Analyzing Historiography Activity All Primary Sources

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Analyzing Historiography Activity

In Module 12 we discuss how to read secondary sources, such as books and scholarly articles, and the importance of analyzing those sources in order to produce an annotated bibliography. The word “analyze” is from the Ancient Greek ἀνάλυσις meaning “a breaking up” into smaller parts. When you analyze a secondary source you are breaking up or deconstructing that source, and the parts you should find after breaking it up include the research question, the sources of evidence, and the “heart” — its central argument or thesis. When you write an annotated bibliography, you invariably will discuss all three of these parts and how they relate to your historiographical topic.

The following exercise is intended to help develop and hone your skills in analyzing primary sources for historiographical purposes. We have discussed primary sources all semester and why they are central to the history discipline, as well as the role of the historian as detective to “draw testimony” from the witnesses of the past. A primary source provides direct or firsthand evidence about an event, and historians use primary sources to piece together an interpretation of the past that can be supported by the weight of available evidence. Doing history is always an act of interpretation based on critical examination of available historical evidence. In writing any history research paper, primary sources are essential. But before they can be used, they have to be analyzed and their meaning clearly interpreted.

This assignment and the cache of documents in the attached file offer the opportunity to practice interpretation and annotation. We’ll return to the eviction of the Bonus Army incident that you researched in the previous activity to analyze historiography using primary sources. The events that occurred in Washington on July 28-30, 1932, were seen by some contemporaries as a disgraceful and cruel treatment of U.S. veterans by the Hoover administration and by others as a defiant act of lawlessness and incipient revolution led by Communist agitators. How does the evidence support these views?

In analyzing the documents, recall our original questions we were seeking to answer:

What was President Herbert Hoover’s exact role in the events of July 28-30?
Did General MacArthur exceed his directive or violate his orders?
Was excessive force used against the B. E. F.?
Were the Bonus Marchers nonviolent ex-veterans and their families or criminals and Communist agitators?
Other related questions could include:

Was the Hoover administration trying to provoke a conflict by ordering the eviction of the veterans from abandoned federal buildings?
Did the clashes between police and the Bonus marchers on July 28th constitute an actual riot?
Was Hoover justified in calling on the Army to quell the riot?
How clear and specific were MacArthur’s orders?
Under what authority did MacArthur act when he crossed the Anacostia River?
Did Hoover lose control of the Army?
Who was ultimately responsible for the eviction of the Bonus Army and why was it done?
These are only a few of the questions that are raised and addressed by the documents. Do not feel constrained to limit your analysis to these issues alone.

Your task:

Select ten (10) primary documents transcribed and reproduced in the attached file. For each of the documents that you select:

1. Locate the “heart” — its central argument or main point as it relates to the question(s) you are trying to answer.

2. Write a brief annotation (comprised of no more than 3 sentences) that summarizes each document’s central argument or main point.

3. Also, discuss the question(s) each document helps to answer.

______________

Instructions:

• Read and analyze all documents in the attached file.

• Select ten (10) documents.

• Locate each document’s “heart”

• Write a brief annotation (comprised of no more than 3 sentences) that accurately and clearly describes the heart of each document.

• Explain the question(s) each document helps to answer.

• Create a Word doc. that contains all annotations in the same order as each document is presented.

• Attach your completed Bonus Army Eviction Primary Document Analysis below and submit it by the due date.

______________

Note: A strong annotation

1. Includes complete bibliographic information (already provided with each document)

2. Is grammatically correct and well written

3. Identifies a main point or central argument (the heart) related to the topic

4. Demonstrates how the document relates to the topic

______________Module 12: Analyzing Historiography
Due May 3 at 9:30 PM
What you need to do in this Module

Read the contents of the Module below
Complete the Analyzing Historiography Activity found in Assignments

In medias res

In the last Module, we discussed the process of doing historiographical research, from selecting a topic, posing a research question, and investigating and collecting secondary and primary sources that will enable you to answer that question. In this Module, we will focus on how to read and to analyze and to interpret historiographical arguments. Critical analysis not only includes reading your sources, but ques­tioning them, challenging them, ultimately wearing them down with evidence that you find in other sources. Tracking down books and articles and other secondary and primary documents propels you into the middle of a conversation about your topic. (In medias res is Latin for “into the middle of things.”) In producing historiography, analysis necessarily falls between research and writing; you cannot have one without the others. As you come to understand what your sources have to say about your topic or how various writers have interpreted it — how they respond to, revise, or disagree with each other — you will figure out exactly what you want to contribute to the conversation.

