Part 5: Historical Inquiry and Analysis
By studying Historical Inquiry and Analysis, we can engage with and answer questions about the past by evaluating historiographical interpretations; identifying, contextualizing, and critically reading historical evidence; and considering the relevance of chronology, causation, and perspective.
Perspectives
“A particularly heinous event occurred in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 11 and 12, 2017: the Unite the Right rally. There are many reasons to abhor what happened there, not the least of which was the murder of Heather Heyer and the injuring of many others. For medievalists, it became a wake-up call. Photos of white supremacists carrying various types of medieval imagery – shields, Deus Vult crosses, heraldry – flooded our news feeds. While many of us were certainly aware of the appropriation and misuse of the medieval before this event, ‘Charlottesville’ forced us to evaluate exactly how serious the ramifications of this appropriation truly are. If Charlottesville was a wake-up call, the 2021 attack on the Capitol building in Washington, DC, was a tragic reinforcement of that call. Once again, medieval and medieval-esque representations abounded, displayed next to an array of hate symbols. Prominent among these were the horned helmet and tattoos of Jacob Anthony Chansley, known as the “Q Shaman.” Photos of Chansley displayed his tattooed Thor’s hammer, the Valknut, and the World Tree all over the news and social media […] The Ku Klux Klan call themselves the American Knights, and the name of their newspaper is The Crusader. This imagery was also common in Nazi Germany, with typical pictures such as Hitler depicted in armor, as were arguments about race attributed to the Middle Ages, which were in reality eighteenth- and nineteenth-century inventions. […] These obviously erroneous and limited interpretations of this period in history are echoed in conventional misunderstandings that get perpetuated through repetition and media representations.” – Kisha G. Tracy, Why Study the Middle Ages? (2022, pp. 77-79)
For further thoughts on representations of the Middle Ages, see “Why Study the Middle Ages? Because #MedievalSo…MuchMore.”
Concepts to Consider
“‘Doing’ history is like completing a puzzle or solving a mystery. Imagine asking a question about the past, assembling a set of clues through documents, artifacts, or other sources, and then piecing those clues together to tell a story that answers your question and tells you something unexpected about a different time and place. That’s doing history.” – “Why should you study history?”, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Massachusetts State Representative Michael Kushmerek, alum of Fitchburg State University, has commented on his history studies, “From the classics to modern political and U.S. history, it allowed me to take a broad based look at the interconnectedness of the world” (first published in Fitchburg State University Contact, Summer 2021). Kushmerek’s remark emphasizes a particularly important aspect of Historical Inquiry and Analysis skills and their ability to help us recognize connections and contexts across time and geography. James Grossman (2016) states that to “think historically is to recognize that all problems, all situations, all institutions exist in contexts that must be understood before informed decisions can be made.” Grossman continues that people with Historical Inquiry and Analysis skills “sift through substantial amounts of information, organize it, and make sense of it. In the process they learn how to infer what drives and motivates human behavior from elections to social movements to board rooms.” There are so many situations that benefit from someone knowing how to think historically, how to find and evaluate contexts to provide insights or conclusions.
The evidence that historians use can range from quantitative to qualitative, primary to secondary, written to spoken, artistic to utilitarian, and they need to be able to analyze all of this information (see Information Literacy in chapter 4.1 and Quantitative Reasoning in 4.2). They look at all matter of artifacts that humans produce and that remain in existence for us to interpret. These can be as personal as journals or private letters or as public as government and church records. In other words, an historian works with a large variety of sources and, thus, is prepared to work with any artifact, past or present, that they might encounter, a skill that can be applied to many personal and professional contexts.
Training in Historical Inquiry and Analysis teaches us to question rather than uncritically accept statements as truth: “Historical inquiry and thinking are distinct but related and both involve active investigation and analysis rather than passive acceptance of knowledge” (Blevins, Magill, & Salinas, 2020). When we hear a claim that something happened or was true “in history” – for instance, something like “there were no LGBTQ+ people in history” – our “historian-sense” starts to tingle. We need to research for ourselves if such assertions are true and what the complexities or consequences of such statements are, not to mention the contexts in which they were said. Identifying what questions to ask is a much more complicated skill than it seems. How to find evidence that speaks to those questions is a further useful skill. At the same time, Historical Inquiry and Analysis also helps us give voices back to historically marginalized – and silenced – peoples.
Historical Inquiry and Analysis is essential to being an informed citizen (see Civic Learning in chapter 5.1). Michael A. Rebell (2018, p. 21) places history foremost in a list of knowledge needed for civic participation: “whether as voters, jurors, or people working together to make a change in the community – [being a citizen] requires a working knowledge of many subjects, including history, politics, economics, science, and technology.” We cannot make changes in the present without an understanding of what took place in the past and how we got to our current situation.
At the same time that we consider all of these benefits of Historical Inquiry and Analysis, we do need to remember that history can simply be learning about fascinating events and people!
View: “What Is History For?”
