After months of research, the Hingham Junior class have completed and submitted their National History Day projects for this year’s competition. NHD is a national competition that students from across America enter with the possibility of being selected to attend the national contest in D.C.
Each year students are responsible for creating a project presenting a topic in American History of their choosing. However, the chosen topic must connect to the annual theme, this year it being “Rights and Responsibilities.” This year, students choose topics ranging from The Triangle Shirtwaste Fire to The History of American Girl Dolls. Using their extensive research, participants in the competition create a final project in the form of a written paper, documentary, website, performance or visual presentation.
Junior Livie Correnti will bring her project “The 1963 Children’s March on Birmingham: Children Increase Awareness of Civil Rights Movement” to the second round of competition. She explains “I chose to write a paper for my project. I spent a lot of time on my research and it definitely took a long time, but I’m relieved to be finally finished.” The time consuming demands of completing NHD on top of other assignments and responsibilities certainly adds to students’ overall stress levels. Many HHS students agree on the intensity and difficulty of junior year. For those planning on applying to colleges, junior year involves rigorous academic curriculum, building extracurricular resumes, and studying for the SAT and ACT tests. While some students are putting the project behind them after their final draft submissions, others selected for the second round of competition will continue to work to refine projects in preparation for local and possibly national competitions.
Juniors Brooke Jagielski and Hannah Fortune chose the particularly interesting topic The History of Barbie. Brooke Jagielski shares, “I love how we get to choose a topic we’re interested in as it makes the long process more enjoyable.” While NHD involves immense research and preparation the project holds value in its unique opportunities for students to research topics of interest that would not normally be covered in a traditional history course. Although Barbie Dolls are not usually the first thing that comes to mind when discussing American History, the pair created a fascinating display covering the history of the toy company in relation to the American Womens Rights movement.
Regardless of qualification to move further in the competition, the class of 2026 should be proud of their captivating projects and hard work over this school year.
