Historians have trust issues—and they should. When scholars evaluate texts, art, material objects, and oral histories from the past, they’re diving into deeply personal and inherently human sources. And humans lie all the time. As professionals, we understand that no single source stands alone as a voice of authority. The research process requires contextualization, layering, and a nuanced understanding of interpersonal dynamics. In my classroom, this is a problem.
My students often struggle to see historical actors as real people. They don’t struggle to understand that Abraham Lincoln was a real person—that he was born in 1809 and lived an actual life until his untimely death. Their problem lies in thinking about Lincoln as a teenage boy worrying about making the wrestling team.
Understanding documents is much harder when students don’t see historical actors as people with actual lives and personalities. Failure to see the humanity in a source means students might miss when a law is written to exact revenge, when a diary is embellishing an event, or when a preacher’s sermon has a joke in it. However, these types of sources exist everywhere. Just like today, people in the past stretched the truth on personal documents because they knew those documents could later be used to support claims in court or to verify property ownership for taxation. Even in our most personal diaries and letters, humans decontextualize and exaggerate to save face. A historian’s job is to see people for who they are—humans.
So, how do I teach students to approach this process? I expose them to a wide variety of primary sources and ask them the kinds of questions historians would likely ask if they were using it in their research. Let’s look at some examples that you can use in your own course.
Primary Source 1: Appraisal of the Estate of William B. Stover, 1850
Activity
The above document is an appraisal of William B. Stover’s estate in 1850, shared via JSTOR by Grand Valley State University. In my class, I introduce the activity by asking students if anyone knows what the terms “appraisal” or “probate” mean. This appraisal was conducted about six weeks after Stover’s death, and we work together for a few moments to define the probate process and determine why people with property sometimes needed that property appraised—before and after death.
For this document, students consider the following questions:
- Given what you know about the 1850s and the information on this document, what can you assume about Stover?
- How and why might inaccuracies be introduced in an appraisal conducted after Stover’s death?
- If this appraisal had been conducted before Stover’s death, what potential reasons would someone involved in the appraisal process have for lying about any of the information in this document?
- What would be the repercussions if someone did lie while producing this or a similar document?
- What other sources would a historian use to double-check that this document is accurate?
Analysis
Stover’s estate record lists the names of approximately fifty-five enslaved individuals and their appraised value. We know from the 1850 census that about 2.3 percent of the Americans who enslaved people claimed ownership of fifty or more people as property. This tells us that Mr. Stover was likely very wealthy. We can also make a reasonable assumption that if he was wealthy, he wanted to protect that wealth by making sure he could pass it down to his heirs.
In the case of a probate appraisal, potential heirs and creditors are invested in the accuracy and speed of the estate appraisal. It’s possible that Stover had his property appraised for insurance purposes at various times before his death, as people do today for their home insurance. If Stover had overvalued something on his list of assets and then something happened to one of those assets, he could recover money from his insurance company for that loss. However, if he lied during that appraisal, and it was found out, he might face charges of fraud and potential jail time. After death, the paper trail could lead to contradictions and slow down the process of settling the estate.
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A historian would likely start by looking internally at the document itself. For example, does the list make sense as a complete set? Would it make sense for the estate to claim ownership of fifty-five enslaved people but no working animals (which isn’t the case here)? Does the ratio of five spinning wheels to one cotton gin feel right?
If all of these things seem correct, a historian would then look into other documents, such as previous appraisals or the plantation’s accounting ledger, which might be housed in the same collection or might be in another archive. This ledger could contain information about the purchase of the items listed in the estate record. For more important items like enslaved persons or equipment, historians may find a record at auction houses or in county records.
Primary Source 2: American Prison Newspapers
Activity
JSTOR hosts a collection of more than 700 prison newspapers as part of the Reveal Digital collections. These newspapers come from US prisons in all fifty states and span a history of over 200 years. Students can choose from any of the collections to complete this exercise, but you may find it helpful to narrow down the activity by choosing one collection for them to work from.
For this set of documents, students should consider the following:
- In your chosen issue, where is the editor being funny? How can you tell?
- What does this newspaper tell us about daily life in the prison that other sources cannot? Why is that the case?
- What should historians do with information in these sources that they find surprising?
- How can historians fact-check the information in this newspaper?
Analysis
Students will find jokes in every one of these newspapers because humor is a natural part of social interaction. We don’t stop being human beings just because bad things are happening; in fact, humor is frequently used as a method of coping and passive resistance. Even newspapers created by students during Japanese American Incarceration in World War II had a joke section. Great examples of these from the American Prison Newspapers collection can be found in “Pen Puns” from The Angolite, out of the Louisiana State Penitentiary, and “Buffalo Chips” from Granite Nugget, out of the Oklahoma State Reformatory.
