As we’ve learned this year, historians draw from many different kinds of historical materials, including primary sources (contemporary with your subject) and secondary sources (written long after the fact, with the benefit of historical perspective). As we’ll explore in this project, period magazines and newspapers are particularly valuable primary sources, reflecting how historical personas, phenomena, and events were discussed and understood during their day.
For this assignment, you will use primary source periodicals to research an event, idea, episode or individual we’ve encountered this term. Your task is to bring to life how the American nation experienced an event while it was happening: how was the event represented in the presses of their day--how it was discussed and aired in the court of public opinion (which back then, was mostly newspapers and magazines).
You will NOT be determining the cause of the event, or it's impact. You won't be writing about the event itself, really, but about the reaction to the event.
In addition to using periodical sources, you will also use secondary sources like reference sources, overviews, and monographs to understand the event, provide background, context, and perhaps to be able to show how the presses distorted reality. You may also be able to use the primary sources to provide some of this context as well. But make sure you provide enough background and context so that the story makes sense to your reader. You can often pack this contextual information into the cracks of your essay, or into footnotes, rather than in long (often tedious) background paragraphs at the start of the essay.
The assignment focuses on research and writing skills, so it’s okay to write an interpretive narrative, an explanatory piece; this is not a standard persuasive essay. Instead, think of it this way: these newspaper and magazine authors have spent years trapped in PEA library databases, and your job is to let their vivid, compelling voices speak to us, and to interpret what they show us about our national conversation. Your own voice will be used for explanation, summary, introduction, context, and occasional commentary; you will frame and contextualize those voices, putting them in dialogue with each other, and then commenting on what they had to say, and on what we can learn from what they had to say. Think of yourself as an informed guide to these voices and sources from the past.
Given that the substance of your paper will be vivid, descriptive quotes from the newspapers and magazines of the era, you will likely use more quotes than you would in a more typical historical essay. Good papers will show a command of newspaper and magazine sources, and excellent papers will also draw connections between your sources and the larger history of the period, showing, for example, how the sinking of the Lusitania propelled the U.S. toward war, or how Hemingway’s fiction conveyed the postwar era’s disillusionment with American ideals. But despite its focus and direction, this essay is freer in form than other essays you may have written this year. While your interpretive voice will frame and organize the essay, you might not necessarily need the kind of formal, directive thesis you’ve perfected in earlier papers.
Paper Length: 5-7 pages. Note: longer is not better and in a research paper, it's often worse. For example, if you only use the minumum of 6 sources you can't possibly write a decent 7-page paper because you will end up making claims that are supported by too-little evidence. If you want to impress me with extra work, do extra research, not extra writing.
Process: Begin by making a plan. Note the schedule as outlined on the syllabus and the deadlines you will have to meet. THere will be one opportunity for you to meet individually with me to go over a rough draft, or whatever you've managed to produce by the time of your scheduled meeting. Make a timeline for yourself and create your own intermediate deadline for the following milestones: Choosing a topic; gathering secondary sources; reading at least six periodical articles; beginning to write your draft.
Choosing a topic: You may choose from lists of key terms I've given you, or things mentioned in the readings. I have a long list of topic ideas here. A good way to look for a topic is to browse through the reference books in the History Alcove of the library or on a 430 Libguide. As always, the narrower the topic, the richer and better the essay is likely to be (this is a monograph, not an overview or a text book). Once you've nailed it down tell me your topic.
Refining the topic: fill in the blanks in this sentence to help yourself understand what your paper is really about.
Citations: You will use FULL FORM footnotes in the Chicago/Turabian format, and submit a bibliography as well.
Rough draft: Ideally you will give me a rough draft, not just an outline. By the time it's due, you will have used up most of your release time so you should be far along in your research and writing. Some tips:
The paper should be no more than 25% background. Background is what you tell us about the event the press is covering and it should be derive from secondary sources.
The rest of the paper should be made up of evidence from the press and your explanation/analysis of it.
Bibliography should be included in the same document as the text, not a separate file.
A reader should be able to read the first sentence of every paragraph and get a good sense of what the paper is about. If you have only an outline, it should have those sentences and also some of the quotes you plan to use.
Final Draft. This should be well written, edited, and interesting to read. It would be far better to turn in a polished five-page paper than a poorly written and unedited 7-page essay. Spend extra time on that introduction paragraph. Make your reader care about the topic. What will I gain from reading it?
1-2 Reference Sources
1-2 Overviews. Use a volume from the Oxford History of the United States series if there's one on your period or topic, e.g., Richard White, The Republic for Which it Stands, which is a chronological overview. Other overviews are listed on the libguide books tab) or . Thematic surveys follow one theme through all of American history. Here are a few: Sara Evans, Born for Liberty (women in American history), From Colony to Superpower (foreign policy), The Way we Never Were (families), Intimate Matters (sexuality), There is Power in a Union (labor), Children of Fire (African American history), People's History of the Supreme Court, Different Mirror (immigrants), Strangers in the Land (nativism). The Right to Vote (voting rights).
1-2 Monographs: Books or scholarly journal articles (use JSTOR to find them) narrowly focused on your topic.
6 - ∞ primary sources: Use the library databases to conduct your research (see below): https://libguides.exeter.edu/subjects. Six useful articles is the minimum number, but you will likely need more to make persuasive generalizations. And know that 6 sources, or 16 or even 60 will not support a claim about the state of American "public opinion" or "what America thought." If you are writing a paper longer than five pages you will certainly need MORE than six.
Somewhere in the essay you should include a methodological statement (a sentence at least) explaining the nature of your research. I know you can't do an authoritative, conclusive survey of the entire American press. So, please read this page on sampling periodicals.
It's always advisable to begin your research with a reference source or two. For example, if you choose George Creel and the Committee on Public Information but know little or nothing about either, read the Creel entry in American National Biography and the CPI entry in the Encyclopedia of American History. You should then consult a monograph on your specific subject, or a more general history (overview/survey) covering the period you’re investigating. Then, when you are clear about the big picture, go to the periodicals. You must use at least four primary sources, although if your primary sources aren’t lengthy, you might well need more to paint a full picture. It is critical that you choose a topic for which you can find good sources. Before committing to a topic, make sure the sources will enable you to enjoy it!
Formulating a research question
Elsewhere: Libguides
Proquest Historical Newspapers (database of major presses)
America’s Historical Newspapers (database of smaller/local presses)
Reader’s Guide Retrospective (database providing information on additional sources)
American Periodicals Series Online (database of newspapers and magazines)
The Nation Archive (database of this important 19th and 20th century magazine)
Harpers Weekly Archive (database of this important 19th and 20th century magazine)
Sources in print or on microfilm in the library (use the Reader’s Guide Retrospective to help you access these): Atlantic Monthly, Century, Crisis, Current Opinion, Forum, Independent, Literary Digest, New Republic, New York Times, North American Review, Outlook