Assignment Due September 24

September 19, 2012 · by · in Assignments (admin), Research

Over the next two classes, you will be researching and constructing arguments about the role of “cultural conflict” in the 1968 presidential election.

By September 24th, 8:00am:

Find three primary sources that are each from a different database.  Post your sources to the blog — make sure no classmate has posted that sources already, if they have, find another! — with a brief description that includes:
a) what database you found the sources in;
b) who created it, when it was created, and where it was created (consult Sam Wineburg’s “Thinking Like a Historian” for the type of “meta” questions you should ask of a document); and
c) a brief statement on how each artifact speaks to the role of “cultural conflict” in the 1968 election. Your response should not merely be about a conflict, but about its relationship to that specific election.

If you are confused about what constitutes a primary source, see this primer from the Yale University libraries. If you’re still confused, ask us.

Do your best to upload a copy of the artifact to the blog, which can accept pdfs, or screenshots of documents. At the very least, link to the artifact. Again… if you’re stuck, ask us.

The Newman Library provides access to a range of databases. Click here to view them.

The databases you should search within are:

  • American Periodicals
  • AP Images
  • Art Museum Image Gallery
  • BlackThought and Culture
  • Cinema Image Gallery
  • Economist Historical Archive
  • Eighteenth Century Collections Online
  • Financial Times Historical Archive
  • In the First Person
  • JSTOR
  • New York Times (1951-2008)
  • Savings and Loan Crisis Digital Archives
  • Wall Street Journal (1889-1994)
  • Women and Social Movements

Next week, you will each craft a historical argument using the primary sources has collected. We will spend time talking about this on Monday.

In addition to the above assignment, complete the reading: Kate Theimer, “Archives in Context and as Context,” Journal of Digital Humanities, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Spring 2012).