The Natural Method
The natural method typically starts with having personal interest in a topic and then using various resources to learn more about it, with one discovery leading to another. Though there are many more scientific or formal ways to approach history, sometimes it boils down to curiosity and following leads. Oftentimes, one will start using the natural method without thinking about it but still find great sources and information.
For my research, I simply wanted to find a newspaper article about the Dickinson College Class of 1860’s commencement ceremony. To start, I went to the Dickinson College Archives and Special Collections, where I found an article entitled “Pro-Slaveryism at Dickinson College” in The New-York Daily Tribune, detailing a speech given during the events and celebrations surrounding commencement for the class of 1860. The speech – delivered by George A Coffey, an alumnus of Dickinson – was about liberty as a necessity and the hypocrisy of slavery in the United States. As a country with a deeply engrained egalitarian ideology, Coffey said America “did not fully act out its principles because some four millions of human beings were forcibly deprived of all rights of liberty and property.” Coffey offered a jarring and accurate interpretation of the state of slavery, but this apparently did not sit well with the crowd, as many left during his speech. The New-York Daily Tribune also reported that the Board of Trustees even held a secret meeting afterwards, agreeing to not allow any more anti-slavery speeches.
After fulfilling my original goal, I was curious to see how Carlisle, the home of Dickinson, reacted to the speech, so I went to the Cumberland County Historical Society to look at microfilm. While at the Historical Society, I found an article about commencement that described Coffey’s speech as “unreasonable” and that slavery “ought to be kept out of Commencement exercises” because “men of different opinions and feelings” should be able to expect that divisive topics would not be mentioned.
Though I did not use any traditional or taught historical methodology, I was still able to find illuminating information about the college’s commencement ceremonies. However, I also learned a little about attitudes in Central Pennsylvania toward slavery, an unexpected but pleasant surprise.
Citations:
"Commencement Exercises at Dickinson College." The Carlisle Herald. July 13, 1860. 1:2-5.
"Pro-Slaveryism at Dickinson College." New-York Daily-Tribune. July 24, 1860. 7:4-5.
Inductive Reasoning and Research
As described by John Lewis Gaddis in Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past, inductive research is starting with a smaller or more specific source and then finding broader sources to put the smaller ones into context. Sometimes in history, this means starting with a primary source, and then moving outwards to find secondary sources to better understand it. This process is essential to understanding primary source documents, like Charles F. Thomas’ diary. I inductively researched extensively to understand what he journals about and to make sense of the diary as a whole. Examples of this can be found under the “Diary” tab.
Contextualizing his diary required reading entries in which he mentions one thing, such as disagreements with his family over secession, then researching secondary sources about the topic, and combining the two together to provide a description of the event.
Thomas writes of an exchange of letters with his parents in which he finds out that they disagree with his stance on the Civil War. In May of 1861, he writes that his father sent him a letter “which leads [Thomas] to fear in fact to know that all [his] family are secessionists.” He continues to note that he “cannot help but to feel very bad” for having an opposite opinion than his family, as he is a supporter of the Union. Thomas’ family seems to be disappointed in him, as he also pens that in his father’s letter he told him to not bring up his views on the war. A few weeks later he writes of another exchange of letters, writing that he and his father feel “regret and surprise” that they disagree.
Inductive Research is required to properly understand Thomas’ experience in this event and the consequences of it for both him and the rest of his family. Reading a source about families in the Civil War, like Amy Taylor’s The Divided Family in Civil War America, really helps to understand Thomas’ dilemma by relating it to other examples, which creates a generalized narrative of what being in a “divided family” was like. While in Thomas’ diary he briefly mentions his disagreement in two entries, a book like Taylor’s can synthesize information from numerous families to provide a more in-depth look and to help contextualize his experience.
Inductively researching leads to knowing that many other people lived in families that disagreed about slavery or secession, but oftentimes, they believed that they would put their political interests aside in favor of their familial ties when and if war did come, which helps to explain Thomas’ and his fathers’ surprise and disappointment when they still disagree after the war starts. Additionally, Taylor relates that many familial disagreements on the war were seen as “family conflict” and a “crisis of duty and authority rather than of slavery and secession.” Taylor’s insight helps to explain why Thomas seems to be so upset about he and his family’s differing views. Their disagreement was deeper than modern political arguments between fathers and sons; it was about the future of the nation and whether the United States would remain one country. However, it is rather likely that Thomas and his family could have put their differences aside at some point in the future, as he was simply becoming an adult, and this sort of rebellion might have been seen as relatively normal for a young man coming of age.
Inductive reasoning was required to properly understand Thomas’ life and experiences described in his diary.
Citations:
Gaddis, John Lewis. The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Taylor, Amy Murrell. The Divided Family in Civil War America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005.
