Historical Artifact

Purpose

The purpose of an analysis essay focused on historical artifacts is to demonstrate in writing your ability to think critically about specific historical evidence (primary sources), often written artifacts such as literature, letters and other first-person accounts, and legal/political documents, or visual artifacts such as art, advertisements, and other print media.

Your writing should demonstrate your ability to understand and appreciate the selected historical artifacts  in context and to apply major concepts and interpretive approaches from our course learning. The best essays will address the social and cultural dynamics that influenced or shaped the creation of the specific artifact(s).

An artifact analysis essay is  not a book report; your writing should aim to provide analytical and interpretive thought that is not immediately evident in the historical artifacts themselves.

Instructions

Select from this list of cultural artifacts in the course modules:  Eligible Historic Artifacts (See below for choices)

Develop a focused cultural analysis of the artifacts selected based on  one of the following five topics:

1. How does gender and economic or social class inform the construction or creation of visual or written artifacts from a specific historical period?

2. How does gender and ethnicity, “race,” or national origin inform the construction or creation of visual or written artifacts from a specific historical period?

3. How are attitudes and approaches to gender expressed or represented differently in specific historical or cultural artifacts across the generations? (Please select artifacts that are at least 35 years apart.)

4. How are attitudes and approaches to gender represented differently in artifacts from diverse geographic regions within the United States (e.g. North-South; East Coast-Western territories; urban-rural)?

5. How have certain male historical figures - as evidenced by specific artifacts - contributed to and/or productively informed women’s rights movements in the United States and what does this reveal about the construction of gender in our culture?

*If consulting the textbook: The blue framed pages at the end of each chapter offer the best starting point  for identifying specific historical artifacts, although students may also select material from within the chapters so long as that material is a specific artifact and not general textbook passages. Specific artifacts most likely are: paintings, photographs, advertisements, letters, first person accounts, newspaper columns, poems, legal briefs, trial transcripts, or political documents. (Feel free of course to ask Dr. Zo a question about artifact selection.)

Expectations

Historical Artifact Analysis Essays should be composed to college-level standards of grammar and organization; your essay should be well developed with supporting evidence from both the artifact(s) at the focus of your analysis and relevant scholarly sources.

Strong written analysis includes the following:

· A specific introduction that provides relevant, contextual background of the focus artifact or artifacts,

· A clear statement of the interpretation to be offered in the essay, through a purpose statement or thesis, that directly address one of the intersectional options in the assignment

· A consistent interpretive focus on the features of the primary sources, the artifacts themselves: What do they express? What does this expression mean? How, specifically, is this expression conveyed? What does it represent? Why might the original author/creator have chosen to produce this specific artifact in this way (and for whom)?

· An awareness of both the intentional, obvious features of the artifacts and the unconscious, unintentional, or culturally influenced aspects of the artifacts, such a biases or other historically informed values and beliefs,

· A concluding analysis that suggests the larger significance (within an historical framework) of the artifact(s) and,

· Precisely documented quotations or evidence from the primary sources (the artifacts)  as well as secondary sources (research) via MLA or APA format;  at least two (but no more than five in an essay of this length) relevant secondary sources should be referenced in addition to the primary source artifacts. (All need to be documented.)

Suggested length: 4–6 pages

Choices: Cultural Artifacts Eligible for Selection for Analysis Paper

Module 2 - Primary Source Illustrations (any in the attached PDF)

Module 3 - Casta painting from module introduction; Anne Hutchinson trial transcript; Phillis Wheatley poems

Module 4 - True Womanhood illustrations in module introduction and section on ideology

Module 5 - Antebellum illustrations in module introduction and section on Civil War era

Module 6 - illustration in introduction; cartoon in module on suffrage (not Anthony/Stanton portrait)

Module 7 - before/after photographs of “americanized” girls in overview of westward expansion; autobiographical chapters by Zitkala-Sa; excerpts by Sarah Winnemucca

Module 8 - last 4 posts in PDF of Parades & Protest primary sources

Module 9 - Dorothea Lange “migrant mother’ photographs in intro; any of the advertisements (not the photo of the I Love Lucy TV show)

Module 10 - print for ‘stop forced sterilization’ near end of overview of modern women’s movements (the photographs in this module are great, but they will not be good for this paper)

Submission

This assignment uses TurnItIn to check originality. After you have reviewed the instructions and the  Cultural Analysis Essay Rubric   Download Cultural Analysis Essay Rubriccomplete your submission using the Turnitin Tool below.