Historical Research
AD700 College of Advancing Studies
Brendan Rapple
6 October, 2004
History is a Representation of the Past
But representations may be hindered by

lack of ability of historian

lack of evidence

historian’s biases

historian’s interpretation

sheer desire to present a false picture
Types of History

History in terms of nations very common

Sometimes regional history is studied
 e.g.
 Latin
America
 Eastern Europe
 Middle East
 South East Asia
It’s More Fundamental Sometimes

A Civilization:





Romans
Europeans during the Middle Ages,
Moslem Civilization of North Africa,
Native American Civilization of South America.
Sometimes it’s Periods:
 Renaissance
 Reformation
 30
Years War
 The Enlightenment
 The Dark Ages
More Specific Topics
 Columbus
discovering or rediscovering
America
 The Vietnam Conflict
 Watergate
 Salem Witch Trials
 Battle of Leningrad
 Battle of Agincourt
Topics are often Categorized
 Intellectual
history
 Cultural history
 Social history
 Economic history
 Religious history
 Educational history
 or, indeed, the history of any discipline
Many of these can be Subdivided:
 The
HISTORY OF WOMEN as a category of cultural
or social history
 Historical
analysis may be directed toward an
individual, an idea, a movement, or an institution.
Sometimes Questions can be very Broad

What caused societal revolutions in China, France, Russia?

How have major social institutions, like medicine, developed and
changed over two centuries?

How have basic social relationships, like feelings about the value
of children, changed over the centuries?

Is race declining in significance compared to social class as a
major division in the U.S.?

Why did South Africa develop a system of greater racial
separation as the U.S. moved toward greater racial integration?

What caused fall of Roman Empire?
How Sure Can we Be of "Facts“ or “Evidence”?

Historians who challenge generally accepted
historical facts are often termed:
 revisionist
 or
radical
 or leftist
 or new historians.
Facts


Battle of Waterloo was a fact
Made up of many smaller facts, i.e. facts as

Events
charges and retreats
heads smashed by cannon balls
orders shouted by officers

Objects
field guns
Food depots
Corpses

Also by IDEAS and VALUES held by each of the
combatants.

And each of these facts as event, object, idea can be
further subdivided.
NAPOLEON

We may be reasonably sure of



his place of birth
his date of birth
the physical scene at Waterloo

But what of
 the
morale at the battle?
 the
frustration leading to death of exemperor?
 the
depth of his love for Josephine?
 why
he wanted to be emperor?
Interpretation

Historians rely on records of events that were made by
others, e.g.
 journalist
 court
reporter
 diarist
 photographer

These recordings involve interpretive acts.

They involve certain biases, values, and interests of those
who recorded them, i.e. they attended to some details and
omitted others.

Thus, interpretation exists even before historian enters the
picture.
Historian adds still another layer of
interpretation

She stresses or ignores certain data.

She organizes data into categories/patterns.
Very Different Treatments

Teaching of History in




Palestinian Schools
Israeli Jewish Schools
Zulu Schools
Afrikaner Boer Schools
History often very Specialized

Today historians often have a methodological specialization:

Historians who study the Depression of the 1930s need to have quite
a sophisticated knowledge of economics.

Historians who study social mobility in the U.S. should be trained in
aspects of social science.

Historians who study farming in Central America must have a strong
knowledge of agricultural techniques.

Cultural historians must have strong backgrounds in such subjects
as literary theory, anthropology, art history, or musicology.
Recent Developments in Historical Writing

Change from political to social history, from the public life of the
nation to the private life of citizens

Many studies of
 lives of women and children
 slaves
 ethnic groups
 factory workers
 the family, etc.

Thus, race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality have supplanted traditional
political, diplomatic and intellectual history.

There are now no more “people without a history” (Wolf, 1982).

