This document provides an overview of how historians analyze and interpret primary sources to understand history. It discusses the process historians use to locate primary sources, examine them by asking questions about their context and potential biases, and draw conclusions. The document then gives an example of how historians interpreted Rosa Parks' arrest records to better understand the context and significance of her refusal to give up her bus seat, an act which helped spark the Montgomery Bus Boycott and wider Civil Rights movement.

1. The Historian’s Toolbox
Discovery, Analysis, Interpretati
on, Communication

2. What Do Historians Do?
 Obviously historiography
[writing history] cannot be a
science. It can only be an
industry, an art, and a
philosophy – an industry by
ferreting out the facts, an art
by establishing a meaningful
order in the chaos of
materials, a philosophy by
seeking perspective and
enlightenment." - Will and
Ariel Durant, The Lessons
of History (1968)
What Historians Do How They Do It
Discover
Locate primary sources and ferret
out the facts.
Analyze
Examine primary sources and
establish a meaningful order in
the chaos of materials.
Interpret
Explain the meaning of primary
sources and seek perspective and
enlightenment.
Communicate Share insights with others.

3. The Building Blocks of History : Primary Sources
 Primary sources are actual
records that have survived
from the past. They are
pieces of information created
from direct experience that
help us to understand
history: letters, diaries, public
documents, photographs,
remnants of clothing,
furniture, tools, coins, and
other artifacts.
 Primary sources are created
by people who witnessed or
participated in an event and
recorded it in some way.
This photo was taken about 100 years ago at the turn
of the century. It shows Laura May Wilson and her bike.
Note: Any item created in the past which
provides information about the period is
also considered a primary source
(e.g., a newspaper advertisement from
the 1940s, a political cartoon
from the 1920s,or a recipe
from the 1800s.)

4.  The photograph on the left
shows Laura May Wilson
on her wedding day.
Through using documents
such as a Certificate of
Marriage (below the
picture), we can learn more
about this event. For
example, she was married
on March 14, 1917, in Coon
Rapids, Carroll
County, Iowa. From this
document, we also know
that her two sisters Hazel
and Rhoda witnessed the
marriage.
Using Primary Sources

5. Tools for “Doing History” Well

7. Locating Primary Sources
 Looking for primary
documents is like a treasure
hunt. Historians often have to
go to many places to collect
materials including libraries,
museums, government
agencies, and historical
societies. They even may
create their own documents
by interviewing relevant
people. (Audio and video
tapes are primary sources
too.)
Resources at the Library of
Congress, Washington, D.C.
1933 Chicago World's Fair View Book,
Boston Museum of Natural History
Above (right): 16th
Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution: Federal
Income Tax
(1913), National Archives
Group Listening to
V-E Day Radio
Commentary, State
Historical Society of
Wisconsin, Madison
Slaves who fled
their
masters, 1862, Libra
ry of Congress

8. Broadening the Search
 Today, many historians use
digital reproductions of
original materials. A digital
reproduction is an electronic
version of an artifact such as
a diary, letter, newspaper
clipping, object, or original
photograph. Digital
reproduction allows the
original to be stored,
protected, and preserved,
while making the resource
widely available for study.
Photographer Les Goodey creating digital
reproductions, The Taylor-Schechter Genizah
Research Unit, Cambridge University Library
Documents from the Genizah Collection help to shed light
on the medieval world. Its 140,000 manuscript fragments
are mainly in Hebrew and Arabic.

9. More Examples of Digital Reproductions
 The article on the right is a digital
reproduction of a newspaper
article. The article notes that Mrs.
Laura Wilson Anderson had her
poems published in The Poetic
Voice of America. The original
article was scanned.
 The pictures show the "Always
Ready Class" at the Star
Methodist Church where Clara
May Wilson taught. A number of
scans were completed. First, the
photo is displayed in a black
photo album. The back of the
photo was also scanned. The
close-ups are of Clara and Glenn
Bolger, Mrs. Anderson’s niece
and nephew.

10. The Limitations of Digital Reproductions
 Reading a scanned copy of the marriage certificate
yields similar information to the original. But it
doesn't allow us to see the reverse side of the
sheet unless that side is scanned too. So the
exploration may be incomplete when examining
digital reproductions. Some historians also miss
the smell and touch of an original item.

