How to analyse a source's historical context transcript

when you're studying sources from the past it's important to keep in mind their historical context but what does this mean this video will explain historical context to you teacher had identified their Stephanie for an example to help you out let's jump in [Music] welcome back to another history skills video today we're looking at how to analyze a sources context historical context is one of the six analysis skills you'll need to develop when studying history the others are information origin perspective audience and motive I've made videos on each of these other skills which you can find in the description section below in this video we'll only be exploring source context so what is historical context historical context is the awareness that the people who created historical sources were living at a time which may have held opinions and beliefs that are very different to what we consider to be normal by today's standards for example when reading a pension Roman letter they might talk openly about owning people as slaves we'd be worried if somebody talked like that today but we need to keep in mind that Roman society was very different to our own identifying historical context allows us to demonstrate the skill of historical empathy which is the ability to understand the different attitudes from the past without judging them by modern standards so how do you determine a sources context there are four steps to identifying a sources historical context the first thing you need to know in order to contextualize a historical source is when the source was made ensure that you are as precise as possible when identifying the date of creation either the century decade year month or even the exact day will help secondly once you know when it was created you need to discover where it was created for example if a soldier wrote a letter in a camp before a battle or a convict wrote a letter in a ship while in transit or a newspaper printed a news report in a particular country town this information can become important to know in the context of a source thirdly once you know when it was created you need to discover what significant event occurred at that time particular events often motivated people to create sources in a specific way the creator may have specifically mentioned certain people or events or use certain language because of something which had occurred recently you're not meant to know this information automatically by the way and often background research will be helpful in discovering any events that matter and remember you only care about events that directly influence the creation of the source not other events that occurred elsewhere in the world which are irrelevant finally carefully read the information in the source to identify specific language ideas and terminology that you need to learn more about in order to make sense of the source in always remember people in the past lived very differently to us and they may describe things in very different ways therefore they will say things that could be offensive to us today again some background research might be required to understand any words with which you are unfamiliar once you have completed these four steps you'll have a better idea of the context around the creation of a particular historical source now that you know what source context is and how to identified let's look at an example for our example we'll look at a speech given by US President Franklin D Roosevelt in it he said always will we remember the character of the onslaught against us no matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory in order to understand what the source is saying and why it used the words onslaught against us and America's righteous mind we need to understand the sources context so let's work through our four steps firstly when was it made well this speech was delivered on the 8th of December 1941 next where was it created the speech was delivered during a meeting of the US Congress number three what significant event had occurred some background research tells us that the day before on the 7th of December 1941 Japan had launched a surprise attack on America at Pearl Harbor which brought the u.s. into World War two and finally what specific language is used now the word which confused us before make more sense the onslaught and America's righteous might in the context of an unprovoked military attack are completely understandable now you have a better understanding what source context is I hope that you feel more confident in your studies if you need further explanations examples in at I head over to history skills calm then I'll see you next time