History 205: British Columbia History
Primary Source Critique 5 – Comparison
Explosion of the Kettle Valley Line:
https://www.canadianmysteries.ca/sites/verigin/home/indexen.html
Archives/Primary Source:
https://www.canadianmysteries.ca/sites/verigin/archives/indexen.html
Students are required to write a 2 page analysis of the two primary/archive sources. Your analysis should be divided into four sections:
Context (briefly consider for EACH document: the type of source, time period, author/creator, and society/culture)
Summary (Briefly summarise the key content covered in each source. What is it about?)
3) Analysis (What are the strengths and weaknesses of each document?)
4) Critical Assessment (More broadly, what do you as a historian need to be aware of or cautious about when using each source, ie biases, audience, nature of the author? What can we learn? In the final analysis, do you find more persuasive and why?)
Make use of the questions provided below to spark your own ideas. This does not mean that you need to try and answer all of them! Even if you cannot be certain of the answer, it is permissible to make some reasonable speculation, though you should be clear when you do so.
How to read a primary source?
A primary source is generally considered a source produced at the time of, or shortly after an event, as opposed to secondary sources which are published books and articles produced by later writers, academics etc. Think of a primary source as a window into the past. The words or images of the document are merely the surface of the glass. These are important. But more important is learning to read through the glass to see what lies in the gloom beyond. A source can reveal a great deal about the author or writer, about their political views, social class, gender, ethnic makeup, cultural assumptions.
Keep the following questions in mind when examining a primary source:
-what type of source is this?
-is it a private journal or letter?
-or a newspaper editorial, headline news story, human interest fluff piece or satirical cartoon?
-is it a government document?
-a ‘public’ statement or an internal memo?
-oral interview?
-statistical material such as found in a census?
-how does the nature of the source affect what the historian sees?
-what is the intended audience?
-is this a private diary, a public declaration on a contentious subject, or a letter written by a bureaucrat to his or her superior
-think about how this will affect what is said
-what can be deduced about the author/creator/source?
-gender? age? social class? ethnic identity?
-how might these factors influence how we view the source?
-What about the source and who produced it means that there is a perspective that’s erased?
-given what you are reading, what kinds of cultural, ideological, philosophical assumptions is the author/creator/source making or presuming to be ‘true,’ common sense?
-for instance, if a Member of Parliament speaking in 1902 stands up an says “Canada is and must always remain a bastion of the Anglo-Saxon race,” what assumptions can we presume he or she have with regards to French-Canada, Aboriginal people, racialized people, immigration policy, social Darwinism, Canada’s place in the British Empire and the wider world, etc.
-taking all these elements into consideration, how trustworthy is this source?
-what cultural, gender, political relations do you need to be aware of
-be cautious, be sceptical
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