2

The Nature and Variety of Historical Sources

As we saw in Chapter 1, history is an intellectual discipline marked by ongoing change and punctuated by the periodic appearance of major revisionist works. Historians are constantly reviewing and rethinking the past, discovering new patterns and meanings. In this process they depend upon the tangible remains of the past for source materials. Any remnant of the past can serve the purpose. Although written records tend to predominate as source materials in most fields of history, in some (particularly those related to ancient and medieval history) scholars rely heavily on artifacts. Such materials are of importance to those who study modern history as well. Weapons, coins, household utensils, cathedrals, statues, and films can cast as much light on the past as can diaries, letters, and newspapers. Whether these historical raw materials are written records or artifacts, we refer to them as primary sources. The written histories that historians fashion from these (primary) sources become in turn (secondary) sources for subsequent investigators.

Primary Sources

Written primary sources can be divided into two major categories: manuscript sources and published sources. For historians, a manuscript is any handwritten or typed record or communication that has not been printed or otherwise duplicated in significant quantities for public dissemination. It can be anything, from a laundry list to the minutes of a cabinet meeting in the Oval Office. Usually manuscript materials were intended for private, or at least restricted use, although something like the notes for a speech that was never delivered would also be considered a manuscript source. A manuscript can be something as intensely personal as a diary, or something as institutional as a roster of Egyptian temple scribes. There is virtually no kind of written record that has not been used, or might someday be used, as a primary source. As social history and other new approaches to the past continue to evolve, even the seemingly most trivial or mundane remnants may acquire significance.

Manuscript Sources

We will devote most of our attention to published primary sources, since undergraduate researchers in university libraries usually have only limited access to manuscript source materials. In many cases, however, there may be significant manuscript collections close at hand. Perhaps your university library has a manuscripts or a special collections department containing important materials. There may also be nearby community libraries, local historical societies, or private individuals with such resources. A look through any of these collections might prove extremely rewarding, depending on your subject. If you are researching a topic of local history, you are more likely to be afforded the opportunity to get your hands on manuscript materials. In any event, it is worthwhile to investigate the availability of manuscript collections in your locality; this may even help you choose a viable research topic, though it should be realized that access to many major manuscript collections is limited to professional historians and advanced graduate students.

Published Sources

Published primary sources can be divided into two categories: (1) manuscript materials such as letters, diaries, and memoranda, usually intended as private, sometimes intimate, documents, often published after the death of their authors; and (2) materials that were intended from the outset to be printed and made public - for example newspaper articles, congressional debates, autobiographies, annual reports of corporations, and reports of the United States Census Bureau.

There are few major political figures in the modern world, particularly in the United States, whose writings have not been published. Library shelves groan with the massive collected works of our presidents and major public figures. Past leaders of other societies are also well represented, so that, when researching the activities of the wielders of power or shapers of opinion, you will usually find no shortage of published primary sources. While many of these writings were not, strictly speaking, intended for public consumption, it is scarcely surprising that they eventually appeared in published form. Those who attained high office during the last couple of centuries could hardly expect that their papers would remain confidential for very long after their death. Indeed, the measure of immortality attainable through the posthumous publication of one's collected papers is apt to be a component of political ambition. Some leaders might even have "played to posterity" at certain times; for this reason we must read and consider their papers with an additional measure of critical judgment.

The injunction to be critical of the papers of society's leaders applies with special force to personal memoirs and autobiographies written "after the fact," when these authors/subjects were at the end of their careers or in retirement. These types of published sources require interpretive care on two grounds. First, one must remember that the validity of such sources depends to a considerable extent on the author's ability to recall events that may have occurred much earlier in his or her life. Obviously one must always assume an erosion of reliability in such recollections, one that increases with the amount of time that has elapsed. As the historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. (1917-2007) observed in the preface to his autobiography: "The generic title for all memoirs should be Things I Remember . and Things I Think I Remember."1 Second, autobiographies and memoirs are often self-serving. As mentioned, in creating these accounts, politicians and other public leaders may have been anxious to secure their own place in history. Certain episodes in their lives may therefore be given more prominence than they deserve, as well as a highly favorable interpretation, while others, possibly less flattering, may be slighted, distorted, or ignored altogether. The same applies to the descriptions of the various other persons who are discussed in these accounts. This by no means renders memoirs or autobiographies worthless as source materials. Among other things, they provide invaluable insights into the personalities of leading figures. As with all source materials, however, the historian must begin by asking the purpose for which they were written or published, and then proceed with an appropriate measure of caution and skepticism.

A skeptical approach is also in order when considering materials like the published letters and diaries of public figures. These sources are perhaps more trustworthy in one respect, since they are contemporary with the events and not subject to the corrosive effects of time on memory. Even in this case, however, we must consider the author's motives, ignorance, or capacity for self-deception. Moreover, published source materials are frequently only a selection, and sometimes quite a small one, of the total body of a person's writings. We must therefore take into account the built-in bias of the selecting or editing process. How representative of the whole are the documents that are published? Did a favorably disposed editor (perhaps a member of the family) suppress unflattering material? Even the most professional and even-handed editor must make painful choices about what materials to leave out. This is why historians always consult the largest and best edited collection of primary sources available, assuming of course that they do not have access to manuscript sources.

Somewhat different considerations apply to those written primary sources that are particularly valued by social historians. The development of interest in "history from below" has encouraged the finding and publication of the writings of ordinary people, who presumably never dreamed that their words would be published. The chance survival and later publication of the diary of an American pioneer woman or of the letters of a soldier in the Crimean War can vividly illuminate the lives and experiences of ordinary people. This does not mean, of course, that such documents can be accepted uncritically. While their authors were no doubt blissfully unconcerned about the opinion of posterity, their writings can be expected to reflect the normal human biases and blind spots. These "shortcomings" need not necessarily get in the way of our understanding; they may even be precisely the sort of thing we are looking for.

Let us now turn to primary-source materials like newspapers, magazines, and official reports of government or private institutions. Not only were these intended from the outset to be made public, but in many cases they were designed to influence public opinion. This is certainly the case with newspapers, whose editorial policies must be taken into account. Thus, to accept a newspaper account of one of the Lincoln-Douglas debates without considering the paper's political orientation would be a major critical lapse. Even if an article displayed no detectable bias, we would have to consider the problems inherent in relying upon a single reporter's account of an event: his vantage point, his ability to hear all that was said from the podium, the reactions of those in the crowd who were closest to him, and so on. Diligent historians assemble as many such accounts as they can, treating each of them critically, sorting out obvious biases and errors, and fashioning as accurate a reconstruction as...