Maine History Online

Context

Primary sources provide the foundation for history but for any given document, historians want to understand how that evidence fits into a wider picture known as context.

Studying context includes understanding how a document compares to other similar types of documents, for example, soldiers' letters during war. A letter from a Civil War soldier to his family back home provides a primary source that tells us about one young man's experience.

Meshach Larry's 1863 letter to his sister Phebe describes sleeping in open air, hard marches, and witnessing the execution of a deserter. Larry comments on the difficulties of exchanging letters with his family back home.

To place this letter in context, a historian would examine Larry's letters along with letters from other Civil War soldiers, Union and Confederate. Are there common themes? Is the format or content similar?

Looking more widely, a historian today might examine hundreds of letters from soldiers serving in several different wars and write a book about this very common activity: what is similar between letters of the American Revolution and World War II? What is different between duty in the Civil War and soldiers serving in Iraq? How did wives, mothers, and other family members at home respond to soldiers' missives?

In addition, the historian would look at secondary sources about the unit in which Larry served, the battles or marches he described, and other Civil War-related materials to understand the significance of Larry's comments in the context of the larger events of which he was a part.

Historians seek to understand a document in the context of the period in which it was created and in a wider context of similar activities. In doing so, historians connect one individual to many, and connect the local to the regional, the national, and the global.

Context also includes understanding how a primary source fits in relation to the society and culture of its time period. A photograph of hatmakers in Portland's Old Port gives us a good starting point for questions of social context. This image documents women's paid work at the end of the 19th century. It also gives us a good entrée into understanding that period of time.

Note that several women are sewing by hand, but one woman, in the center back, uses a sewing machine. For which tasks was each technology used? How did the sewing machine, small and portable, enlarge women's work opportunities?

The photograph raises additional questions about what type of work the women were doing and whether they were the only employees at the hat factory. Were there men also employed? Did men and women have different jobs? How was that determined? Were pay scales different for different types of work?

The presence of hatmakers begs the question of when and why men wore hats. Hats were ubiquitous at the turn of the century – note the various styles of hats under construction. Does each style serve a particular function? Are there formal and informal hats? How much did hats cost? Did one's class, race or ethnicity determine the type of hat worn? And what of women's hats, absent in this photograph?

Answering these questions gives historians a framework, or context, for understanding a particular primary source.

A single photograph prompts numerous questions for exploration on local, regional and national levels. Labor historians might examine how Portland wages compared to similar work in Boston. Were jobs plentiful in Maine or scarce? What other occupations were available to women at this time? Which were lucrative? How did the arrival of waves of immigrants affect wages in Maine? Did Maine-made hats conform to New York fashions, or was there a Maine fashion aesthetic? Did Maine lead or follow national trends?

The historical conversation is ongoing as questions lead to a search for more historical evidence that in turn prompts more questions. Answering these questions helps us see this photograph as more than a solitary image. By placing the photograph's actors and action into a wider context, historians uncover the rich relationships that connect individuals to wider communities, actions to broader trends, and connect Maine towns to state, region and nation.

Context helps historians understand the relationships between actors and events. Moving beyond assembling long lists of dates, historians, like journalists, ask "w" questions: who, what, when, where, why, and how. In addition to knowing the context of an event, historians seek to understand its cause.

Taking a longer view, we want to understand both continuity and change. What has remained the same over time, how are we connected to generations past? What has changed – and why?

Perspective

Historical evidence provides a window into the past, but that window is often dusty and cracked. With their view of the past obscured, historians carefully consider perspective in analyzing evidence.

Far beyond two sides to every story, participants in or observers of an event remember it, recount it, and record it through the lens of their own perspective: their age or class, their sex or race, their beliefs, ideologies or particular agenda.

A historical story is complicated by multiple, varying perspectives but our understanding of the past is all the richer for it.

The political arena is rich with diverse perspectives. An election cartoon from 1964 presents Margaret Chase Smith, candidate for U.S. president, as "formidable" and suggests, as she selects a pair of running shoes, approval.

But what are we to make of a song that opines that the "formidable" Smith would both negotiate with Castro and Khrushchev and host a bi-partisan tea? References to adding a Laundromat to the Pentagon and the ability of Smith to run government and be home by 4:00 raise critical questions about perspective.

How do the song's writers imagine a female president? Is femininity a benefit or detriment to public office? Does public support of Smith come with conditions? When citizens debate candidates and referenda, perspective often comes to the forefront.

While politics presents a vivid example, perspective plays a key role in the creation of all historical documents. Embedded perspectives are often more subtle and much more complex.

The debate over statehood exemplifies the complexities of history. Following the American Revolution, a growing movement favored separation from Massachusetts. But Mainers were hardly uniform in their reasons for creating a new state or for keeping the status quo.

Back country settlers who battled with land speculators and Massachusetts officials saw the drive for statehood as their own struggle for independence; coastal communities opposed statehood because they enjoyed, and profited by, favorable shipping laws.