How To Read Primary Sources 8/3-4/2011 Notes Adapted from: Out of Many- Documents workbook

Primary Sources Is anything produced or written by someone who directly participated in or observed a historical. Examples: trial transcripts, contracts, financial records, correspondence, diaries, memoirs, edicts, laws, philosophical treatises, literature, pictures, and maps.

General Approach No two Historians read primary sources alike. There are four methods for analysis: 1) Analyzing Authorship 2) Determining the audience 3) Identifying the argument 4) Historical Significance: making links to larger ideas, trends and events.

Analyzing Authorship Always ask these questions What kind of education did the author have? Where can you place the author in terms of social and economic status? Are they from a marginalized group or elite? Was the author male or female? How might gender shape their writing for this period? What were the author’s political views? What were the author’s religious views and values? When was the document written or created in relation to the event described?

Determining the Audience Who was the document written for? Friends, publication, family? What other groups might have been expected to see the document other than the primary audience? Did the choice of language limit or expand the size of the documents potential audience? Where was the document published or where did it first appear? Based on cost, literacy rates, and availability, who would have had access to the document in question?

Identifying the Argument What main idea or concept was the author trying to convey? What were the author’s primary motivations for creating the document? Was the author trying to instruct or persuade? How? What groups’ or individuals’ political, economic, religious, or social interests did the author in the document directly address?

Historical significance What other important events or trends were occuring at the same time the document was written (for example, wars, intellectual movements, religious movements)? What does the document tell us about these larger historical issues? In what ways was the author’s argument connected to larger trends, events, or issues happening at the same time? What kinds of symbols or images were depicted in the document, how were they linked to larger trends or issues, and what did they represent or mean to the author and his/her audience?

The way your paper should look Must always include these approaches with an answer to the questions posed for each approach. 1) Analyzing Authorship 2) Determining the audience 3) Identifying the argument 4) Historical Significance: making links