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Do you think you are ready to go it alone? You know what primary resources are, you know how to use them, all you need is a little practice figuring out what they all mean! And don’t worry; the great thing about primary resources is there is no real right or wrong answer. But just like with the story about the bottle, some answers are more likely than others. Recall that, at first guess, the bottle was thought to hold kerosene oil, but upon further inspection it turns out it held oil that was used to make muscles feel better. So, don’t get frustrated, just use your best skills of analysis and see what you come up with. Afterwards, you can compare ideas with your friends. Let’s first do one together. Here is an image of an advertisement from long ago.
Here are some of the questions we are trying to answer: |
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Who? | |
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What? | |
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When? | |
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Where? | |
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Why? | |
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How? |
Let’s first take a look at the picture. What’s nice about this advertisement is that it comes from a time obviously after writing was invented and also after some sort of printing press was invented. Those are two big clues. If you look closely though, you’ll see that the answer for our question, “When?” is right smack in the middle of the picture; it says “Founded 1817.” Since the company was founded in 1817, we know that this artifact is from anytime on or after that date. Also, whoever owned this piece hand-wrote the date of 1934. So, that is another clue which gives us a time frame. |
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Who? | |
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What? | |
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When? | On or after 1817 and written by hand in 1934 |
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Where? | |
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Why? | |
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How? |
All right, what other information can we gather? The question, “Who?” is a two part question. Who had this artifact might be a little harder to figure out, but we can easily see who this piece is referring to and that is The Baugh and Sons Company. The people who are selling this product are printed at the bottom: |
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Who? | The Baugh and Sons Company, H.M. Gleason and Co. |
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What? | |
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When? | On or after 1817 and written by hand in 1934 |
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Where? | |
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Why? | |
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How? |
The picture makes it pretty obvious as to "what" this was an ad for. The cow has half of its ribs showing, and the sack shows that some sort of animal product was probably packaged in a big sack. The writing on the right hand side confirms this by saying, “raw bone manures.” |
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Who? | The Baugh and Sons Company, H.M. Gleason and Co. |
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What? | Raw bone manures |
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When? | On or after 1817 and written by hand in 1934 |
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Where? | |
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Why? | |
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How? |
We can figure out where the company is from and where the owner of this artifact is from. In print on the bottom there is an address for the Baugh Sons and Company. That information tells us "where" this company was located. Also the handwritten words at the top are probably an indication of where the person who owned it might be from. |
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Who? | The Baugh and Sons Company, H.M. Gleason and Co. |
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What? | Raw bone manures |
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When? | On or after 1817 and written by hand in 1934 |
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Where? | Charlottesville, VA (company) |
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Why? | |
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How? |
The two last questions, “Why?” and “How?” are certainly the hardest to figure out and require your greatest analysis skills and a little bit of guess work. Here is where you get to decide why this object made it to where it was found, why someone might have it in the first place, how it got there, and how it was used. Let’s make a few guesses. Why would this sack be in the Scottsville archives? Probably someone from Scottsville had it in their personal archives and donated it to the museum. This would be easy to check on by going to the museum and looking at their accessions records. Why did the person have it? Well, judging by the fact that the company was selling packaged manure, it is likely that the owner was a farmer. We can not know this for sure, but we can certainly make some educated guesses. |
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Who? | The Baugh and Sons Company, H.M. Gleason and Co. |
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What? | Raw bone manures |
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When? | On or after 1817 and written by hand in 1934 |
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Where? | Charlottesville, VA (company) |
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Why? | The museum received it as an archival donation, the owner was probably a farmer |
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How? |
How did it get to Scottsville? As you probably know, Charlottesville is not far from Scottsville. It is only 20 miles north. The Baugh and Sons Company was probably based in Charlottesville and then shipped their goods to Scottsville either by way of the roads or by the railroad. We have already learned in the Archaeology section that the railroad came to Charlottesville in 1850, and then good highway transportation came to Scottsville in 1907. Since the owner of this artifact dated it 1934, we can make an educated guess that it probably made its way to Scottsville by road. |
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Who? | The Baugh and Sons Company, H.M. Gleason and Co. |
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What? | Raw bone manures |
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When? | On or after 1817 and written by hand in 1934 |
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Where? | Charlottesville, VA (company) |
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Why? | The museum received it as an archival donation, the owner was probably a farmer |
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How? | The museum received it as an archival donation, the owner was probably a farmer |
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GREAT WORK! We have almost a complete picture of what this artifact might be doing in Scottsville in 1934. What else can we do with this now? Well, if we ever wanted to study what types of animal equipment were in use in Scottsville at a certain time, this could certainly be a valuable resource. If we wanted to know what kinds of things were being shipped from Charlottesville to Scottsville this could once again be a very helpful tool! |
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Are you ready to try it out? The best way to do something like this is to get together as a group and brainstorm different possibilities. So get into a group and try a few primary resource brain teasers. When you are finished think about some of the things that you have now that might one day become a primary resource for the people who find it hundreds of years from now. For example, if an archaeologist excavated your school hundreds of years in the future, and found an old hall pass or bathroom pass, what might the historian be able to figure out from this?
How do we know? Oral History Archaeology Archives/Accessions Teacher/Parent |