“In reality, for the most part, these earlier
historians were concerned overwhelmingly
with a decided minority of the population in
terms of class, ethnicity, region, and gender,
and tended to confuse the history of one
group with the history of the nation” (Lawrence
W. Levine, Amer. Hist. Rev. June, 1989)
Change to More “Democratic” History was Resisted

“Today we must face the discouraging prospect that we all, teachers and
pupils alike, have lost much of what this earlier generation possessed, the
priceless asset of a shared culture. Today imaginations have become
starved or stunted . . . Furthermore, many of the younger practitioners of our
craft, and those who are still apprentices, are products of lower middle-class
or foreign origins, and their emotions not infrequently get in the way of
historical reconstructions. They find themselves in a very real sense
outsiders on our past and feel themselves shut out. This is certainly not their
fault, but it is true. They have no experience to assist them, and the chasm
between them and the Remote Past widens every hour . . . What I fear is
that the changes observant in the background and training of the present
generation will make it impossible for them to communicate and to
reconstruct the past for future generations.” (Carl Bridenbaugh, Amer.
Hist. Rev. Jan., 1963 – Bridenbaugh was President of the Amer. Hist.
Soc.)
Among Some New Approaches
Cultural History:
 Many dimensions.
Quantitative History:
 Statistical methods

Voting records

Population analyses

Literacy counts, etc.
Feminist History:
 Feminist historians frequently question male-dominated
assumptions and data on women in other cultures.
Biological & Environmental History:
 Studies in nutrition, disease, such elements of the environment as
plants, animals, land, and the atmosphere
Sources

Usually limited and indirect.

Historian is limited to what sources survive -usually most evidence has been destroyed.

A surviving building looks different in 1997 than it
did in 1790.

For example, today it's in the "old style"; back then it
may have been very new.
Primary Sources

Manuscripts/Documents:
Charters, Laws, Archives of official minutes or records, Letters, Memoirs,
Official publications, Wills, Newspapers and magazines, Maps, Catalogues,
Inscriptions, Graduation records, Bills, lists, deeds, contracts, etc., etc.

Objects:
Relics, Coins, Stamps, Skeleton, Fossils, Weapons, Tools, Utensils,
Pictures, Furniture, Clothing, Coins, Food, Books, Scrolls

Also Art Objects:
Sculptures, Paintings, Pottery
Also Films, Photographs, Buildings

Oral Testimony also important as primary sources

Thus, “evidence” or “sources” includes many categories beyond
written texts.
Secondary Sources


Not ORIGINAL sources
No direct physical connection to event studied

Examples include:




history books
articles in encyclopedias
prints of paintings or replicas of art objects
reviews of research
Secondary Sources Sometimes Categorized As

Intentional Documents
 e.g.
biographies, memoirs and yearbooks
composed deliberately to present record of past

Unpremeditated Documents

e.g. novels, paintings, everyday objects, letters not
intentionally created to be utilized for historical
evidence at a later date.
External Criticism

Check if the evidence is authentic/genuine.

Researcher must discover frauds, forgeries, hoaxes, inventions.

Chemical analysis of paint, ink, paper, parchment, cloth.

Carbon dating of artifacts.

Ask Such Questions As



Was the knowledge the source aims to transmit available at the
time?
Is it consistent with what is already known about author/period?
What about beautiful Greek coin just discovered and bearing the
date 499 B.C.?
Internal Criticism

Evidence is genuine, but can we trust what it tells us?

Does document present a faithful/true report?

Was document's author a competent observer?

Was she too sympathetic or too adversely critical?

Was she pressured to twist or exclude facts?

Was documentary record made long after events
described?