Note this!

So, you have discovered and collected your sources. Congratulations, but don’t celebrate just yet. How do you know if the sources you’ve assembled contain the answers you need? You don’t, until you begin asking questions, and one way to do this would be to annotate your sources. Hence, the difference between a bibliography — a list of all of your sources — and an annotated bibliography, which includes your analysis of what your sources say. An annotation is a brief description of a scholarly work that includes the scope of the work (subject, place, time period) and the primary points made by the author. An annotated bibliography summarizes, evaluates, and assesses the value of the rele­vant material for your historiographical essay or the historiographical section of your research paper. Annotations help you to decide whether a book or article is really useful for your purposes. Writing an annotated bibliography may seem like a daunting task at first. Yet, you can break it down into manageable parts, especially if you find ways to cut corners.

How to read a book without really trying

“Don’t judge a book by its cover,” goes the old saying. The old saying is wrong. You can judge a book by its cover, literally and figuratively. Not only can people do so; they’re often right to do so. In a world of limited time and information — the world in which research papers get assigned and written — you simply can’t afford to give every book (or any other source) the same consideration. To be sure, there are some books that deserve careful study, and any book can surprise you with its depth or insight. The “trick” — and, like most, it’s one that requires attention to technique and disciplined practice — lies in knowing what to look for, along with the calibrated effort to take chances with investing time in something that may or not pay off.

But you might be pleasantly sur­prised to learn how you can scan intelligently and save yourself a lot of time. I included this section last semester in the course on Historical Methods, and I think it’s worth repeating here. This is a proven method that got me through graduate school, when I learned that you do not have to read every word of a scholarly monograph to acquire a good grasp of its contents. Your goal is to gather as much useful information as quickly as possible, and you can accomplish this goal by following this procedure which works best when the book you find has a dust cover:

Write down the entire title. Does the title give you some hint of the book’s contents? Most monograph titles first include a short title, a colon, then a longer description, and sometimes a range of dates. Others are brief. Do not assume a title will fit your needs unless you’ve taken a close look at the actual book. Students often miss the specific period covered by a book and discover too late that it will not be useful.

What other information can you get from the front cover? Is there an illustration? What is it? What kind of message does it convey? (A paperback will usually have an illustration; a hardback without a dust cover will not.)
If the book has a dust cover, what does the inside front flap tell you? What does the back cover tell you? Is there a succinct summary? Are there quotes from other scholars? Do their names and credentials give you any idea about the significance of the book you hold in your hand? Is there any information about the author? If there is a dust cover, check the inside back flap for information. Who is this person? What are her credentials? (Again, a paperback will include this information; a hardback without a dust cover will not.)

Without reading a word from inside the covers, you should now be able to draft a brief sentence about the book. Once you flip your way into the interior, there are shorthand tools that can give you valuable cues about what a source might have to offer, even if it does not have a dust cover:

First, start with the table of contents. Sometimes a book’s table of contents lays out its argument in encapsulated form. How is the book organized? What is its structure? Are there subsections; if so, what kind of issues do they cover? Is the book organized chronologically or thematically?

Next, read the preface and introduction. Most students instinctively skip these parts. This is a BIG mistake, because it’s probably the most important place to look. You save time here. In this section of the book the author explains why she wrote the book, how she grappled with previous scholarship, what theoretical perspectives shaped the research, and how she answered her research question. In other words, here is where you find the thesis (the answer to the author’s research question). The introduction is to history what the overture is to classical music: the place where themes get articulated and an interpretive line gets traced.

Read through the preface and introduction and try to locate the following:

The historical problem that propelled the historian into writing the book (purpose: why she wrote the book).
The question that guided her research (research question).

