Using The Past

LEARNING

It's very important to look at primary and secondary sources when it comes to historical events for many reasons. Primary resources are more reliable then secondary sources because it's the actual thing. If you analyze both you will see some differences. Primary sources are old and proof that something actually existed. Secondary sources are information taken from other sources. So say someone had an article about the West Des Moines, Valley Tigers and how they were state champs this year., that was printed the following day. That would be a primary source. It wouldn't be the same thing as someone having a magazine and in the magazine is a photo of the newspaper talking about the football team. Most people are more likely too choose the primary source over the secondary source because it's the actual thing. Another primary source could be a story told by someone. Lets say if someone was telling a story about them being in WWII and their experience, you're more likely to believe them and actually understand how they feel. A Secondary source would be a teacher telling other peoples experiences from what she's heard from other people.

It's more important to know hot to analyze documents and what happened in history then to memorize dates for multiple reasons. First of all learning dates of Wars and events, really isn't teaching you anything or then when something took place. If you know how to analyze historical events you will learn a lot from it. You're learning what happened, why it happens, what events lead up to something, etc.

DOING  

My Project was on women's rights and freedom. Back in the day females didn't have any rights, or freedom. The only thing they could do was stay at home and watch the kids while their husband was gone. That soon came to an end.

I found many articles explaining how women finally gained freedom from just sitting back at home and watching their kids. I found a secondary source which was a poster with a female on it dressed up in a marine sergeant's suit. From the poster they were trying to express, that people should come out and volunteer to help out the Marines, and it worked! "The Marine Corps almost doubled its strength with the addition of 60,189 men." I also came across a primary source that was a recruitment brochure. May 14, 1942 congress approved of a women's Army Auxiliary Corps for women to serve in noncombatant military positions. This way, it's more safe and they're more likely not to get killed. Also, the year of 1990 The U.S. Army had a recruiting poster, with a slogan "Army. Be All You Can Be." There's a female wearing a aviation flight hat, indicating females flying planes. So there were a lot of changes and females actually had jobs and a lot more freedom.