Strategies for evaluating primary sources

When we talk about primary sources, we’re talking about anything that was created during the time period being studied—which, of course, includes journals, newspaper articles, letters, government records, and other printed matter, but which also includes not-printed things, like music, tools, fashion, interviews, artwork, etc. 

We “read” all of these things to learn more about the time period we’re studying—and just as with any history, we learn the most when we go into each text knowing that it’s going to be biased. This is because human beings are always biased—by our prejudices, sure, but also by our experiences and upbringing. So often we don’t know what we don’t know until we know it. (I swear if you read that again really slowly it will make sense.) 

Our job as historians—which is what we are when we study history—is to recognize the biases of the sources we work with to try to build the most multi-perspective understanding that we can, acknowledging that we’ll never get the full picture but hoping that we can at least get a reasonably well-rounded one. This might seem frustrating, but it’s what makes history exciting, at least to me—what we know could always change! Someone finds an old letter in the attic, and suddenly our ideas about the French Revolution or the Donner Party totally change. I think that’s really cool.

So what criteria do you use to evaluate a primary source? I encourage you to break out an old friend from critical thinking: SOAPSTONE. Every time you read a primary source, you should break it down this way:

SPEAKER

Or, put simply, who created this? Knowing who the author of a text is can tell you a lot about the prejudices that might shape its narrative. For instance, if you know that something about a Civil War skirmish is written by a soldier who was actually in the battle, you might give it more weight than you’d give an account of the battle from someone who was in Paris while the fight was happening. Of course, that soldier would know about one very small part of the battle; you wouldn’t expect them to have perspective of the big picture.

OCCASION

When was this written? There’s a difference between writing down a memory and writing about something that’s happening right at the moment you’re writing. Writing something for a political speech is different from writing something for a ladies’ magazine, which is different from writing something for an advertisement. The occasion also takes into account the spirit of the time—a diary written in the 1860s and a diary written in the 1990s would critique slavery differently because of the different cultural contexts.

AUDIENCE

Who is this written for? And think beyond the obvious—a diary might seem like it’s written just for its author, but lots of 19th century diaries were actually written with an eye to future publication.

PURPOSE

Why was this written? A newspaper article has a different purpose from a pop song, which has a different purpose from a speech in Congress. This is significant because what a person writes her wife before a big vote is likely pretty different from what she says on the floor of the Senate the morning of said vote, even if the basic content is similar.

TONE

How does the creator of this text feel about what they’re communicating. Are they being superior? Patronizing? Instructive? Does it make them sad? Happy? Anxious? Angry? Are they sincere or sarcastic? Are they hopeful or despondent?