Does her story agree with that of other witnesses?
Scholarly Societies

American Antiquarian Society
http://www.americanantiquarian.org/

American Historical Association
http://www.historians.org/

History of Science Society
http://www.hssonline.org/

For a comprehensive list of Societies/Associations see
http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/society/history_soc.html
History E-Journals

Examples of e-format only e-journals:

African Studies Quarterly: the online journal of African studies
http://www.africa.ufl.edu/asq/

CROMOHS
http://www.cromohs.unifi.it/

History of Intellectual Culture
http://www.ucalgary.ca/hic/
For a more complete list see Directory of Open Access Journals
http://www.doaj.org/
Locating Primary Material Online

ArchivesUSA
(subscription database)
This is a database providing access to holdings and contact
information of more than 5,480 libraries. One may limit one's
search to a particular collection name or to a specific repository
name (in the latter case one may limit to a particular city).

Archival Resources
(subscription database)
This database provides researchers with access to brief, high-level
information for nearly three quarters of a million collections of
manuscripts and archives in repositories around the world as well
as over 36,000 collection guides or finding aids.

RLG Union Catalog - RLIN
(subscription database)
With records for over 45 million titles, this database provides
unparalleled coverage across subjects and material types in
almost 400 languages. The Advanced Search mode permits one to
limit one's search to archival material.
(New)

WorldCat
(subscription database)
This online union catalog has well over 50 million bibliographic
records. In the Advanced search mode one may limit one's search
to archival materials.
Library of Congress

The LOC http://catalog.loc.gov/ is extremely useful to
historians. Much material is available online.
Bibliographies and Guides
Harvard Guide to American History (Belknap
Press; Revised edition (July 1, 1974)
An excellent place to start for books and articles on a
particular topic or period. 1348 pages in length, it is
selective, and limited to books and articles published before
1972. Volume One has information on doing research and
includes books and articles arranged by topic, and Volume
Two has books and articles arranged by chronological
period and a name and subject index.
Bibliographies and Guides
Handbook for Research in American History: A Guide to
Bibliographies and Other Reference Works. 2nd. ed.
(University of Nebraska Press, 1987).
An excellent guide to more specialized bibliographies and
reference materials in many different areas of United States
history organized by type of reference.
Bibliographies and Guides
Guide to the History of Massachusetts (Greenwood
Press, 1987) 325 pages.
Part One is a survey of the historical literature on
Massachusetts, and Part Two is a listing of the archives and
sources for Massachusetts history with their contents.
Bibliographies and Guides
Reader's Guide to American History (Fitzroy
Dearborn Publishers, 1997)
Essays and substantial bibliographies on some 600 topics
"to offer some help to those who wish to explore the riches of
American historical writing in all its diversity."
Biographies
American National Biography (print and Online)
http://proxy.bc.edu/login?url=http://www.anb.org/articles/index.html
Very extensive. Short biographical articles, many with
pictures, on deceased notable Americans. Online version
includes more recent articles, in quarterly updates, than the
print version.
Newspapers
Most newspapers have print indexes of their past issues
-- some of these indexes are now online.
However, most online indexes are not free and print
indexes may not be readily available
Newspapers

African-American Newspapers: The 19th Century
(1827-1862)
This database provides the complete word-for-word texts of major 19th
century African-American newspapers. Newspapers in this database
are made available in chronological orders, with the addition of a
minimum of ten million new words each year. Currently the file contains
Parts 1, 2, and 3 and covers the following newspapers: Freedom’s
Journal 1827-1830 (New York, NY); Colored American 1837-1841 (New
York, NY); The North Star 1847-1851 (Rochester, NY); Frederick
Douglass Paper 1851-1859, completed through December 1852
(Rochester, NY); National Era 1847-1860, completed through
December 1853 (Washington, D.C.); Provincial Freeman 1854-1857
(Toronto, Canada); The Christian Recorder 1861-1902, completed
through April 1862 (Philadelphia, PA).
Newspapers

Times Digital Archive 1785-1985
(subscription database)
The full text of the Times of London, includes news
articles, editorials, obituaries, and advertising. It is is
fully searchable and results are displayed as
facsimile images of the article or page. Every word
and image of 200 years of the newspaper is included.
Newspapers

