and translated books much more effectively. He was the subject of my senior history thesis, allowing me the experience of digging into the archives at Emory University in Atlanta.

I’ve got a penchant for odd notebooks, and collects them without any intention to actually fill an entire one. But I sure do a lot of writing, between upper-level history classes and a website.

I share a respect for fine design and fashion with her mother, a lifelong custom sewing and creative design artist. With her guiding advice, I completed my first quilt in 2009 (there’s a post on that, too), and have moved on to whimsical projects like aprons, pincushions, and purses. Every day I work to surround herself with beautiful, inspiring creations, a goal that has contributed to a new-found addiction to buying yards of lovely fabrics for potential projects.

I hope to be an Asian expert someday, being a mere novice now. I have very rudimentary skills in Chinese, but will someday be fluent. I want to visit India. I want to create, learn, research, and have an impact on people’s lives, or at least share with them some of the most amazing elements and colors of history. I want children I can send to pre-school at the Smithsonian.

I have a tortoise-shell-colored cat named Avery, who adds a hundred pounds of joy to each day.

Ben M. has done the design work for this site; I am so grateful for his assistance and patience.