The natural method typically starts with having personal interest in a topic and then using various resources to learn more about it, with one discovery leading to another. Though there are many more scientific or formal ways to approach history, sometimes it boils down to curiosity and following leads. Oftentimes, one will start using the natural method without thinking about it but still find great sources and information.
For my research, I simply wanted to find a newspaper article about the Dickinson College Class of 1860’s commencement ceremony. To start, I went to the Dickinson College Archives and Special Collections, where I found an article entitled “Pro-Slaveryism at Dickinson College” in The New-York Daily Tribune, detailing a speech given during the events and celebrations surrounding commencement for the class of 1860. The speech – delivered by George A Coffey, an alumnus of Dickinson – was about liberty as a necessity and the hypocrisy of slavery in the United States. As a country with a deeply engrained egalitarian ideology, Coffey said America “did not fully act out its principles because some four millions of human beings were forcibly deprived of all rights of liberty and property.” Coffey offered a jarring and accurate interpretation of the state of slavery, but this apparently did not sit well with the crowd, as many left during his speech. The New-York Daily Tribune also reported that the Board of Trustees even held a secret meeting afterwards, agreeing to not allow any more anti-slavery speeches.
After fulfilling my original goal, I was curious to see how Carlisle, the home of Dickinson, reacted to the speech, so I went to the Cumberland County Historical Society to look at microfilm. While at the Historical Society, I found an article about commencement that described Coffey’s speech as “unreasonable” and that slavery “ought to be kept out of Commencement exercises” because “men of different opinions and feelings” should be able to expect that divisive topics would not be mentioned.
Though I did not use any traditional or taught historical methodology, I was still able to find illuminating information about the college’s commencement ceremonies. However, I also learned a little about attitudes in Central Pennsylvania toward slavery, an unexpected but pleasant surprise.
Citations:
"Commencement Exercises at Dickinson College." The Carlisle Herald. July 13, 1860. 1:2-5.
"Pro-Slaveryism at Dickinson College." New-York Daily-Tribune. July 24, 1860. 7:4-5.
Inductive Reasoning and Research
As described by John Lewis Gaddis in Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past, inductive research is starting with a smaller or more specific source and then finding broader sources to put the smaller ones into context. Sometimes in history, this means starting with a primary source, and then moving outwards to find secondary sources to better understand it. This process is essential to understanding primary source documents, like Charles F. Thomas’ diary. I inductively researched extensively to understand what he journals about and to make sense of the diary as a whole. Examples of this can be found under the “Diary” tab.
Contextualizing his diary required reading entries in which he mentions one thing, such as disagreements with his family over secession, then researching secondary sources about the topic, and combining the two together to provide a description of the event.
Thomas writes of an exchange of letters with his parents in which he finds out that they disagree with his stance on the Civil War. In May of 1861, he writes that his father sent him a letter “which leads [Thomas] to fear in fact to know that all [his] family are secessionists.” He continues to note that he “cannot help but to feel very bad” for having an opposite opinion than his family, as he is a supporter of the Union. Thomas’ family seems to be disappointed in him, as he also pens that in his father’s letter he told him to not bring up his views on the war. A few weeks later he writes of another exchange of letters, writing that he and his father feel “regret and surprise” that they disagree.
Inductive Research is required to properly understand Thomas’ experience in this event and the consequences of it for both him and the rest of his family. Reading a source about families in the Civil War, like Amy Taylor’s The Divided Family in Civil War America, really helps to understand Thomas’ dilemma by relating it to other examples, which creates a generalized narrative of what being in a “divided family” was like. While in Thomas’ diary he briefly mentions his disagreement in two entries, a book like Taylor’s can synthesize information from numerous families to provide a more in-depth look and to help contextualize his experience.
Inductively researching leads to knowing that many other people lived in families that disagreed about slavery or secession, but oftentimes, they believed that they would put their political interests aside in favor of their familial ties when and if war did come, which helps to explain Thomas’ and his fathers’ surprise and disappointment when they still disagree after the war starts. Additionally, Taylor relates that many familial disagreements on the war were seen as “family conflict” and a “crisis of duty and authority rather than of slavery and secession.” Taylor’s insight helps to explain why Thomas seems to be so upset about he and his family’s differing views. Their disagreement was deeper than modern political arguments between fathers and sons; it was about the future of the nation and whether the United States would remain one country. However, it is rather likely that Thomas and his family could have put their differences aside at some point in the future, as he was simply becoming an adult, and this sort of rebellion might have been seen as relatively normal for a young man coming of age.
Inductive reasoning was required to properly understand Thomas’ life and experiences described in his diary.
Citations:
Gaddis, John Lewis. The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Taylor, Amy Murrell. The Divided Family in Civil War America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005.