What other historians have written on the topic (Eureka! You’ve struck gold! This is historiography!).

The key primary sources used to find an answer to the question (evidence).

Her response to the research question (thesis or central argument, which often begins with the signposts: “I argue” or “I contend” or “I claim”).
Read the conclusion. Here the historian summarizes the key findings of the book and explains to you why the findings are important. She answers her “so what?” question that motivated her research in the first place. (What was at stake? What do we know now that we didn’t know before, and why does it matter?)
These steps should give you a basic idea of the book’s subject, approach, and argument, which will help you decide whether to keep reading the book and which sections are most important to your research. So far we’ve been dancing around the edges of books without ever really dipping our toes into the text itself. Taking the plunge is always an option; actually, at some point it’s going to be a necessity, if you’re going plumb the depths that a good research paper requires. But if you’re still weighing whether or where to make your move on any particular source, there is another place on the margins where you can go for guidance about whether to make a commitment to a longer-term relationship.

Look in the back, with what is sometimes called the bibliographic apparatus, footnotes, bibliographies, abbreviations, and the like (some­times it’s also called the “back matter,” which more broadly includes the index, sometimes the acknowledgments, and other documentation). In secondary sources, the sheer scale of such an apparatus is a sign of intellectual heft; it’s not uncommon for major works of scholarship to have a hundred pages of footnotes or more. Bibliographies also often reveal important clues. How big are they? Are they subdivided between primary and secondary sources? Does the author use lots of archival records? Bigger isn’t always better. Indeed, bigger can be overwhelming, which is why some histories, particular popular ones, use bibliographic essays, which are both readable and focused on the most important works. But even if you don’t actually use the text of a book, the bibliog­raphy may clue you in to others that you will later find important.

Comb through the footnotes or endnotes of your source for other books and articles that seem interesting, relevant, or important in the field. The footnotes of a well-researched, scholarly book will give you a grasp on past work on the topic more quickly and reliably than catalog searching or shelf-browsing ever will. Use the footnotes to figure out which primary documents the author relied on.
One other thing you can do in an introduction — and, for that matter any other part of a great many books — is get a sense of what the author is saying by skimming topic sentences. Topic sentences, which govern what a particular paragraph is about, are typically right at the beginning, with supporting material to follow. If you care more about what’s being said than how, a good history book will allow you to glean a great deal from simply reading those sentences on any given page. In between these topic sentences, you typically get lots of data, quotes, and other contextual information to support them. But you can get the gist of the author’s argument by skimming.

Next, skim each chapter. Read the introduction and conclusion of each chapter. Look for each chapter’s research question and answer (thesis). Are there subheadings? How do they help structure chapter sections, guide your reading, and facilitate your understanding? Are there quotations? Do they support the author’s points? Are there illustrations, charts, tables? Do they support the author’s points?
Finally, if you have to, begin reading every other page. Before long, you won’t need to continue reading, unless you really want to. Afterwards, if your professor asks “Did you read that book?,” then answer the way I did when following this method: “Yes, I read in it.”
There’s more I could say here about how to skim a source. I hope you get the main idea, which is: sources are artifacts that can reveal a good deal more than what their authors explicitly say. Just having a consciousness of this fact is an important step. And if all else fails, read enough until you believe you are ready to annotate. Write a summary of the author’s research question, thesis and argument, based on what you’ve read or skimmed.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

You can apply this same method “to read” scholarly articles, like the ones you found on JSTOR, as depicted in the following mind map.

Scholarly articles are not like a novel, which should be read cover-to-cover; you should see the article as a source for bits of information and golden wisdom that you can extract or “mine.” While the style of articles often render them difficult to read, it also makes them easy to mine for information. These articles are actually close to what your HIST 4850 senior thesis or any historical research paper will look like. By taking a scholarly article apart, you can see how it was put together.

Your paper should have these same elements:

How does the article begin? Does it begin with an anecdote, story, or “hook” of some kind to try to grab your interest? Does it start by posing a historical problem? Does it wade right into a historiographical debate? (Your paper will need a similar introduction.)

Find the author’s research question.

