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Guide to Analyzing Primary and Secondary Sources
In their search for an improved understanding of the past, historians look for a variety of evidence—written sources, visual sources, and material artifacts. When they encounter any of these primary sources, historians ask certain key questions. You should ask these questions too. Sometimes historians cannot be certain about the answers, but they always ask the questions. Indeed, asking questions is the first step in writing history. Moreover, facts do not speak for themselves. It is the task of the historian to organize and interpret the facts in a reasoned and verifiable manner. The books and articles that they publish are secondary sources, which are created after the events or conditions they are studying. These secondary sources then become the basis for teaching and for other historians to use in researching and writing their own studies. Because they are interpretative and open for debate, secondary sources allow historians to move forward by modifying explanations of the past. Thus, historical interpretations are constantly being revised, and Exploring American Histories, 3e offers students opportunities to appreciate this dynamic quality.

Analyzing a Written Primary Source
What kind of source is this? For example, is it a diary, letter, speech, sermon, court opinion, newspaper article, witness testimony, poem, memoir, or advertisement?
Who wrote the source? How can you identify the author? Was the source translated by someone other than the author or speaker (for example, American Indian speeches translated by whites)?
When and where was it written?
Why was the source written? Is there a clear purpose?
Who was, or who might have been, its intended audience?
What point of view does it reflect?
What can the source tell us about the individual(s) who produced it and the society from which he, she, or they came?
How might individuals’ race, ethnicity, class, gender, age, and region have affected the viewpoints in the sources?
In what ways does the larger historical context help you evaluate individual sources?
Analyzing a Visual or Material Primary Source
What kind of visual or material source is this? For example, is it a map, drawing or engraving, a physical object, painting, photograph, census record, or political cartoon?
Who made the image or artifact, and how was it made?
When and where was the image or artifact made?
Can you determine if someone paid for or commissioned it? If so, how can you tell that it was paid for or commissioned?
Who might have been the intended audience or user? Where might it have originally been displayed or used?
What message or messages is it trying to convey?
How might it be interpreted differently depending on who viewed or used it?
What can the visual or material source tell us about the individual who produced it and the society from which he or she came?
In what ways does the larger historical context help you evaluate individual sources?
Comparing Multiple Primary Sources
In what ways are the sources similar in purpose and content? In what ways are they different?
How much weight should one give to who wrote or produced the source?
Were the sources written or produced at the same time or at different times? If they were produced at different times, does this account for any of the differences between or among the sources?
What difference does it make that some sources (such as diaries and letters) were intended to be private and some sources (such as political cartoons and court opinions) were meant to be public?
How do you account for different perspectives and conclusions? How might these be affected by the author’s relative socioeconomic position or political power in the larger society?
Is it possible to separate fact from personal opinion in the sources?
Can the information in the sources under review be corroborated by other evidence? What other sources would you want to consult to confirm your conclusions?
Cautionary Advice for Interpreting Primary Sources
A single source does not tell the whole story, and even multiple sources may not provide a complete account. Historians realize that not all evidence is recoverable.
Sources have biases, whether they appear in personal or official accounts. Think of biases as particular points of view, and try to figure out how they influence the historical event and the accounts of that event.
Sources reflect the period in which they were written or produced and must be evaluated within the historical time frame from which they came. Explain how people understood the world in which they lived, and be careful to avoid imposing contemporary standards on the past. Nevertheless, remember that even in a particular time period people disagreed over significant principles and practices such as slavery, imperialism, and immigration.
Sources often conflict or contradict each other. Take into account all sides. Do not dismiss an account that does not fit into your interpretation; rather, explain why you are giving it less weight or how you are modifying your interpretation to conform to all the evidence.
Analyzing Secondary Sources
Secondary sources are written or produced by people who did not participate in or experience first-hand the events that they are analyzing. Secondary sources in history usually appear as scholarly books and articles. Secondary sources underscore that history is an ever-changing enterprise.
Identify the author’s main interpretations.
Describe the evidence the author uses to make that interpretation.
Evaluate how well the evidence supports the author’s interpretation.
Describe whether the author considers alternative explanations and points of view.
Compare the author’s account with any other sources you have read.
Assess whether the author has the credentials for making reliable historical judgments.
Evaluate whether there is anything in the author’s background or experience that might have influenced the author’s point of view and interpretation.
Identify the main audience that the author is addressing.
Comparing Secondary Sources
Explain how two sources differ in interpretation. To what extent, if any, do they agree?
Historians are products of their own times. Identify the date of publication for each of the sources and explain how the particular time periods might have shaped the authors’ arguments.
Compare the approaches each author takes to reach an interpretation. Describe whether they are looking at the events mainly from a political, social, cultural, or economic perspective.
Compare the secondary sources with other secondary sources on the same subject, such as the historical narrative in this textbook.
Taking these considerations into account, explain which secondary source you find more convincing or how the two interpretations might be combined.
Cautionary Advice for Analyzing Secondary Sources
The secondary sources in this book are excerpts from longer books or articles. The selections are meant to provide a representative view of the authors’ main interpretations and perspectives on the subject. Nevertheless, these excerpts do not show the broad sweep of evidence from which the authors draw their conclusions.
No excerpt can provide a full appreciation of how historians gather evidence and present and defend their interpretations in a reliable manner. Only a more extensive reading of the secondary source can provide sufficient evidence for judging whether the author has presented a convincing account.
As with primary sources, secondary sources have biases. Think of biases as particular points of view, and try to figure out how they influence the historical interpretation and the accounts of an event or development.
Secondary sources often conflict with or contradict each other. Do not dismiss an account that does not fit with your perspective; rather, explain why you are giving it more or less weight or how you are modifying your interpretation to conform to all the arguments made by the authors of the secondary sources.
Secondary sources reflect the period in which they are written or produced and must be evaluated within the historical time frame from which they originate. This doesn’t mean that a newer book or article is more accurate than an older one. Interpretations may differ because new facts have been uncovered, but they are just as likely to change according to the contemporary concerns and perspectives of the authors. Moreover, even in the same time period historians often disagree over controversial subjects due to different viewpoints on politics, religion, race, ethnicity, region, class, and gender.
Volume 2 Since 1865