New York Times 1857-1999 - ProQuest Historical Newspapers
(subscription database)
Full text access to historical content of the New York Times,
including advertisements. Searching can be done for words in
the entire text or in the citation and abstract (headline and first
paragraph). Search options include simple keyword searching,
natural language searching, or advanced searching (which
includes searching by article type, for example death notices or
editorials). Display is a pdf image of the citation article,
including its extension to other pages.
Newspapers
Boston Globe
(Subscription Database)
Full text of the Boston Globe newspaper, from 1980 to
yesterday's edition.
Newspapers
LexisNexis Academic
(Subscription Database)
Extensive full-text database of legal and business
information including newspapers.
Coverage of some newspapers goes back well into the
19th cent.
Documents Databases
AMDOCS: Documents for the Study of American History.
http://kuhttp.cc.ukans.edu/carrie/docs/amdocs_index.html
Links to selected documents from the fifteenth century to
contemporary times.
Documents Databases
Avalon Project at Yale University
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/avalon.htm
Documents by century; also major collections, subjects,
authors, and titles, and, importantly, a search engine for the
entire project or its parts (there are a large number of
documents).
Documents Databases
A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S.
Congressional Documents and Debates 1774-1873
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lawhome.html
Part of the American Memory site at the Library of Congress
Documents Databases
National Security Archive
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/
This site at George Washington University collects and
publishes declassified documents acquired through the
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Includes documents on the
Cuban Missile Crisis and the Iran Contra controversy.
Documents Databases
Documenting the American South
http://docsouth.unc.edu/
Sources on Southern history, literature and culture
from the colonial period through the first decades of
the twentieth century. Indexes first person
narratives, a library of Southern literature, slave
narratives, the Civil War home front 1861-1865, and
the African American Church.
Archives and Manuscripts
American Memory Project at the Library of Congress
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/amhome.html
A wealth of documents, oral histories, photographs, maps,
motion pictures, recordings-- and all with an efficient search
engine which can search topics across collections.
Archives and Manuscripts
National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections
http://lcweb.loc.gov/coll/nucmc/nucmc.html
Known as "NUCMC," the printed source consists of annual
volumes with index volumes indexing names, places, subjects,
and form and genre, and containing a list of repositories. This
is the place to look to see where historical figures' papers and
letters are located in the United States.
Archives and Manuscripts
National Archives and Records Administration
http://www.nara.gov/
The National Archives of the United States.
Archives and Manuscripts
Repositories of Primary Sources
http://www.uidaho.edu/specialcollections/Other.Repositories.html
A useful list of over 3,700 archival web sites with links by world
region and for the United States by state. Kept at the University of
Idaho, this is one of the most complete lists of archives.
Other Electronic Indexes
America History and Life. 1964(Subscription Database)
U.S. and Canadian history in some 2,000 history periodicals
covering prehistory to the present. The best place to go for recent
academic history article citations.
Other Electronic Indexes

Historical Abstracts (1954-present)
(Subscription Database)
Covers articles, books and dissertations in the field of world
history from approximately 1450, including political, diplomatic,
military, economic, social, cultural, religious and intellectual
history.
Other Electronic Indexes
Hispanic American Periodicals Index . 1970(Subscription Database)
Indexes articles on U.S. Hispanic and Latin American
topics in English, French, German, Italian,
Portuguese and Spanish from more than 400
scholarly journals worldwide. Produced by the Latin
American Center at UCLA.
Other Electronic Indexes
PAIS International (Public Affairs Information
Service) 1956(Subscription Database)
Public affairs in a variety of journals (including news magazines)
and monographs; includes such areas as environment and health.
Other Electronic Indexes

Nineteenth Century Masterfile
(1800 --)
(Subscription Database)
"The Digital Index of the Nineteenth Century" includes an
electronic version of Poole's Index to Periodical Literature and
a number of other indexes. A valuable index to nineteenth and
early twentieth century magazines and newspapers.
Other Electronic Indexes

