Document Analysis Instructions
In 1946, R. G. Collingwood wrote the following in his magnum opus The Idea of History, “All
history is the history of thought. But how does the historian discern the thoughts which he is trying
to discover? There is only one way in which it can be done: by rethinking them in his own mind. The
historian of philosophy, reading Plato, is trying to know what Plato thought when he expressed himself
in certain words. The only way in which he can do this is by thinking it for himself. This, in fact, is
what we mean when we speak of ‘understanding’ the words. So the historian of politics or warfare,
presented with an account of certain actions done by Julius Caesar, tries to understand these actions,
that is, to discover what thoughts in Caesar’s mind determined him to do them. This implies envisaging
for himself the situation in which Caesar stood, and thinking for himself what Caesar thought about
the situation and the possible ways of dealing with it. The history of thought, and therefore all history,
is the re-enactment of past thought in the historian’s own mind.
This re-enactment is only accomplished, in the case of Plato and Caesar respectively, so far as
the historian brings to bear on the problem all the powers of his own mind and all his knowledge of
philosophy and politics. It is not a passive surrender to the spell of another’s mind; it is a labour of
active and therefore critical thinking. The historian not only re-enacts past thought, he re-enacts it in
the context of his own knowledge and therefore, in re-enacting it, criticizes it, forms his own judgment
of its value, corrects whatever errors he can discern in it. This criticism of the thought whose history
he traces is not something secondary to tracing the history of it. It is an indispensable condition of the
historical knowledge itself. Nothing could be a completer error concerning the history of thought than
to suppose that the historian as such merely ascertains ‘what so-and-so thought,’ leaving it to someone
else to decide ‘whether it was true.’ All thinking is critical thinking; the thought which re-enacts past
thoughts, therefore, criticizes them in re-enacting them.”
In this exercise, you will practice the process outlined by Collingwood and analyze a historical
primary source. After reading the assigned document carefully, read it again (slower and more
methodically this time), and think about the following questions:
• What is this document (e.g. diary, public speech, poem, etc.)?
• Why was this document created? What was its purpose?
• Who created this document? What can we tell about the perspective and biases of the
author(s)? What does the document tell us about the author(s)’ opinion of the views of other
people? Does the document suggest that the author(s)’ point of view was widely shared, or
was it controversial and confined to a few people?
• When and where was this document created? How does the document reflect the time and
place it was written or created? What does it say about the events underway at the time?
• Who is the intended audience? Were there multiple audiences? How might the audience have
shaped what the author(s) says? How might the audience(s) have reacted to the document?
• Think carefully about the choice of words and the tone of the document. How do the words
reflect the author(s), the time, the place, and the audience? If the document makes an
argument, what argument does it make, and what strategy does the author use?
• Historical significance: Overall, how does this document contribute to your understanding of
the historical period in which it was created? What other information might help you better
understand the significance of this document?
Some of these questions apply better to some documents than others. Choose the questions (it
could be several) that you think can best be used to analyze and reveal the meanings of the document,
and write a 500-word analysis of the document in question. As you begin thinking about your
analysis paper, I suggest beginning by identifying and interpreting/analyzing authorship and when the
document was created; get the basic contextual information down first before you proceed. When you
begin writing, monitor your tone—stay fairly detached, objective, and historical. Remain in third
person. This is not meant to be a personal reaction essay, nor should you focus on making
comparisons/contrasts to the present day. Also, this is not meant to be a summary of the document.
Nor is it meant to be a personal reaction essay. I am not interested in whether you agree with the
document’s message. Instead, I want to see that you have read and thought about the document and
are able to apply the kinds of questions that historians use when confronting an artifact from the past.
Be a detective; consider this document a clue. Read between the lines. Try to say something meaningful
about the document’s significance by connecting it to larger themes from the lectures and the course
materials. (On the next page, you can find an example of a document analysis to use as a guide.)
Document Analysis Example
Document: Robert Smalls Argues Against Disfranchisement
The author of this document is Robert Smalls, who was a black man and a former slave who
had shown ambition and leadership qualities since he freed himself before the Civil War and then
served in the South Carolina legislature as a Republican during Reconstruction. This document is a
speech he gave to the South Carolina Constitutional Convention of 1895, which means it was probably
delivered to an audience of all-white male legislators in a southern state. It was printed in The Columbia
State, which could be a newspaper, or it could be a record of the state legislature. By 1895,
Reconstruction had been over for almost twenty years, most of the South had passed Jim Crow laws
and disfranchised black men, the South had become solidly Democrat, and this period is known as
the “nadir” for African-American history. Most likely, then, this audience was not sympathetic to a
black leader’s views.
Smalls’ main purpose in this speech is to convince the state not to disfranchise blacks when it
makes changes to its state constitution. He makes two main arguments. One argument tries to appeal
to the legislators’ sense of fairness, asking that if they do pass a voting restriction, such as a property
requirement or literacy test, that it be applied fairly to blacks and whites, implying that if blacks are to
be disfranchised, then some poor or illiterate whites will be too. Interestingly, he does not explicitly
state that he is against these voting restriction methods; he merely pleads for their fair use—a tactic
that shows he’s up against a hostile audience. To make his case more persuasive, he uses data such as
population figures and tax amounts to support his argument. Second, Smalls also appeals to his
audience’s economic interests and includes a veiled threat. He states that black people’s labor is crucial
for the state’s economy, but if the government treats them too unfairly and harshly, there will be
nothing else for them to do but leave. At the end of the speech, he again appeals to fairness and justice
and implies that, in contrast, the state has been practicing deception.
His tone and word choice is direct and in some places forceful, especially when he poses
rhetorical questions: “What then will you do about your phosphate works?” Despite his relatively
powerless position as a black man in a southern state in the 1890s, he is not submissive or deferential.
Although we cannot tell from this document what the immediate reaction or outcome was, we know
that voting restrictions were put in place in all southern states, and blacks were disfranchised in this
period. We can conclude that his argument was not successful. Still, the speech is historically
significant because it shows a black leader speaking out to a white audience of lawmakers, protesting
disfranchisement. It shows black people standing up for themselves during the “nadir” and trying to
resist the white South’s unfair policies and racist practices. He seems to have more in common with
W.E.B. DuBois than with Booker T. Washington.