Exploring American Histories
A SURVEY WITH SOURCES

THIRD EDITION

Nancy A. Hewitt

Steven F. Lawson

To Mary and Charles Takacs, Florence and Hiram Hewitt, Sarah and Abraham Parker, Lena and Ben Lawson, who made our American Histories possible.

For Bedford/St. Martin’s

Vice President, Editorial, Macmillan Learning Humanities: Edwin Hill

Publisher for History: Michael Rosenberg

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Cover Design: William Boardman

Cover Art/Cover Photo: Front of St. Paul’s Cathedral, Tremont St., c.1936 (oil on board), Crite, Allan Rohan (1910–2007) / Boston Athenaeum, USA / Gift of the artist, 1971 / Bridgeman Images

Composition: Lumina Datamatics, Inc.

Copyright © 2019, 2017, 2013 by Bedford/St. Martin’s.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except as may be expressly permitted by the applicable copyright statutes or in writing by the Publisher.

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For information, write: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 75 Arlington Street, Boston, MA 02116 (617-399-4000)

ISBN-13: 978-1-319-23912-1(mobi)

Acknowledgments

Text acknowledgments and copyrights appear at the back of the book on pages C-1–C-2, which constitute an extension of the copyright page. Art acknowledgments and copyrights appear on the same page as the art selections they cover.

PREFACE
Why This Book This Way?
We are delighted to publish the third edition of Exploring American Histories. Users of the first two editions have told us our book gives them and their students opportunities to actively engage with both the narrative of American history and primary sources from that history in a way previously not possible. Our book offers a new kind of U.S. history survey text, one that makes a broad and diverse American history accessible to a new generation of students and instructors interested in a more engaged learning and teaching style. To accomplish this, we carefully weave an unprecedented number of written and visual primary sources, representing a rich assortment of American perspectives, into each chapter.

We know that students in the introductory survey course often need help in developing the ability to think critically about primary sources. Accordingly, in this third edition we have done even more to ensure students can move easily and systematically from working with single and paired sources (Guided Analysis and Comparative Analysis) to tackling a set of sources from varied perspectives (Primary Source Project). Students will also have the chance to evaluate how historians use primary sources to construct their own interpretations in our new Secondary Source Analysis. We have also strengthened our digital tools and instructor resources so faculty have more options for engaging students in active learning and assessing their progress, whether it be with traditional lecture classes, smaller discussion-oriented classes, “flipped” classrooms, or online courses.

In this edition, we add a Secondary Source Analysis that extends the building-block approach to working with sources by offering differing perspectives on important historical issues or events. For example, in chapter 13 historians debate “Why Union Soldiers Fought the Civil War” and in chapter 22 they debate “New Deal or Raw Deal?” With a brief introduction that frames the issue and prompts that ask students to think critically about the source and topic in context, students are invited into the discussion.

A Unique Format That Places Primary Sources at the Heart of the Story
Students learn history most effectively when they read a historical narrative in conjunction with primary sources. Sources bring the past to life in ways that narrative alone cannot, while the narrative offers the necessary framework, context, and chronology that sources by themselves do not typically provide. We believe that the most appealing entry to the past starts with individuals and how people in their daily lives connect to larger political, economic, cultural, and international developments. This approach makes history relevant and memorable.

Throughout our teaching experience, the available textbooks left us unsatisfied, compelling us to assign additional books, readers, and sources we found on the Web. However, these supplementary texts raised costs for our students, and too often students had difficulty seeing how the different readings related to one another. Simply remembering what materials to bring to class became unwieldy. So we decided to write our own book that would provide everything we would want to use in class, in one place. Many texts include some primary sources, but the balance between narrative (too much) and primary sources (too few) was off-kilter, so we carefully crafted the narrative to make room for us to include more primary sources and integrate them in creative ways that help students make the necessary connections and that spur them to think critically. Exploring American Histories is comprehensive in the essentials of American history, but with a carefully selected amount of detail that is more in tune with what instructors can realistically expect their students to comprehend. Thus, the most innovative aspect of Exploring American Histories is its format, which provides just the right balance between narrative and primary sources.

Abundant Primary Sources Woven Throughout the Narrative. In Exploring American Histories, we have selected an extensive and varied array of written and visual primary source material—more than 200 sources in all—and we have integrated them at key points as teaching moments within the text. We underscore the importance of primary sources by opening each chapter with a facsimile of some portion of a primary source that appears subsequently within the chapter. These “Windows to the Past” are designed to pique students’ curiosity for working with sources.

To help students move seamlessly between narrative and sources, we embed Explore prompts at key junctures in the narrative, which describe what the sources illuminate. Such integration is designed to help students make a firm connection between the narrative of history and the evidence upon which it is built. These primary sources connect directly with discussions in the narrative and give a real sense of multiple viewpoints that make history come alive. By integrating sources and narrative, we help students engage divergent experiences from the past and give them the skills to think critically about sources and their interpretation. Because of our integrated design, every source flows from the narrative, and each source is clearly cross-referenced within the text so that students can easily incorporate them into their reading as well as reflect on our interpretation.

Progression in Primary Source Work. We continue to offer, with a slight modification, our unique building-blocks approach to the primary sources. Each chapter contains 7 to 8 substantial, featured primary sources—both written and visual—with a distinctive pedagogy aimed at helping students make connections between the sources and the text’s major themes. In every chapter we offer a progression of primary sources that moves from a single source with guiding annotations, to paired sources that lead students to understand each source better through comparison. Although we have eliminated the “Solo Analysis” feature (see below “Helping Students Work with Primary Sources”), each chapter still culminates with a “Primary Source Project” (previously called “Document Project”)—a set of interrelated sources that addresses an important topic or theme related to the chapter. Instructors across the country confirm that with Exploring American Histories we have made teaching the breadth and diversity of American history and working with primary sources easier and more rewarding than ever.

Variety of Primary Sources and Perspectives. Because the heart of Exploring American Histories remains its primary sources, we carefully selected sources from which students can evaluate the text’s interpretations and construct their own versions of history. These firsthand accounts include maps, engravings, paintings, illustrations, sermons, speeches, translations, letters, diaries, journals, memoirs, census reports, newspaper articles, political cartoons, laws, wills, court cases, petitions, advertisements, photographs, and blogs. In selecting sources, we have provided manifold perspectives on critical issues, including both well-known sources and those that are less familiar. In all time periods, some groups of Americans are far better represented in primary sources than others. Those who were wealthy, well educated, and politically powerful, produced and preserved many primary sources about their lives, and their voices are well represented in this textbook. But we have also provided sources by American Indians, enslaved Africans, free blacks, colonial women, rural residents, immigrants, working people, and young people. Moreover, the lives of those who left few primary sources of their own can often be illuminated by reading sources written by elites to see what information they yield, intentionally or unintentionally, about less well-documented groups. The questions that we ask about these sources are intended to help students read between the lines or see beyond the main image to uncover new meanings.

In weaving a wide variety of primary sources into the narrative, we challenge students to consider diverse viewpoints. For example, in chapter 5, students read contradictory testimony and examine an engraving to analyze the events that became known as the Boston Massacre. In chapter 12, they compare the views on the Fugitive Slave Law of a black abolitionist and the president of the United States. In chapter 18, students have to reconcile two very different views by a Chinese immigrant and a Supreme Court justice concerning the status of Chinese Americans in the late nineteenth century. In chapter 28, we ask readers to reconsider the depiction of the 1980s as a conservative decade in light of widespread protests challenging President Reagan’s military build-up against the Soviet Union.

Flexibility for Assignments. We recognize from the generous feedback reviewers have offered us that instructors want flexibility in assigning primary sources. Our book easily allows faculty to assign all the primary sources in a chapter or a subset depending on the activities they have planned. With this range of choices, instructors are free to teach their courses just as they like and to tailor them to their students. Even if not featured on specific course assignments, these sources expose students to the multitude of voices from the past and hammer home the idea that history is not just a story passed on from one person to another but a story rooted in historical evidence. For instructors who value even more options, we again make available with the third edition a companion primary source reader that provides an additional primary source project for each chapter. This reader, Thinking through Sources: Exploring American Histories, can be packaged with the book at no additional cost to students.

Narrative Approach: Diverse Stories
Recent historical scholarship has transformed our vision of the past, most notably by dramatically increasing the range of people historians study, and thus deepening and complicating traditional understandings of change over time. The new research has focused particularly on gender, race, ethnicity, class, and region and historians have produced landmark work in women’s history, African American history, American Indian history, Latino history, Asian American history, labor history, and histories of the West and the South.

Throughout the narrative we acknowledge recent scholarship by highlighting the theme of diversity and recognizing the American past as a series of interwoven stories made by a great variety of historical actors. We do this within a strong national framework that allows our readers to see how the numerous stories fit together and to understand why they matter. Our approach to diversity also allows us to balance the role of individual agency with larger structural forces as we push readers to consider the many forces that create historical change. Each chapter opens with Comparing American Histories, a pair of biographies that showcase individuals who experienced and influenced events in a particular period, and then returns to them throughout the chapter to strengthen the connections and highlight their place in the larger picture. These biographies cover both well-known Americans—such as Daniel Shays, Frederick Douglass, Andrew Carnegie, and Eleanor Roosevelt—and those who never gained fame or fortune—such as the Cherokee chief John Ross, activist Amy Post, labor organizer Luisa Moreno, and World War II internee Fred Korematsu. Introducing such a broad range of biographical subjects illuminates the many ways that individuals shaped and were shaped by historical events. This strategy also makes visible throughout the text the intersections where history from the top down meets history from the bottom up, and the relationships between social and political histories and economic, cultural, and diplomatic developments.

Helping Students Work with Primary Sources
In this third edition, we have strengthened the building-blocks approach by replacing the “Solo Analysis” with the new Secondary Source Analysis feature, discussed below. We have retained the following elements of the building-blocks approach so that students can increase their confidence and skills in analyzing primary sources:

Each chapter begins with Guided Analysis of a textual or visual source, with a headnote offering historical context and questions in the margins to help students consider a specific phrase or feature and analyze the source as a whole. These targeted questions are intended to guide students in reading and understanding a primary source. A Put It in Context question prompts students to consider the source in terms of the broad themes of the chapter.
Next, each chapter contains Comparative Analysis, a paired set of primary sources that show contrasting or complementary perspectives on a particular issue. This task marks a step up in difficulty from the previous Guided Analysis by asking students to analyze sources through their similarities and differences. These primary sources are introduced by a single headnote and are followed by Interpret the Evidence and Put It in Context questions that prompt students to analyze and compare the items and place them in a larger historical framework.
Finally, a Primary Source Project at the end of every chapter provides the capstone of our integrated primary-sources approach. Each Primary Source Project brings together four or five sources focused on a critical issue central to that chapter. It is introduced by a brief overview and ends with Interpret the Evidence and Put It in Context questions that ask students to draw conclusions based on what they have learned in the chapter and read or seen in the sources.
We understand that the instructor’s role is crucial in teaching students how to analyze primary-source materials and develop interpretations. Instructors can use the primary sources in many different ways—as in-class discussion prompts, for take-home writing assignments, and even as the basis for exam questions—and also in different combinations with primary sources throughout or across chapters being compared and contrasted with one another. The instructor’s manual for Exploring American Histories provides a wealth of creative suggestions for using the primary source program effectively. As authors of the textbook, we have written a section, entitled “Teaching American Histories with Primary Sources,” which provides ideas and resources for both new and experienced faculty. It offers basic guidelines for teaching students how to analyze sources critically and suggests ways to integrate selected primary sources into lectures, discussions, small group projects, and writing assignments. We also suggest ideas for linking in-text primary sources with the opening biographies, maps, and illustrations in a particular chapter and for using the Primary Source Projects to help students understand the entangled histories of the diverse groups that comprise North America and the United States. (See the Versions and Supplements description on pages xxiv–xxviii for more information on all the available instructor resources.)

In the third edition, we have retained the handy guide to analyzing primary sources. This checklist at the front of the book gives students a quick and efficient lesson on how to read and analyze sources and what kinds of questions to ask in understanding them. We know that many students find primary sources intimidating. Eighteenth and nineteenth century sources contain spellings and language often difficult for modern students to comprehend. Yet, students also have difficulty with contemporary primary sources because in the digital age of Facebook and Twitter they are exposed to information in tiny fragments and without proper verification. Thus, the checklist will guide students in how to approach sources from any era and what to look for in exploring them. Because we are adding secondary sources to this edition, we have expanded the guide and renamed it, Guide to Analyzing Primary and Secondary Sources, to include an examination of secondary sources.

New Secondary Source Analysis
We are delighted to include a new feature in the third edition. Although our book highlights primary sources and their interrelationship with the narrative, reviewers persuaded us to add excerpts from notable secondary sources in each chapter. These selections furnish students with examples of how historical scholarship, built upon the analysis of primary sources, offer different interpretations of the same topic. They reinforce the idea that history is not fixed and changes over time. They also help students to get a glimpse into the debates among historians over important events and issues. To this end, the book contains a total of fifty-eight excerpts from books and journal articles. Each chapter provides two excerpts on a significant topic related to the overall coverage of the chapter. The selections differ in interpretation, approach, and the period in which they were written. Each secondary source feature is put into context by a brief introduction to the subject under discussion. These features are then followed by questions under the headings, Examine the Sources and Put It in Context, which ask students to compare the two secondary sources and how they reflect what they have read in the primary sources and in the narrative of the textbook. For example, for the early republic, chapter 7 provides selections on partisanship in the 1800 election by Eric Burns and John Ferling. Chapter 11, on the expansion of slavery, contrasts a view of enslaved family life offered by Robert Fogelman and Stanley Engerman with one by Deborah Gray White. With respect to the Progressive Era, chapter 19 offers divergent excerpts on reform in the South by C. Vann Woodward and Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore. Chapter 23 on World War II compares a selection on FDR and the Holocaust by David Wyman with that of Richard Breitman and Allan J. Lichtman.