AccuNet/AP Multimedia Archive
(Subscription
Database)
AccuNet/AP Multimedia Archive is an electronic
library containing more than 700,000
photographs from the Associated Press' current
year's photo reports and a selection of photos
from their 50 million image print and negative
library. An average of 500 photos a day are
added. Searchable by date, location, and
subject.
Other Electronic Indexes

International Medieval Bibliography (1967-present)
(Subscription Database)
Comprehensive and current bibliography of the European Middle
Ages (c.450-1500) including articles in journals and miscellaneous
volumes of conference proceedings, essay collections and
Festschriften.
Other Electronic Indexes

Iter Gateway to the Middle Ages and Renaissance
(1859-present) (Subscription Database)
Iter contains a Journals and a Books database. The Journals
database is an electronic bibliography of interdisciplinary journal
literature pertaining to the Middle Ages and Renaissance (4001700). Citations for articles; bibliographies; catalogues; editions;
abstracts; and discographies are included. To date, the full runs of
more than 400 scholarly journal titles, published since 1859, have
been indexed. A complete list of titles is available for review. The
Books database (under construction) is a bibliography of
approximately 46,000 records encompassing monographs,
material published in monographs, and collected essays
pertaining to the Middle Ages and Renaissance (400-1700).
Other Electronic Indexes

American Civil War Letters and Diaries (1855-1875)
(Subscription Database)
Indexes full texts of first person accounts of events in the U.S.
Civil War from hundreds of sources of diaries, letters and memoirs
of people both famous and obscure.
Other Electronic Indexes

Declassified Documents Reference System (19451970's)
(Subscription Database)
Selected US government documents declassified under the
Freedom of Information Act and which were originally
organized under the Declassified Documents Reference
System (DDRS). The online documents selected deal with post
World War II documents in international relations and
domestic documents involving the military and White House
which span the presidencies of Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon.
Other Electronic Indexes

Early Encounters in North America
(Subscription Database)
Early Encounters in North America, subtitled "Peoples,
Cultures and the Environment," will include, when
completed, more than 100,000 pages of letters, diaries,
memoirs and accounts of early encounters. It includes
descriptions of North America, either in its natural features
or interactions among various cultural groups in the years
between 1534 and 1860. Special indexing leads to the who,
what, when and where of the encounters.
Other Electronic Indexes

American Humanities Index
(1975
onwards).
(Subscription Database)
This is an index to over 500 creative, critical and scholarly
English language literary journals and magazines (primarily
American and Canadian). Most are either not indexed
elsewhere or are indexed only partially in other indexing
services. All publications are indexed in their entirety including fiction and poems.
Other Electronic Indexes

Bibliography of Asian Studies (1971-present)
(Subscription Database)
Contains more than 410,000 records on all subjects (especially
humanities and social sciences) pertaining to East, Southeast, and
South Asia published worldwide from 1971 to the present.

ACLS History E-Book Project
(subscription database)

A project to publish high quality electronic books across a broad
range of fields in history, sponsored by the American Council of
Learned Societies. The project includes hundreds of previously
published titles and new publications which take advantage of
electronic publishing capabilities. New titles in both categories are
added annually.
Atlases
Historical Maps of the United States (Perry Castaneda Library
Map Collection, UT Austin)
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/histus.html
A wealth of online maps dealing with Early Inhabitants,
Exploration and Settlement, U.S. Territorial Growth, and a
section on Later Historical Maps (including 146 maps of U.S.
cities) with links to U.S. historical maps at other web sites
Atlases
Rare Map Collection at the Hargrett Library The University of
Georgia Libraries
http://www.libs.uga.edu/darchive/hargrett/maps/maps.html
Includes rare maps of the New World, Colonial America,
Revolutionary America, Revolutionary Georgia, Union and
Expansion, Civil War, Frontier to New South, Savannah and the
Coast, and Transportation.