Primary Document Analysis
Often in the course of history, primary documents have changed the course of history and human relationships. Primary document analysis is one of the most essential tasks of a historian and thus that of the history student. To analysis a document is not only to glimpse another period of time but to empathize with another's perspective. Students should examine all primary documents with six points in mind: content, citation, context, connections, communications, conclusions. Content, that is, what is the main idea of the document? Citation, that is, who is the author and when was it created? Context, that is, what was going on in the world, region, or the locality where the document was created? Connections, that is, to prior knowledge. Communication, that is, perspective; is the source reliable? Conclusions, that is, how does the primary document contribute to our understanding of history? These points will enable students to better understand historical information through primary documents which generated the initial historical questions generated by historians and information utilized by historians. Most of the essential historical documents are available on-line, transcribed from other languages and placed into a readable format as well!
This document is a passenger manifest.
Content: The document was designed to track the movements of people into the country during an era of immigrant expansion.
Citation: Canadian government official during the 1920's.
Context: Mass movement of people from other lands to new opportunities in Canada, and other so-called 'new-worlds'.
Connections: Whatever may exist.
Communication: The source is generally reliable as it records information in a straight forward form, but note people commonly changed their names to anglicized versions, other countries created poor identity papers, people occasionally gave incorrect birth dates or baptism dates as their birth dates. The information is also highly generalized, what exactly constitutes the ability to read in a language? How was it tested? Was it even tested?
Conclusions: A reader can locate familial relations, locations, important dates, and other pertinent information, such as ability to read, write, and speak and in what language.
