This post is part of our Research in Reflection Spotlight Series, which will run through August 2025. After a decade of active and intense research and data creation, the WPHP is coming to a close this summer. To celebrate, this series shares reflections on the WPHP by our Research Assistants, Project Manager, past Project Manager turned Lead Editor, and Project Director, featuring memories, research, lessons learned, and ultimately the impact of the WPHP on the team who produced it.
Authored by: Amanda Law
Edited by: Michelle Levy and Kate Moffatt
Submitted on: 08/14/2025
Citation: Law, Amanda. "Reflections of a Research Assistant: The Multitudes of WPHP Work." The Women's Print History Project, 14 August 2025, https://womensprinthistoryproject.com/blog/post/146.
Figure 1. Working with students in Dr. Lindsay Seatter's English 3328 class in Spring 2024 at KPU.
I first learned about the WPHP in a third year Victorian English class at SFU, taught by our very own Dr. Sharren. While poring over the pages of Middlemarch, Kandice also introduced us to the database and the potentials of research in English literature beyond the essays and close readings we did in class. I officially started as an RA on the project in January 2020, learning to verify titles, and looking back, the speed and familiarity I’ve gained in this task is immense.
While on the project I’ve had the opportunity to take on writing and research in different mediums that I wouldn’t have considered before. Over the five Spotlights I’ve written, my first on Phillis Wheatley Peters still holds a special place in my heart because of both the time and dedication I put into completing her Person record as fully as possible and because of my own research interests in critical race studies. I spent hours reading about the first edition of Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral to figure out which one was the actual first edition in our database and which records were different issues of the same edition. Those two little notes on the title records still make me so proud today and are an indicator that even though data creation can be quite systematic in the verification process, it also involves a lot of subjectivity and judgement on our part.
Figure 2. Portrait of Phillis Wheatley, attributed by some scholars to Scipio Moorhead, British Library, 992.a.34.
Alongside these Spotlights, I’ve had the chance to reflect on this writing on segments of the WPHP Monthly Mercury. While I still hate to hear my own voice, it’s been an interesting exercise to think about how writing for audio both compliments and differs from the textual writing I’ve done for the project. I’ve also had the opportunity to test out the medium of social media writing as an RA. If the Spotlights are intended to be a less formal method of disseminating our research, posting on our Instagram, Facebook, and BlueSky has taught me to be even more succinct and casual, while also keeping it academic. I would have never pictured myself posting eighteenth-century literary memes, but here I am with a folder titled “lit memes” on my desktop.
Figure 3. From the depths of the lit memes folder.
I want to take this opportunity in my last WPHP Spotlight ever to express my appreciation for this team. From my first days as a little third-year undergrad to where I’m at now at the end of my MA, Kandice has supported me through it all, teaching me to verify my first titles, coming up with memes for our social media, and answering all of my weird questions. Kate’s endless enthusiasm and understanding has guided me through the most tedious data tasks. Dr. Levy’s rigorous editing has taught me to be a stronger writer and her support in all my academic endeavours, even outside of the project, has allowed me to be where I am today. And of course, all the RAs on this project, my fellow trudgers through the sea of titles, people, and firms, have made this one of the most fulfilling projects I’ve gotten to work on.
WPHP Records Referenced
Phillis Wheatley Peters (person)
Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (title, first edition)
Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (title, second edition)
Spotlights Authored
(Contributor) Role Call, 6 July 2023
Printed (Bound, Published, and Sold) by Jane Aitken, 26 August 2023
Describing India, China, and the Shores of the Red Sea: Emma Roberts and British Literature on Asia, 27 August 2021
Taking Up the Cause: Mary Hays's Female Biography, 19 August 2021
The Transatlantic Publication of Phillis Wheatley's Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, 10 July 2020