Re: Paper Idea
Brooks Simpson (ATBDS@ASUACAD.BITNET)
Tue, 5 Apr 1994 14:38:44 ECT
There have been several shifts in source materials over the last 50-60 years.
Newspapers, once the backbone of much political research, have fallen out of
style as an important source. The use of the National Archives' holdings
has increased quite significantly over the past twenty years. I think that
the use of unpublished soldier correspondence reflects concerns of the new
breed of socially-oriented Civil War historians, especially in the way this
material is interpreted. The emergence of documentary editions has also
shifted research patterns in important ways, whether as comprehensive
collections (the Grant papers) or as documentary histories (the Freedom
project).
Brooks D. Simpson ATBDS@ASUACAD
Department of History 602-965-5778
Arizona State University