Personal Sources

Personal Sources Definitions: - Ego documents: Describes documents in which an ego intentionally/unintentionally discloses or hides itself (Presser) Self/personal narrative: Sources that give an insight into the cultural/linguistic/material/social world of personal writing (Von Greyerz) Life writing: Used to construct the sense of self/experiences a revelation of individual’s lives (Caine) Letters: - Provides insight into the writer’s own life/relationships/glimpse of wider society Letters of ‘important’ political figures may contain details not found in official documents Issues: - Can be deceptive: Are they so transparent? ‘Truth’? Personal views in information A complete image Writing in a certain way: Avoiding censorship/govt./persons status/certain light: Why? Intended purpose? (Info. Or opinion); (family or business) Early Modern World examples: - - 1586 Letter writing: Manual: Example for similar greetings/phrases and is sig. in looking for where people stray from these models Illiteracy and who is being addressed Usually women were illiterate in this time and so family members wrote on behalf: Edits/control? Personal letters may be personal but not also private: May write differently knowing this E.g. Lord Halifax and secretaries 1700s War letters: How civilians understand masculinity and war events Most soldiers were frank, others not so much as to not worry family Also use of guides and models as a censorship and control method Masculinity: Showing emotions? Image? Truth? Wartime an exception of emotion? E.g. Men sewing in POW camps acceptable Diaries: - Impressions/experiences Self-fashioned identity constructions Less to impress others and less for others or historians today 16th-17th C, Reasons vary but did involve religion (records of prayer) 18th C, Individualism and construction of self 19th C, ‘Gendered medium’ (Hammerlei) 20th C, Anne Frank Diary (1942-44) news/Fear/exp./personal in diary/youth diary culture Mass observation: - Recording ordinary lives Published books Collection of diaries (WW2) knew would be read but remained anonymous Listened to public discussion: E.g. sitting at bars/public spaces to observe Auto-biographies: - Interest in events and why individuals saw events in a certain and different ways Exploring meaning behind bias Marginal groups and identity. E.g. Slave narratives (Having lives worth documenting) Not a genre until 18th C Autobiography and trauma: Holocaust ‘Paradigm case’ (Caine) - At first, little interest in survivor’s experiences but later grew interest Can show a process of trauma and a psychological process Memory and limits of it due to trauma/fear effects this Documents and sources: - How do they survive? Reserved/important people/family preserve/archived? How representative are they? (Illiterate, women, etc.) Who is writing and what for: Want to write a memoir/for themselves/coping tactic? Who edited? At the time/at publishing or much later? Usefulness in identifying historical trends? Shared experience: but a personal POV? Individual exp. Based on religion/belief/class/gender etc. Comparisons can be made across personal docs Public/elite/marginal group? What is considered sig will be recorded: But how is this decided and by who? What is left out and why? Forgotten? Insignificant? So many similar accounts so left out? Priorities or restrictions? When analyzing: - What did it mean to be an author at the time? Audience – Purpose Models of identity What relationships matter most to the author Self-definition