11. Transcriptions
 Many historical primary
resources are transcribed into a
digital form to make them easier
to access and search. This is a
diary entry made by Eileen
Kinnick on January 1, 1936,
when she was 17 years old. A
scanned digital reproduction of
the diary page is at the top. The
transcription is below it.
Wednesday, January 1
Up to Edna's all day.
Gertrude's, Lillian's
and Lucille's and we
were there. At nite
read book and
listened to Gracie
Allen. "The Music
goes Round & Round."
Some Rules for Transcribing
1. Make no attempt to correct spelling or other "mistakes."
2. Use capital letters where the writer used capital letters.
3. Make educated guesses when unsure of a word. However,
use brackets [ ] where wording is questionable. If you're
unable to decipher the words, indicate [illegible].
4. Match the punctuation used by the author.
5. You may or may not choose to maintain the formatting of
the document such as line breaks.

12. Errors in Transcription
 Examine this example from Ruth West's 1920 diary
and see if you can identify issues or concerns with
transcription. Errors in transcriptions are common.

14. Examining Primary Sources
 Historians go to primary sources
in search of evidence to answer
questions about what happened
in the past and why. When
working with primary
sources, answering a series of
basic questions can help us
judge their quality and draw
more accurate conclusions.
 The Document Analysis
Worksheets on the following
pages were developed by the
National Archives for educators
and young researchers to assist
in the evaluation of primary
sources of various types.
Questions for Analyzing Primary Sources
Recommended by the Library of Congress
1. Who created the source and why? Was it created
through a spur-of-the-moment act, a routine
transaction, or a thoughtful, deliberate process?
2. Did the recorder have firsthand knowledge of the
event? Or, did the recorder report what others saw
and heard?
3. Was the recorder a neutral party, or did the creator
have opinions or interests that might have influenced
what was recorded?
4. Did the recorder produce the source for personal
use, for one or more individuals, or for a large
audience?
5. Was the source meant to be public or private?
6. Did the recorder wish to inform or persuade others?
(Check the words in the source. The words may tell
you whether the recorder was trying to be objective
or persuasive.) Did the recorder have reasons to be
honest or dishonest?
7. Was the information recorded during the event,
immediately after the event, or after some
lapse of time? How large a lapse of time?

19. Interpreting Primary Sources
 Interpretation is the
process of
explaining primary
sources by
revealing their
context, meaning,
and significance.
Let’s look at an
example involving
Civil Rights activist
Rosa Parks.

20. The Arrest Records of Rosa Parks
 The documents shown here relating
to Mrs. Parks’ arrest are copies that
were submitted as evidence in the
Browder v. Gayle case. They are
preserved by the National Archives
and Records Administration-
Southeast Region in East
Point, Georgia, in Record Group
21, Records District Courts of the
United States, U.S. District Court for
Middle District of Alabama, Northern
(Montgomery) Division. Civil Case
1147, Browder, et al v. Gayle, et al.
 This booking photo, taken at the time
of Mrs. Parks' arrest, was discovered
in July 2004 by a deputy cleaning
out a Montgomery County Sheriff's
Department storage room.

21. Police Report, December 1, 1955, Page 1

22. Police Report, December 1, 1955, Page 2

23. Fingerprint Card of Rosa Parks

24. Illustration of bus where Rosa Parks sat, December 1, 1955

26. Telling the Story Behind the Primary Sources
 Authors Stacey Bredhoff,
Wynell Schamel, and Lee
Ann Potter studied Rosa
Park’s arrest records and
combined their new
knowledge with what they
already knew about the Civil
Rights movement and
published this article: "The
Arrest Records of Rosa
Parks." Social Education 63,
4 (May/June 1999): 207-211.

27. Rosa Park’s Arrest Records
 On December 1, 1955, during a typical
evening rush hour in
Montgomery, Alabama, a 42-year-old
woman took a seat on the bus on her
way home from the Montgomery Fair
department store where she worked as
a seamstress. Before she reached her
destination, she quietly set off a social
revolution when the bus driver
instructed her to move back, and she
refused. Rosa Parks, an African
American, was arrested that day for
violating a city law requiring racial
segregation of public buses.
Note: In this section, highlighted passages indicate
interpretive statements.
From: "The Arrest Records of Rosa Parks." Social Education 63, 4 (May/June 1999)

28.  In police custody, Mrs. Parks was
booked, fingerprinted, and briefly
incarcerated. The police report
shows that she was charged with
"refusing to obey orders of bus
driver." For openly challenging the
racial laws of her city, she
remained at great physical risk
while held by the police, and her
family was terrified for her. When
she called home, she spoke to her
mother, whose first question was
"Did they beat you?"