Find the author’s argument/thesis; that is, the answer to their research question.
Hint: Both research question and argument/thesis should appear in the first quarter (¼) of the article.

Does the author situate their research question and argument/thesis in the context of what other historians have said about this topic? (You’ve hit pay dirt! This is golden. You’ve found more historiography!)

What sources does the author use? You can find these in the footnotes and bibliography or works cited section.

Are there visual elements? graphs? tables? If not, should there be?

How does the article proceed — chronologically or thematically?

By the end of the article, were you convinced or persuaded by the argument/thesis? Has enough evidence been amply demonstrated? If not, why not?
With this reading strategy in mind, there is no need for you to have to read any scholarly article all the way through. Once you are able to answer the questions I’ve suggested, then you can write an annotation about the article. Article annotations are similar to book annotations. I am not suggesting that you should avoid at all costs reading any article. You might be interested in the entire picture that an author paints in an article, or it may relate directly to what you are studying. In fact, there are some articles you should read all the way through, while you should focus on particular sections or information in others. In other words, be deliberate in your reading process. Such an intentional and selective approach to reading has become second nature to many historians through years of training and practice; we hardly notice what we do. Plus, we know something about the anatomy of a historiographical paper and what to look for.

The anatomy of a historiographical paper

Even if you don’t adopt a historiographical reading strategy like the one I’ve outlined above, by having taken this course you should know what to look for when reading any history book. Typically, students read both primary and secondary sources for information, because invariably that information could “be on the test.” Yet, as you now know, historiographical debates, historical claims, and sources and methods are also embedded in the text. In addition to these items, you should also be on the lookout for and prepared to encounter argument, acknowledgement of other scholarly positions, the researcher’s methods and evidence. And you should pay close attention to an author’s interpretive lens, biases or frame of reference which is sometimes revealed in prefaces or introductions and conclusions and constitute a kind of rhetorical code, which can be deciphered. Well-written introductions and conclusions can show the historian at work—using sources and historiography to construct historical meaning—provided you know where and how to look.

A historiographical paper typically has these five parts that connect the essential ingredients of historical research:

Topic, question, significance (T + Q + S)
Argument/Thesis
Primary source evidence
Historiographical debate
Bibliography
The structure of a typical historiographical paper seeks to answer these questions:

1. Topic, question, significance

What is the topic?
What is the question?
Why does your subject matter (“so what”)?

2. Argument/Thesis

What is your argument?
What is your thesis?
What questions will you need to answer to provide a persuasive argument?

3. Analysis of primary sources

How do these sources contribute to your argument?
What kinds of support do you find in the historical record?
How does each specific source contribute to the answer to your topic and thesis?

4. Historiography of secondary sources

How do each of these relate to your argument?
What have other historians said about your subject or question?
Why you have chosen these particular sources among those available to you?

5. Bibliography

Which primary and secondary sources were analyzed above?
Which primary and secondary sources did you find but did not analyze?
What other kinds of sources should you look for?

Several important items stand out from this anatomy lesson. The structure above emphasizes the interpretive and argument-driven nature of the history discipline, requiring you to make connections actively and consciously between each part of your research project. In parts 1 and 2, you develop a thesis and select evidence, rationalizing choices. This process pushes you to articulate the connections between evidence and argument, harkening back to this lesson first learned in Module 5:

The logic of a good argu­ment lies beneath the surface of any good work of history. An argument is an attempt to support a conclusion with reasons and evidence. An argument is not an assertion, nor is it an opinion, nor is it simply part of a dispute. Not all arguments are equal. Some are more persuasive than others.

Furthermore, the prompt in part 2 above —“What questions will you need to answer to provide a persuasive argument?” — invites reflection about historical and logical problems you must confront to support your historical claim. The question in parts 3 and 4 — “How does each specific source contribute to the answer to your topic and thesis?” — helps you consider whether the evidence can bear the burden of the argument and consider the challenges the argument must overcome. This step encourages deeper awareness of what you, the researcher, has to do to be successful. The primary source analysis helps you to select sources wisely and consider the concrete relationship between sources and argument. The historiographical portion of your essay in part 4 helps you grasp the idea that research is part of an ongoing conversation. Asking you to describe how historical works relate to the argument pushes you to identify a historiographical conversation and enter it. These steps, in turn, help you to build a bibliography of relevant primary and secondary sources. Including primary sources you have not yet analyzed helps you remember that a recommended 3 to 5 sources may not be enough for a final paper; you need to ensure you will have enough primary-source evidence related to the various questions you must answer. And you must give some thought to the kinds of sources you need to answer your questions.

