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Interpreting Primary Sources

Contents

Introduction

Gallery of Letters

Stories of Spies and Letters

Secret Methods and Techniques

People of the American Revolution

Routes of the Letters

Timeline

The Sir Henry Clinton Papers

Teacher's Lounge

About the Project

Bibliography

What is a Primary Source? A primary source is a piece of living history.  It may be defined as any artifact that provides first hand or direct information about the past.  Primary sources may include first person accounts (e.g. oral histories, diaries, memoirs, correspondence), documents (e.g. correspondence, treaties, laws, speeches), images (e.g. maps, photographs, drawings, paintings), or historically gathered data.

How do you begin to interpret a primary source?
Begin analyzing a primary source, such as a spy letter, by answering the following questions:

  • Who created the source and why?
  • What sorts of information does the source supply?
  • Under what circumstances was the source created?  How would this influence the content of the source?
  • For whom was the source created?
  • Was the source meant to be public or private?
  • Did the creator wish to inform, persuade, or deceive his or her audience?  What did the creator hope to accomplish by writing the source? Can you trust the source’s content at face value?
  • What were the opinions, motivations, or interests of the creator?  How does his or her point of view compare to other writers of the period?  What kind of impact would this have on the content of the source?

For analyzing images, the following questions are also a starting point:

  • Why was the image created?
  • What does the image reveal about its subject?
  • What is the point of view of the image? Whose story is it telling?
  • What is the setting of the image?  What sorts of details does it include or emphasize?  What sorts of details does it exclude?
  • What are the underlying messages of the image and motives of the artist?
  • How long after the event was the image created?  how does this influence the image’s content or perspective?

What is the value of using primary sources in the classroom? Children are rarely encouraged to use primary sources in their original form because some archivists and teachers question their ability to work effectively with primary sources or they consider children a physical threat to the collections. The opportunity to responsibly exploit the power of digital technology to deliver primary sources over the Internet should greatly expand the use of primary sources by K-12 students and teachers.

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) believes primary sources should be used to expose students to important historical concepts. Students already recognize that textbooks enable the study of key patterns, events, and people in human history. Primary sources teach students that records reflect the personal, social, political, or economic points of view of records creators, and historians (or students) apply their own biases to interpretation of the records. Students learn, therefore, that history reflects an author’s interpretation of past events.

Students’ experiences with primary sources also encourage analysis and evaluation of contemporary sources, including news stories, statistics, and advertising. As students learn to recognize the subjective nature of evidence and gain an ability to identify limitations within a given source, they develop skills to make appropriate use of many sources of information.

Enhancing curriculum using authentic artifacts, documents, photographs, and manuscripts in project-oriented activities animates the classroom and links students with history’s diverse cast of characters. Students and teachers should use personal, local, national, and/or international records to consider documentation, evidence, and society.

What can teachers, librarians, and archivists do? Anne Gilliland-Swetland, assistant professor in UCLA’s Department of Library and Information Science, suggests that addressing the educational needs of K-12 communities provides an opportunity to:

a) expand the relevance of archival repositories within society;
b) begin to grow a “records literate” as well as an “information literate” audience that is aware of the importance, relevance, and complexities of records as bureaucratic, social, political, and cultural evidence;
c) promote the role of archivists as active participants in the communication of cultural heritage;
d) take advantage of the technological and financial resources that are being allocated nationally for the application of information technology in the classroom and for educational reform; and
e) promote archival education as a college choice.

Teachers, students, and archivists should work together to effectively integrate primary sources into K-12 educational activities.