Tools of History

1. Tools of History: Chapter 1
Section 3

2.  Firsthand information
• Court documents
• Speeches
• Eyewitness accounts
• Letters
• Diaries
• Autobiographies
• Personal interviews

3.  Could possibly be:
• Written
• Oral
• A photo
• A video
• An historic map
• Museum artifacts

4.  Account
provided after the fact by
someone who was not actually
there…usually based on primary sources
• Textbooks
• Encyclopedias
• Biographies
• Articles/blogs written by historians
• Museum interpretations

5.  Is it authentic- is it
truthful? Is it what it
claims to be?
• Is it a primary source?
• Is it actually from the time
period?
• Who is giving the
information? What is
his/her point of view?
• Would that person or
organization have a
particular bias?
• You can get flawed
information if you do not
check your sources!

6.  Do NOT use wikipedia!!! EVER!
 Look for .edu at the end of a web address. It may not
be 100% accurate, but it is probably a worthy
source.
 Check the time frame of what you are studying. Let’s
say you are studying the Civil War. Someone who is
living today can not be an eyewitness to Civil War
history, but he or she may have collected many
primary source documents to tell the story. Some
people are known for their research of certain time
periods. Shelby Foote is a good example of an
expert in researching history.

7.  “And I really do think
that the difficulty of
research makes it
more real to you than
punching a thing to
find out how many
men were killed at this
particular action.”
Shelby Foote

8.  Watch for bias! Does  “Historyis written by
the writer use wording the victors.”
that shows a • Winston Churchill
particular bias about a
person or event? Would your textbook’s
 Differing political, explanation of the
social, or economic Revolution be different
if it were written by
viewpoints may give British authors?
different sides of an
event.

9. Whose
perspective
tells the
story? Is
that
important to
understand-
ing it?
(Anonymous art sent to me, but useful for this discussion-AB.)

10.  Cooking utensils
 Catalogs
 Children’s books
 Almanacs
 Old photos
 Farming utensils
 Office tools
 Even graveyards!

11.  No, but our interpretations sometimes
change, or maybe we get new evidence.
 Can you think of any examples in which
most people thought a certain way about
an event or person, but their perceptions
changed? Why did this change happen?

12. Archaeologists study artifacts, the
objects that humans have made.
For instance they might dig in a
kitchen midden, an area outside
where a family used to prepare and
eat meals. Layers of soil and rock
which have mounted atop the area
have much to reveal about the
culture of the people. We usually
think of middens to examine
prehistoric people, but we can use
them for more recent history, also.
What kinds of things did they eat?
What kinds of tools did they use to
cook? What eating utensils did they
use? What does the evidence tell
us?

13.  Absolute Chronology  Relative Chronology
• The EXACT time and • When an event occurred
place of an event in relationship to other
events.
• This helps to establish
correlations between
events, cause and effect,
or even lack of a
connection between
events. Think of the book
If You Give a Mouse a
Cookie, and you have the
idea of cause and effect.