A final lesson learned is, since all steps are potentially revised, research requires revision, as you, the scholar, adroitly move back and forth among sources, argument, and historiography. An important message here should move you away from the idea that historical research begins with an argument, or that historians primarily search for evidence that supports an argument, while ignoring contradictory evidence.

Aiming for the heart

By far, the most important part of the anatomy of any history research paper is the thesis. The thesis — something you’ve read a lot about in this Module — is the analytical heart and soul of any work of historiography. A thesis is an argument or an interpretation which is presented by the historian. It is far more than just someone’s opinion or point of view; it is based on a logical, systematic and persuasive argument supported by plausible evidence as revealed in the sources. Thesis statements almost always appear somewhere in the introduction. Why the introduction? In a mystery novel, the puzzle is not solved until the end. But in history papers, a thesis should appear first in order for readers to know what you are arguing and so they can evaluate your argument as they read. A thesis may vary in length from a few sentences to a few pages. It may be straightforward or multifaceted, comprised of a number of different strands or sub-theses. Sometimes the historian cues you into the thesis with statements such as “I argue” or “I contend” or other such signposts. (Rarely will you see “I will prove,” for as in most disciplines, one rarely proves anything in history. The real goal is persua­sion. It’s to make a statement about the past that isn’t, or even can’t be, proven.) Other times the thesis is less explicitly presented. Whether explicit or implicit, the thesis is the interpretive posture assumed, argument to be made, position to be defended, in its most pithy analytic articulation. If history is, as an old adage goes, philosophy reasoning by example, then the thesis statement of any historical work is the philosophy as yet embellished by example, the analysis as yet buttressed by evidence, the entire spool of interpretive thread that the historian will subsequently unravel. Identifying the thesis is absolutely essential for understanding and completing the activity that is attached to this Module.

Takeaways

Any research paper that you write should include historiography. Good research papers should demonstrate familiarity with the important work historians have already done. Not only is a paper that simply retells well-known stories uninteresting to read, but also it serves little academic purpose. You must have a good understanding of historiog­raphy for several reasons. First, knowing how particular topics have already been inter­preted and written about by historians helps you to develop their own research questions, especially because knowing the literature gives you the opportunity to pose questions about where the field currently stands, recognize gaps in interpretation and /or documentation, and engage with current scholars who are developing new directions in their work. In other words, a strong historiographical context offers a clear framework from which to begin a project and helps you to see how your inter­ests fit into larger historical questions being discussed in the profession. Second, historiography aids in defining and delimiting the exact scope of the research paper. If you recognizes that one aspect of your topic has already received adequate coverage and is not a source of much debate, you can mention it in passing and move on to less explored or more controversial areas. You may even be able to devise a working thesis, or line of argument, you will support in the paper. If you are baffled by how big or small your topic should be (who hasn’t been told that their topic was “too big”?) you can use histo­riography to figure out what you are going to write about and how much information you will need. Finally, to be able to effectively interpret primary source materials, you must have a good understanding of what is already known about the period in which those primary materials were produced. Without historiography you cannot really “do” history.

Doing historiography is time consuming. But you can reduce the amount of time you spend researching by adopting a historiographic reading strategy that is both deliberate and selective. Knowing what to look for in your secondary sources is the key. Every historical work worth reading has a research question it is attempting to answer. It also contains an argument and a thesis. Finally there are sources which support its thesis or central argument. If you can learn to search for those pieces of a book or an article’s anatomy, it will save you a lot of time.

