Description: I’m a professor at Virginia Tech, writing a book that explores what home canning has meant in the United States, and why—and I conceived Sourcethink as a blog to help me work through some of the many objects and documents I’ve encountered in my research. A primary source is something you analyze for meaningful patterns,…
I’m a professor at Virginia Tech , writing a book that explores what home canning has meant in the United States, and why—and I conceived Sourcethink as a blog to help me work through some of the many objects and documents I’ve encountered in my research.
A primary source is something you analyze for meaningful patterns, using observations about related details, interesting contrasts, and even surprising omissions as evidence for conclusions about why that thing matters, and to whom. Every kind of human communication—a stretch of graffiti, a ticket stub, a photograph, a snatch of conversation, a magazine advertisement, a telephone book—can be used as a primary source.
On this site, I observe, reflect, and ask questions that stem from a single primary source—what we might call an “exhibit source.” For example, here you can find posts that grew from investigating a recipe , a sentence from an interview , a package of jam jar covers , a book illustration , and other bits of everyday life.