Geography 417: California For Educators			History Lab: Primary Sources

History Lab: Using and Interpreting Primary Sources

Before you Start: It's always a good idea to print a copy of this exercise out first.  Then you can pencil  in your answers on the paper copy as you go through the assignment.  Should your internet connection fail, then you won't have to start over.  Also, you'll have a 'hard copy' as proof you did the assignment.  When you want to enter your answers, remember to press TAB after you have typed in a response.  You can also use your mouse to move to the next response box.  DO NOT press enter until you are finished.  Once you press Enter or click the Submit button below, you will be redirected to a page that displays your answers.  It's a good idea to keep a copy of this as well.

Background: The ability to do some rudimentary historical and/or spatial thinking has been shown to improve teacher quality.  Part of such thinking stems from the epistemological question "How do you know what you know?"  To this end, this exercise has been developed to help you gain some skill using primary sources.  This exercise may prove helpful as you seek to utilize primary sources in your classrooms so that distant places and times might come alive for your pupils.  The ability to effectively interpret and use primary sources is also skill in which you are supposed to be able to demonstrate some competency.

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CSBE Standard:  This exercise addresses in part several of the California State standards for 4th graders:

4.4 Students explain how California became an agricultural and industrial power, tracing the transformation of the California economy and its political and cultural development since the 1850s.

3. Discuss immigration and migration to California between 1850 and 1900, including the diverse composition of those who came; the countries of origin and their relative locations; and conflicts and accords among the diverse groups (e.g., the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act).

4. Describe rapid American immigration, internal migration, settlement, and the growth of towns and cities (e.g., Los Angeles).

5. Discuss the effects of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and World War II on California.

6. Describe the development and locations of new industries since the nineteenth century, such as the aerospace industry, electronics industry, large-scale commercial agriculture and irrigation projects, the oil and automobile industries, communications and defense industries, and important trade links with the Pacific Basin.

7. Trace the evolution of California's water system into a network of dams, aqueducts, and reservoirs.

8. Describe the history and development of California's public education system, including universities and community colleges.

9. Analyze the impact of twentieth-century Californians on the nation's artistic and cultural development, including the rise of the entertainment industry (e.g., Louis B. Meyer, Walt Disney, John Steinbeck, Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, John Wayne).

CSET Standard: This exercise address in part several CSET Skills and Abilities requirements.  Specifically covered by this lab are the domains below:

This first exercise in primary sources relies upon the American Memory Website, hosted by the Library of Congress.  It’s easily one of the best uses for the internet yet created.  There are many, many useful exercises and ideas on this website for teaching a variety of history and geography topic AND it is an excellent resource for honing your abilities with primary sources. 

Part I: Background and Vocabulary

Step 1. Open in a new browser window the American Memory Website.  

    **Remember you can switch back and forth between open browser window by pressing Alt + Tab. 

Step 2.  Though there are many avenues possible that may prove useful as an entrée into primary documents, you need to just click on the green getting started link.   You should do yourself a favor and explore the Library of Congress website, especially the American Memory collections.

Question 1: Fill in the blank.  According to the website, the American Memory archive has over 100 collections and more than  million primary source documents, photographs, films and recordings.

Step 3.  Click on the words primary sources and open a new window that offers a basic background on primary sources.  Read the paragraph to the right of the painting and answer the following questions.

Question 2: is an example of a primary source listed on this page

Question 3: is an example of a secondary source.

Step 4: Scroll over (move your mouse over) the words artifacts, documents, sounds, etc on the left of the picture and read the paragraphs that pop up to the right of the pictures.  Answer the following questions:

Question 4: What type of primary source would a bicycle from the 1880s be considered?

Question 5a and b: Fill in the blank.  In the paragraph about documents, the website argues that  “Just because something has been published does not make it or reliable, but even sources can tell us important things about the past. 

Question 6:  A diary or a journal kept by a pioneer coming to California would be considered an document. 

Question 7: This website also suggests that is particularly important for understanding the history of minority groups, because their histories may not have been overlooked and may not otherwise survive in the written records that are frequently used to document the past.

Question 8:  In addition to audio, this website lists as yet another type of primary source.

Part II: Rules of Thumb for using Primary Sources

Step 5.  Though you are welcome to look through the links to Teacher and Student activities, etc.  Our purposes are best suited by jumping straight to the second activity in the Student Lesson section called Analysis of Primary Sources.  Click the link and begin reading through this page.  Answer the questions below.

Question 9.  The website argues that one way researchers guard against bias in their source is to their evidence against other evidence and sources.

Question 10. 

Question 11. 

Question 12 

Use the time and place rule to place the following historical evidence or data about the Gold Rush in rank order, with 1 being the best piece of evidence and 4 being the least reliable regarding a Gold Rush era mining camp that was buried by an Avalanche.

A diary, recently found in a lost bank vault, written by a Gold Miner from the camp who was the only one to escape. --2

The mining camp itself, recently found, in a secret Valley in the Sierras.--1

A newspaper account of the mine camp disaster, told word for word by one who watched the event from atop a nearby mountain. --3

An account of the disaster, written by the son of the sole survivor of the tragedy.  --4

The Bias rule- Read the bias rule carefully….and read Dr. Graves’ corollary to the bias rule:

The potential bias in contained in most historical evidence is in direct proportion to the potential rewards generated by the evidence itself….

Read on… there are several good rules of thumb under the heading “Questions for Analyzing Primary Sources”

Which is source is probably less likely to be a biased account of some event in Father Junipero Serra’s life:

1. His personal diary.
2. His collection of letters to the King of Spain
3. His columns in the “mission newspaper”
4. The account of the event written in a biography written 10 years after his death by his brother.

California as I saw it:

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/cbhtml/cbednote.html

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