The newspapers discuss the daily issues the inmates face—weather, facilities problems, slow mail, and more. The contributors also tell us that life inside the prison is socially complex and busy—so busy that the newspaper is an essential means of informing inmates about opportunities to work outside the prison’s walls, updates to systems within, and new opportunities to socialize and learn.
This perspective about inmate life is essential because though the newspapers are censored by prison staff, they’re largely written by incarcerated individuals and driven by topics that interest them. The newspapers also cater to the interests of the prison population at large, which offers different information than a scholar might get from reading the personal correspondence of a single or few incarcerated people. The perspective of the newspapers is also critical because most information about incarceration comes from law enforcement personnel and prison data, which tend to frame prison populations as a singular unit and focus on data instead of people.
If a historian finds something surprising in an issue, they should look for more instances of it in other issues or publications. For example, I was surprised to find a crossword puzzle in a 1965 issue of the Hill Top Crier of the Greencastle Indiana State Farm. It seemed like creating a crossword puzzle by hand would be a lot of work to do regularly. By looking at additional issues of that publication, I found a few other crossword puzzles. It didn’t seem, however, to be a regular or weekly occurrence, which fit with my theory that it was likely difficult to find people to write them. As a historian, I would be interested to see if I could find who was responsible for writing them and what their previous or later occupation was. Was there a prison library with encyclopedias available to the newspaper’s editorial team?
Historians can cross-check the information in prison newspapers against internal prison records as well as any collections of correspondence they may have access to. However, many of the newspapers act as the sole record for the information they house, such as card game scores, movie night schedules, and jokes. In these cases, historians may seek out oral histories by formerly incarcerated or currently incarcerated individuals to provide context to the sources they are using.
Primary Source 3: A General Map of the Middle British Colonies in America
Activity
This eighteenth-century map by Thomas Jefferys depicts the “Middle British Colonies in America.” Begin this exercise by looking at this area on Google Maps, Google Earth, or a similar modern map of the region. Ask students what information the map is giving them and for whom that information is helpful. If they were lost in the woods, would that map help them? Then, provide them with the Thomas Jefferys map and the following questions.
For the map provided, students should consider the following questions:
- Under what circumstances was this map commissioned?
- What is the purpose of the map? What would it be useful for?
- What are the different colors on the map for?
- Does Thomas Jefferys have any reason to draw the map inaccurately?
- Why would a historian need to look at a map like this? What would they be using it to confirm or rule out?
Analysis
When we think about the circumstances under which this map was commissioned, we need to consider the date, the cartographer, and the subject matter. This map was created in its basic form by Philadelphia cartographer Lewis Evans. Thomas Jefferys, identified as “geographer to the King,” added his own observations and additions to the map in the 1770s. Given the hostilities between the British and indigenous peoples of this area in the 1760s, it would make sense that King George III would commission a map of the region. The introduction to the map in the top left corner also gives away the important point that the map’s author was particular about representing specific Indigenous peoples and places on the map because “whatever is such is expressly acceded to the English by Treaty with the French.” In other words, they want to make sure their claims are well-documented so that the French can’t come back and try to take them later.
So, what’s this map for? We certainly wouldn’t use it to give directions. Its utility is in the commentary. Zooming in to each region, scholars can read the name(s) of each Indigenous group living there as well as notes about their foreign policy relationship. One could also argue that it’s meant to be used as documentation to show the French in case they claim that the English aren’t holding up their side of the treaty.
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Thomas Jefferys, as an extension of the English crown, had plenty of reasons to draw or analyze the map incorrectly. He could be taking bribes from the French, from someone local who wants to lay claim to the land, or from one of the Indigenous groups. He could also have a philosophical problem with what the map represented, or he could be sympathetic to the growing colonial resistance movement. More likely, however, this map is reasonably accurate. As a professional cartographer, his reputation and ability to make a living is on the line if his map was found to be less than useful. As “geographer to the King,” he also potentially had his life on the line.
Historians love maps like this because they’re layered with information. Not only does it tell us what geopolitical boundaries looked like in the eyes of the British crown in the 1770s, but it tells us what the relationships within those boundaries looked like. More importantly, it tells us how the existence of those boundaries shaped and reshaped existing relationships on the ground. Historians can also use a map like this to confirm information they’ve read in the personal diaries of people living in these regions or contextualize the creation of laws meant to shape the dynamics seen on the map.
On the Fast Path
Primary sources are more than the speeches, letters, and images that we use to construct a timeline of our past. They’re dynamic pieces of our history that only work as part of a larger human story. For our students, the key to understanding a primary source’s purpose, audience, context, or message lies in answering the questions “why this?” and “why this way?” If students can start to question historical actors and their motives as human agents of change, they’ll be on the fast path to deeper historical analysis.
