History 111
Professor Edstrom
Primary Source Essay Assignments
Fall 2008
Due September
16 and
One of
the goals of History 111 is to introduce students to the discipline of
history—its methods, sources, and interpretations. There is no better way to do this than to
work with original historical documents.
Why? Because you are using these
raw materials of history to discover the past for yourself, without anyone
else’s interpretation coming between you and that past.
For this
purpose, you will write two “primary source essays” due on September
16 and November 18. You may select an original
document to evaluate either from a print source in the Harper College Library
(see me or one of the Library faculty at the Reference
Desk for assistance), or go to the Library of Congress’s American Memory
homepage and proceed as follows:
1) Go
to http://memory.loc.gov.
2) You have several choices at this point:
·
You can click on one of the
categories under “Browse Collections by Topic” (for example, “Native American
History”). This will take you directly
to a list of web pages containing many original documents.
·
You can click on “More
browse options” at the lower left-hand corner of the screen. This will take you to a website in which you
can choose to browse documents by topic, time period, or format (for example,
maps, photos, sound recordings, etc.).
3) Browse through the collections to
find a document that interests you. The
document can be from any year up to 1877.
4) In general, it is easiest to work
with a written document. If,
however, you would like to work with another type of document—such as a graphic
or a photograph—you should clear it with me before starting your research
process.
The
evaluation itself should be 2 typed pages.
In it you should:
1)
Identify
the document. Please include a photocopy
or a printout, if possible.
2)
Identify
the author or creator of the document with brief biographical information. You may want to look at American National
Biography on the Harper Library webpage under “Full-TextArticles,
Databases.” Give some thought to how the
author’s perspective may have colored his/her perception of the event in
question.
3)
Explain
the context in which it was created—that is to say, what was the event that the
document describes?
Each of
these primary source essays is worth 25 points.
Good luck!
Last updated
Copyright 2008 by James A. Edstrom