Learning to Think Like a Historian in Order to Better Understand the Past and Enjoy Its Challenge

Learning to Think Like a Historian in Order to Better Understand the Past

and Enjoy Its Challenge

Here, colonists dressed as Native Americans dump tea into Boston Harbor in a protest leading up to the American Revolution.

This is one artist’s view of a bomb going off as police disperse an anarchist rally in Haymarket Square in Chicago in 1886.

The first flight of the plane built by the Wright brothers, at Kitty Hawk in 1903. With Orville Wright at the controls, this flight lasted 12 seconds.

Such as this frontier family’s struggle to survive on the Great Plains in the 1800s

Lincoln’s Emancipation ProclamationChild labor in a Chicago packing house in 1893

Woman working in a

defense plant during

WWII

However, this photo gives us just a hint or two about one individual. What of the stories of the millions of other people in the past? How can we ever hope to understand all of them?

We can’t, really… Tombstone of a slave named “Uncle John”

The past is gone. All we have to go on are the records we still have.

Photos like this are one kind of record.

Five Habits of Historical Five Habits of Historical ThinkingThinking

• History Is Not the Past Itself

• The Detective Model: Problem, Evidence, Interpretation

• Time, Change, and Continuity

• Cause and Effect

• As They Saw It: Grasping Past Points of View



















The proclamation freed all slaves in the rebellious parts of the U.S. South. Slavery was the big issue dividing North and South. The Civil War began early in 1861. So why did it take Lincoln so long to issue the proclamation?

The proclamation freed all slaves in the rebellious parts of the U.S. South. Slavery was the big issue dividing North and South. The Civil War began early in 1861. So why did it take Lincoln so long to issue the proclamation?

The evidence is in the primary sources.

Lincoln’s axe here is labeled “Emancipation Proclamation.” He is saying he will use it to stop the South’s rebellion.

Lincoln’s axe here is labeled “Emancipation Proclamation.” He is saying he will use it to stop the South’s rebellion.

“If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”

Abraham Lincoln, letter to Horace Greeley, August 22, 1862

“I hate it [slavery] because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world…”

Abraham Lincoln, in an 1858 speechThe First Reading of the Emancipation

Proclamation, an 1864 painting of Lincoln reading the proclamation to his

Cabinet

























1870 1917

19281870

19281870

1917













Failed bank turns away depositors

Breadline

Out of work, waiting for work

Migrant farm worker

“The stock market crash did it.”

“The stock market

crash did it.”

“The huge gap between rich

and poor was to blame.”

“It was the disastrous

tariff policies.”

“The Fed limited the money supplywhen it should have increased it.”

“Americans went crazyspeculating.”

“The stock market crash did it.”

“It was the disastrous tariff policies.”

“The Fed limited the money supply when it should have increased it.”“Americans went

crazy speculating.”

Private Economy The Government

“The huge gap between rich and poor was to blame.”













No running water No cell phones No cars or trucks No TV or Internet Few books, except for the Bible No health clinics No pensions

WWorking from sunup to sundownDDifferent ideas about childrenDDifferent ideas about familyDDifferent ideas about religionDDifferent ideas about community

Five Habits of Historical Five Habits of Historical ThinkingThinking• History Is Not the Past Itself• The Detective Model: Problem, Evidence, Interpretation• Time, Change, and Continuity• Cause and Effect• As They Saw It: Grasping Past Points of View

Five Habits of Historical Five Habits of Historical ThinkingThinking• History Is Not the Past Itself• The Detective Model: Problem, Evidence, Interpretation• Time, Change, and Continuity• Cause and Effect• As They Saw It: Grasping Past Points of View

Tasks Ahead:• Interpret several primary sources

• Read and debate two secondary sources

• Draw your own conclusions about this past episode

Tasks Ahead:• Interpret several primary sources

• Read and debate two secondary sources

• Draw your own conclusions about this past episode

Documents

Learning to Think Like a Historian in Order to Better Understand the Past and Enjoy Its Challenge