Historical Thinking skills Sourcing Close reading Corroboration Contextualization

Historical Thinking skills Sourcing Close reading Corroboration Contextualization Christopher Hamner Associate Professor, George Mason University

Consider the source: Who made this document? When? Who was it made for? How was it made? How was it disseminated? What is its message or argument?

Try wiping your hands six days a week on harsh, cheap paper towels or awkward, unsanitary roller towels — and maybe you, too, would grumble. Towel service is just one of those small, but important courtesies — such as proper air and lighting — that help build up the goodwill of your employees. That’s why you’ll find clothlike Scot-Tissue Towels in the washrooms of large, well-run organizations such as R. C. A. Victor Co. , Inc. , National Lead Co. and Campbell Soup Co. Scot. Tissue Towels are made of “thirsty fiber”… an amazing cellulose product that drinks up moisture 12 times as fast as ordinary paper towels. They feel soft and pliant as a linen towel. Yet they’re so strong and tough in texture they won’t crumble or go to pieces… even when they’re wet. And they cost less, too — because one is enough to dry the hands — instead of three or four.

Consider the source Close reading: What choices did the creator of this document make? What do those choices say about the past? How might this document have looked different?

Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and the troops have been withdrawn I have withdrawn the troops. This particular operation My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the navy did all that Bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone. July 5

Ladies, some one be my mother; Then 'twill seem that I am home; I'll imagine I'm a brother, Hearing each familiar tone; But I want a mother near me, With that heaven in her eye: Ladies, some one be my mother, Be my mother till I die. CHORUS: Now I feel my wound is mortal, Soon I'll breathe my parting sigh, Ladies, some one be my mother, Be my mother till I die.

Consider the source Close reading Corroboration: What other texts appeared at this moment? How do they support or complicate this document? What do the disagreements tell us?

I am not, nor have ever been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races —that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people. Abraham Lincoln, 1858

It is also unsatisfactory to some that the elective franchise is not given to the coloured man. I would myself prefer that it were now conferred on the very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers. Abraham Lincoln, 1865

Consider the source Close Reading Corroboration Contextualization: What was going on when this document appeared? How did those events affect its creation?

Historical Thinking skills Sourcing Close reading Corroboration Contextualization

We hold these truths to be selfevident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them to slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportations thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain determining to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold this excrable commerce ^ and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms against us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

Historical Thinking skills Sourcing Close reading Corroboration Contextualization

Question? Comments? Send me an email! chamner@gmu. edu Christopher Hamner Associate Professor, George Mason University