Examining Primary Sources

Day One:
Examining primary sources gives one a powerful sense of history and the complexity of the past. Analyzing primary sources can also help to guide you toward higher-order thinking and better critical thinking and analysis skills. Watch the video below by @CommonCraft to help you learn the difference between primary and seconday sources.

What is a Primary Source?
Primary sources are original records of the political, economic, artistic, scientific, social, and
intellectual thoughts and achievements of specific historical periods. Produced by the people
who participated in and witnessed the past, primary sources offer a variety of points of view
and perspectives of events, issues, people, and places. These records can be found anywhere—in a home, a government archive, etc. The important thing to remember is they were used or created by someone with firsthand experience of an event.

Examples of Primary Sources:
Primary sources are not just documents and written records. There are many different kinds of primary sources, including: first-person accounts, documents, physical artifacts, scientific data that has been collected but not interpreted, and face-to-face mentors with specific knowledge or expertise.

Let’s take a look at contents of Lincoln’s Pockets: 

Given to his son Robert Todd upon Lincoln’s death, these everyday items, which through association with tragedy had become like relics, were kept in the Lincoln family for more than seventy years. They came to the Library in 1937 as part of the gift from Lincoln’s granddaughter, Mary Lincoln Isham.

When Abraham Lincoln was shot at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. on April 14, 1865, he was carrying; of one pair of gold-rimmed spectacles with [sliding] temples and with one of the bows mended with string; one pair of folding spectacles in a silver case; an ivory pocket knife with silver mounting; a watch fob of gold-bearing quartz, mounted in gold; an oversized white Irish linen handkerchief with “A. Lincoln” embroidered in red cross-stitch; a sleeve button with a gold initial “L” on dark blue enamel; and a brown leather wallet, including a pencil, lined in purple silk with compartments for notes, U.S. currency, and railroad tickets.

Watch the video below and listen to Library of Congress curator, Clark Evan, describe the contents of Lincoln’s pockets. Images. Paragragh from OMAM

In order of image presentation: 1.) Watch fob 2.) Button 3.) Pocket knife 4.) Handkerchief 5.) Wallet 6.) Confederate $5 dollar bill 7.) Glass lense cleaner and buffer 8.) Glasses case 9.) Lincoln’s eyeglasses with name on inner stem. (See the Library of Congress article.)

Using the Library of Congress Primary Source Analysis Tool, a graphic organizer that helps you closely examine primary sources and record your ideas in a way that builds your  understanding of who President Lincoln was by analyzing the contents of his Pockets.

Click this link to create a copy of the Primary Source Analysys Tool in your drive, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1f8xPoGm0jjG1sVJ6vVll6FZn0o10R16xtheGyoUQqXw/copy