Finding the question an historian is attempting to answer or their thesis is often difficult if you don’t know where to look. In a typical monograph or historical study focusing on one specific question or topic, both the central question and the thesis are introduced near the beginning of the work. Identifying the question to which the historian gives an answer (their thesis) often provides an important leverage point for grappling with the onslaught of historical details that follow. Sometimes historians make their question explicit to their readers, usually in the introduction, and their thesis is supported by evidence throughout. It is also proven in the conclusion. In other monographs, however, the thesis could be implicit, hidden, emerging at the end of the work, or is complex, illogical, or contradicts the evidence. Whether you are dealing with the former or the latter, discovering the thesis of a work is essential to understanding and evaluating the overall monograph. If you find the thesis, then you can find everything else that is connected to the thesis: sources, argument and historiography. Often the types of sources or evidence the historian uses reveals the methodology employed. In most recent histories, the evidence is explicitly included in reference footnotes or endnotes. From these, you could ascertain whether the author used primary and secondary sources, and the sort of sources used gives us further indication of the historian’s approach and philosophy. Most often, historians do not explicitly discuss their personal philosophy, approach, methods, or theories. These may be deduced, however, by analyzing their use of evidence, their interpretation of the evidence, and their thesis, in the context of the author’s identity and frame of reference.

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Analyzing Historiography Activity
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Ends May 3, 2020 9:30 PM
Analyzing Historiography Activity

In Module 12 we discuss how to read secondary sources, such as books and scholarly articles, and the importance of analyzing those sources in order to produce an annotated bibliography. The word “analyze” is from the Ancient Greek ἀνάλυσις meaning “a breaking up” into smaller parts. When you analyze a secondary source you are breaking up or deconstructing that source, and the parts you should find after breaking it up include the research question, the sources of evidence, and the “heart” — its central argument or thesis. When you write an annotated bibliography, you invariably will discuss all three of these parts and how they relate to your historiographical topic.

The following exercise is intended to help develop and hone your skills in analyzing primary sources for historiographical purposes. We have discussed primary sources all semester and why they are central to the history discipline, as well as the role of the historian as detective to “draw testimony” from the witnesses of the past. A primary source provides direct or firsthand evidence about an event, and historians use primary sources to piece together an interpretation of the past that can be supported by the weight of available evidence. Doing history is always an act of interpretation based on critical examination of available historical evidence. In writing any history research paper, primary sources are essential. But before they can be used, they have to be analyzed and their meaning clearly interpreted.

This assignment and the cache of documents in the attached file offer the opportunity to practice interpretation and annotation. We’ll return to the eviction of the Bonus Army incident that you researched in the previous activity to analyze historiography using primary sources. The events that occurred in Washington on July 28-30, 1932, were seen by some contemporaries as a disgraceful and cruel treatment of U.S. veterans by the Hoover administration and by others as a defiant act of lawlessness and incipient revolution led by Communist agitators. How does the evidence support these views?

In analyzing the documents, recall our original questions we were seeking to answer:

What was President Herbert Hoover’s exact role in the events of July 28-30?
Did General MacArthur exceed his directive or violate his orders?
Was excessive force used against the B. E. F.?
Were the Bonus Marchers nonviolent ex-veterans and their families or criminals and Communist agitators?
Other related questions could include:

Was the Hoover administration trying to provoke a conflict by ordering the eviction of the veterans from abandoned federal buildings?
Did the clashes between police and the Bonus marchers on July 28th constitute an actual riot?
Was Hoover justified in calling on the Army to quell the riot?
How clear and specific were MacArthur’s orders?
Under what authority did MacArthur act when he crossed the Anacostia River?
Did Hoover lose control of the Army?
Who was ultimately responsible for the eviction of the Bonus Army and why was it done?
These are only a few of the questions that are raised and addressed by the documents. Do not feel constrained to limit your analysis to these issues alone.

Your task:

Select ten (10) primary documents transcribed and reproduced in the attached file. For each of the documents that you select:

1. Locate the “heart” — its central argument or main point as it relates to the question(s) you are trying to answer.

2. Write a brief annotation (comprised of no more than 3 sentences) that summarizes each document’s central argument or main point.

3. Also, discuss the question(s) each document helps to answer.

______________

Instructions:

• Read and analyze all documents in the attached file.

• