compare, analyze, interpret
1.Henry R. Luce, The American Century (1941), in Foner, Voices of Freedom, 191-194.
2.Henry A. Wallace, The Century of the Common Man (1942), in Foner, Voices of Freedom, 194-196.
The thesis statement should be about how do Luce and Wallace differ on the views of the role of the United States in the postwar world?
You do not necessarily have to agree or disagree with the sources. You can, for instance, formulate an interpreation that shows how these debates fit into the broader historical and political context of the time.
you will want to ask why the sources were written, who their intended audience was, and the type of language that is used to persuade their readers, etc.
The paper must include the following:
1.A title.
2.A thesis statement and an argument. Do not simply summarize or describe the document. Provide an analysis of its meaning and significance. In other words, form an interpretation of the document.
3.Evidence from the text to support your thesis statement, the evidence must come from the text itself.
4.Citations, in-text or footnotes or endnotes
5.A bibliogprahy containing references to texts that you used specifically in your paper, and also texts that you consulted but did not necessarily use or refer to in your paper.
The paper format:
1.single-sided, 1000-1500 words (a minimum of 4 pages, roughly, 4-6 pages).
2.10 or 12-point readable font
3.double-spaced
4.1” margins
5.Page numbers must appear on every page except for the first
6.Include your name, course and section number, and date on the first page (or title page).
7.Include your name in the header of each page.
When you analyze a primary source, you are undertaking the most important
job of the historian. There is no better way to understand events in the past
than by examining the sources–whether journals, newspaper articles, letters,
court case records, novels, artworks, music or autobiographies–that people
from that period left behind.
Each historian, including you, will approach a source with a different set of
experiences and skills, and will therefore interpret the document differently.
Remember that there is no one right interpretation. However, if you do not do
a careful and thorough job, you might arrive at a wrong interpretation.
In order to analyze a primary source you need information about two things:
the document itself, and the era from which it comes. You can base your
information about the time period on the readings you do in class and on
lectures. On your own you need to think about the document itself. The
following questions may be helpful to you as you begin to analyze the sources:
1. Look at the physical nature of your source. This is particularly important
and powerful if you are dealing with an original source (i.e., an actual old
letter, rather than a transcribed and published version of the same letter).
What can you learn from the form of the source? (Was it written on fancy
paper in elegant handwriting, or on scrap-paper, scribbled in pencil?) What
does this tell you?
2. Think about the purpose of the source. What was the author’s message or
argument? What was he/she trying to get across? Is the message explicit, or
are there implicit messages as well?
3. How does the author try to get the message across? What methods does
he/she use?
4. What do you know about the author? Race, sex, class, occupation, religion,
age, region, political beliefs? Does any of this matter? How?
5. Who constituted the intended audience? Was this source meant for one
person’s eyes, or for the public? How does that affect the source?6. What can a careful reading of the text tell you? How does the language
work? What are the important metaphors or symbols? What can the author’s
choice of words tell you? What about the silences–what does the author NOT
talk about, unintentionally or not?
Now you can evaluate the source as historical evidence.
1. Is it prescriptive–telling you what people thought should happen–or
descriptive–telling you what people thought did happen?
2. Does it describe ideology and/or behavior?
3. Does it tell you about the beliefs/actions of the elite, or of “ordinary”
people? From whose perspective?
4. What historical questions can you answer using this source? What are the
benefits of using this kind of source?
5. What questions can this source NOT help you answer? What are the
limitations of this type of source?
Remember, you cannot address each and every one of these questions in your
presentation or in your paper, and I wouldn’t want you to. You need to be
selective.
For this paper you will need to include a bibliography or works cited page following the last
page your written essay. A variety of different formats are used in different disciplines.
For this paper please use the following format which comes from the Chicago Manual of
Style (the style used in disciplines such as history and philosophy).
In general, a bibliography lists each of the works that you, the writer of the essay, in the
process of researching and writing your paper. The purpose of the bibliography is to allow
readers to consult the same texts in a convenient and expeditious manner.
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