Questioning historical sources

You have seen how accounts of one event can differ. To study a letter, photograph or article, ask who made it, when it was made, and why. The answers help you decide what it can tell you. Age alone does not make a source accurate. You may need other evidence to check its claims.

A source's purpose is its reason for being made. Look at its words for clues; maker and date alone do not settle purpose. A letter about a garden walk shares an experience. A notebook listing plant heights records measurements. A leaflet saying 'Help plant trees' asks people to act. These examples do not tell you the purpose of every source. Sometimes a purpose remains uncertain.

A diary by someone who experienced an event gives one person's memories, thoughts and feelings. It is useful but can contain mistakes or omissions. Ask how long after the event it was written. A festival account from the next morning may use fresh memories; one from memory 25 years later may use older, changed memories. Different recording times need not produce matching accounts. Neither proves accuracy.

A speech can aim to make listeners feel or act a certain way. Before a school race, a team captain says, 'Keep trying. We will finish first.' The captain encourages the team and predicts first place. A prediction says what the speaker expects will happen. It does not report the race's result. Check that result using evidence from afterward.

Photographers choose where to stand and what to include. A photograph shows what was captured, possibly including unnoticed details. It cannot show every part of daily life. An eyewitness also has a limited view: someone on one station platform may miss another platform. Being there or writing soon afterward does not make an account complete or free from mistakes. Ask what lies outside each view.

Look for a credit that identifies a source's maker. A newspaper byline names an article's writer. An editor or publisher named elsewhere is not necessarily that writer. A photograph credit may name its photographer. If no maker is named, leave that question open. Letters and photographs have human makers, but historians also use natural evidence, such as tree rings.

Sources can differ because of views, memories, purposes or mistakes. A market notice says stalls closed at noon; a shopper's letter says two o'clock. Check whether their dates and places describe the same market day, then seek other evidence. Ask who made each source, when and why. Compare agreements, conflicts and missing details. Separate stated facts from guesses. Rank or source type does not prove accuracy.

A later history book can compare diaries, letters and maps. Careful comparison may explain more than one account, but a later date or printed pages do not prove accuracy. Check its sources and how it uses them. Diaries and books can answer different questions. Match contents to your question: a rainfall record may tell you how wet a month was; a map may show a road.

A mayor pays a painter to omit wrinkles from a portrait. The painter makes the picture and follows that request, leaving out real facial details. Museum makers also choose objects and words. A display praising an explorer may omit people already living in places he claimed. Ask who shaped each source, whose experiences are missing, and how these choices affect its story.

Check what a date refers to. 'Notice printed on 2 April 1936' gives a making date. 'Concert on 9 April 1936' gives an event date, not necessarily the notice's making date. A date alone does not name the maker or explain the purpose. You can answer one source question while leaving another unanswered.