“Historical Inquiry and Analysis provides students with hands-on experience in critical thinking, reading, and argumentation. Not only do students gain an appreciation for how historical perspectives provide a more nuanced understanding of the human experience and how the past shapes the present, but they also gain the ability to analyze the value and limitations of various sources as evidence for argumentation; the ability to consider multiple perspectives on events and evaluate competing interpretations and accounts; and develop research skills and the ability to synthesize complex explanations and information. Moreover, students engaging in Historical Inquiry and Analysis develop skills in constructing persuasive, evidence-driven arguments in multiple formats, from oral to written as well as digital and visual. For example, in an introductory survey of U.S. history since 1877, one professor uses the boxes on a paystub as a lens for exploring the development of the industrial economy, the regulatory and welfare state, and the politics of work as the U.S. transforms into an industrial economy and toward a service and information-based economy in the late twentieth century. Through that exploration, students explore policy developments and primary sources that reflect how American residents experienced new policies. In exploring the implementation of tax withholding, students encounter how policymakers in World War II convinced Americans that paying their taxes was a patriotic act, using propaganda films by Walt Disney featuring Donald Duck to equate income taxes with patriotic sacrifice that would be rewarded with consumer benefits in peacetime.” – Dr. Kate Jewell, Economics, History, and Political Science, Fitchburg State University
Historical Inquiry and Analysis and Good, Necessary Trouble
“I think most people have tended to study a moment like the Black Death as the history of the very dead and gone that leaves behind a compelling record, but when you re-read that record in light of our own experience, it sounds different, doesn’t it?”– Paula Findlen, Stanford University (De Witte, 2021)
The time between 2020 to 2023 was hectic, and not only because of COVID-19. History is in the making all the time, but, in these three years, it felt like history was being made at warp speed. Historical Inquiry and Analysis skills have been essential to contextualizing new situations that seemingly popped up in our social media feeds daily, if not hourly. Fiona Griffiths at Stanford University commented, “We hear a lot about living in unprecedented times. Studying history can help nuance these claims and challenge assumptions of contemporary exceptionalism. A historic perspective can enable or enhance critical attention to contemporary events – much of what we saw happen in the news this past year built on long-standing power dynamics, whether domestic or international, that are not always self-evident” (De Witte, 2021). Applying historical skills can give us much-needed perspective on our own time.
We could look at many examples, but one is the discussion around the destruction of statues or monuments. In July 2013, after Trayvon Martin’s killer was acquitted, the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter (BLM) became viral on social media. It led to protests and demonstrations, particularly about police violence against Black victims. In May 2020, George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis by a police officer. Following this tragedy, protests began in Minneapolis and spread around the world. During this civil unrest, many statues and monuments with problematic contexts and symbolism, especially those with ties to racism or slavery, were defaced or torn down in protest. Statues of Christopher Columbus and those dedicated to the Confederacy were particularly a focus.
There are examples of statues that have been taken down after discussion, rather than physical action. The “Emancipation Group” (1879) in Boston, Massachusetts, is a copy of the Freedmen’s Memorial in Washington, D.C. (1876), both sculpted by Boston artist Thomas Ball (see also Asch & Musgrove, 2020). We can see in the photo above, taken before it was removed in 2020 from Park Square and put in storage, that the statue depicts a standing Abraham Lincoln holding the Emancipation Proclamation while gesturing to a kneeled, half-dressed, former slave freed from his shackles. The original in D.C. was commissioned by former slaves, and Frederick Douglass was at its dedication, although he expressed concern over its design (“Emancipation Group”). In the years following the installation of the “Emancipation Group,” many, like Douglass, have presented concerns to the city, citing the way it depicts the Black man in a continued subservient position with a lack of clothes, which are symbols of civilization, especially in contrast to the suited Lincoln. The city of Boston’s site dedicated to the statue acknowledges that its design is “perpetuating harmful prejudices and obscuring the role of Black Americans in shaping the nation’s freedoms” and announces the removal of the “Emancipation Group” in 2020.
Tearing down statues in protest is not a new act. We have examples of iconoclasm from ancient times on – for instance, the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten (reigning c. 1353-1336 BCE) is famous for wanting to convert Egypt from polytheism, the worship of many gods, to monotheism, the worship of one god. After his death, those who disagreed with this change tried to erase him from history by destroying his statues. A phrase for this act is damnatio memoriae, “damn the memory,” especially memories which are distressing.
Recognizing that destruction or defacement of monuments and statues has a long tradition as well as the reasons that people have done so can help us provide context for why Black Lives Matter protesters might choose to do the same today.
Text Attributions
The section contains material adapted from Heritages of Change by the same author.
Discussion 5.5
- If you have already taken a course with a primary focus on Historical Inquiry and Analysis, think about what you were asked to do and what you learned. If you have not already taken a Historical Inquiry and Analysis course, think about the types of courses you could take.
- In what ways did or might the idea(s) or example(s) discussed above apply in such a course?
- What other ideas or examples would you add to the discussion?
Media Attributions
- Inquiry and Analysis Icon © Kisha G. Tracy is licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA (Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike) license
- Drake Home © Kisha G. Tracy is licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA (Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike) license
