Lillian Pachner and Henry Wehrs, “The Birth of Zero Bibliography Curation”
Mentor: Amanda Seligman, History

Our objective for this undertaking is to curate a collection of sources about the birth of the polar bear “Zero” at the Washington Park Zoo in the 1910s. This collection of sources will be used by History 450 students in the fall semester of 2021 to research the characters that they will be portraying for the Historical Twitter Re-enactment of the birth of Zero. Our goal is to find credible, academic, and unique sources that further the students’ understanding of the personality of the historical figure. These sources will also provide insight into some of the accomplishments, shortcomings, and important events the historical figure was involved with. These sources will facilitate the writing of about 20 tweets per character by the student. These tweets will be the backbone of 2021’s Historical Twitter Re-enactment. We are utilizing local archives such as the UWM archives and the archives at the Wisconsin Historical society to create this bibliography of sources. Once we find a source that seems like it may be helpful to furthering the class’s research, we read through it and analyze it to make sure that it is appropriate for the project. Our expected conclusions are that we will successfully curate a variety of sources that will lead to the success of the students in their endeavor. We are expecting that it may be challenging to find sources about certain aspects of the event, but we are confident that our pursuit of these sources will be fruitful, and this year’s Twitter re-enactment will be successful and fun. An implication of this project is that the students will gain transferable skills like research and source analysis through the use of this bibliography.

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