Primary Source Analysis
Your last assignment, the critical reading analysis, helped you develop a critical and contextual understanding of information in secondary sources, and particularly their arguments and evidence. The ability to analyze information in this way is critical to research.
As you know, many researchers also use historical documents–or primary sources–to collect data or develop theories. You will now conduct an exercise that helps you develop a critical and contextual understanding of information in primary sources!
Your first step is to select a primary source from the options below, or choose a primary source of your own. The source may be from any era, but it must be a written document.
As a nod to the Black Lives Matter movement, I am encouraging students pick primary sources that relate to social problems faced by African Americans.
Frazier 1925 Psychological Factors in Negro Health
(A study on the effects of exclusion, discrimination, and violence experienced by Black people/communities in a social environment, including medical institutions, dominated by white people; CW/TW: includes quoting of inappropriate language & threats)
Conducting an analysis of the historical texts listed will likely be challenging but I urge you to take on this challenge because these each of these texts underscore important under-addressed aspects of US history. That is, they bring to light the many ways in which countless people have long understood racism to be structural, and prejudice to be unfounded and unjust. In this way, they provide a unique window into the views of their times.
NOTE: Over time, language changes. Historically terms like “freedmen,” “negroes,” and “the blacks” were used to refer to Black people and African-Americans. Today, because language has evolved, we do not use these terms anymore. Please be careful to *not* adopt the terminology of your historical document when writing your analysis, unless you are explicitly discussing these antiquated terms.
Some views contained in these papers will sound identical to what we hear and say today. Some reflect ideas and conditions that are unique to their historical context. It will be your job to discern: What is the author’s argument? What kind of views are they arguing against? What is their evidence? What political and social influence or power do they have? If they have power, how do they use it?
[Note: Some of these historical reports were secondary documents in their own time. That is, they were produced by experts who collected primary data elsewhere and then wrote their conclusions to share with the public. This is different than, for instance, a diary or letter, which are also common examples of primary sources. Nevertheless, many social scientists today (myself included) look at these kinds of historical reports as primary sources when we want to analyze how scientists viewed problems and offered solutions in their day. For that reason, I offer them to you as primary sources that provide evidence of the past state of social science.]
In your responses, please be sure to include consideration of the intersectional positionality (the different identities) of the author of the primary source, to the best of your ability. That is, how do you thinks the author was influenced by their ideological, political and socioeconomic contexts/networks, and what kind of audience and impact/relevance might this primary source have had historically.
This means that you will likely need to conduct research on the author of the source. Remember: because these documents address issues pertaining to race, the race/ethnicity of the author is pertinent. Other factors like nationality, birthplace, education, etc may be pertinent too.
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