29.  Mrs. Parks was not the first person to be
prosecuted for violating the segregation laws on
the city buses in Montgomery. She
was, however, a woman of unchallenged
character who was held in high esteem by all
those who knew her. At the time of her
arrest, Mrs. Parks was active in the local National
Association for the Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP), serving as secretary to E.D.
Nixon, president of the Montgomery chapter. Her
arrest became a rallying point around which the
African American community organized a bus
boycott in protest of the discrimination they had
endured for years. Martin Luther King, Jr., the 26-
year-old minister of the Dexter Avenue Baptist
Church, emerged as a leader during the well-
coordinated, peaceful boycott that lasted 381
days and captured the world’s attention. It was
during the boycott that Reverend Martin Luther
King, Jr., first achieved national fame as the
public became acquainted with his powerful
oratory.

30.  After Mrs. Parks was convicted under
city law, her lawyer filed a notice of
appeal. While her appeal was tied up
in the state court of appeals, a panel
of three judges in the U.S. District
Court for the region ruled in another
case that racial segregation of public
buses was unconstitutional. That
case, called Browder v. Gayle, was
decided on June 4, 1956. The ruling
was made by a three-judge panel that
included Frank M. Johnson, Jr., and
upheld by the United States Supreme
court on November 13, 1956.
Judgment
After trial on the merits and
careful consideration of the
evidence therein adduced and after
oral arguments and submission of
briefs by all parties, the Court,
being fully advised in the promises,
found in an opinion handed down on
June 5, 1956, that the enforced
segregation of Negro and white
passengers on motor buses operating
in the City of Montgomery as
required by Section 301 (31a, 31b
and 31c) of Title 48, Code of
Alabama, 1940, as amended, and
Sections 10 and 11 of Chapter 6 of
the Code of the City of Montgomery,
1952, violates the Constitution and
laws of the United States.

31.  For a quiet act of defiance that resonated
throughout the world, Rosa Parks is known and
revered as the "Mother of the Civil Rights
Movement."
February 4, 1913 - October 24, 2005February 4, 1913 - October 24, 2005

32. Why Study History?
For the Big Payoff…

33. A Lesson from History
Even ordinary citizens can serve as agents of constructive change.
Conventional wisdom says that if you want to play a significant role
in history, you have to do something big. But it's small acts of
leadership – refusing to move to the back of the bus, circulating a
petition, organizing a strike – that eventually move mountains. Small
acts of leadership, not big heroic acts, performed by like-minded
people ultimately add up. Small acts of leadership slowly and
effectively bring about constructive change – ESM

34. Bibliography
 "Analysis of Primary Sources." The Historian's Sources. The Library of Congress. 14 Nov. 2005
<http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/lessons/psources/analyze.html>.
 District Court of The United States for the Middle District of Alabama-Northern Division. "Browder v. Galye."
National Park Service. 22 Dec. 2004. National Historic Site, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the
Interior. 15 Nov. 2005 <http://www.nps.gov/malu/documents/browder_v_gayle.htm>.
 Education Staff. "Document Analysis Worksheets." ARCHIVES.GOV. U.S. National Archives and Records
Administration. 14 Nov. 2005 <http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/worksheets/index.html>.
 Education Staff. "Teaching with Documents: The Arrest Records of Rosa Parks." ARCHIVES.GOV. U.S.
National Archives and Records Administration. 15 Nov. 2005
<http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/rosa-parks/#documents >.
 "History and Culture: Questions and Answers." Open Door: Ideas and Voices from MIT. 2003.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 15 Nov. 2005
<http://alumweb.mit.edu/opendoor/200211/dower.shtml>.
 Lamb, Annette, and Larry Johnson. "Analyzing Primary Sources." E-Scrapbooking. Feb. 2005. 14 Nov.
2005 <http://escrapbooking.com/primarysources/index.htm>.
 "Using Primary Sources." Do History: History Toolkit. Film Study Center, Harvard University, and Center for
History and New Media, George Mason University. 14 Nov. 2005
<http://dohistory.org/on_your_own/toolkit/primarySources.html>.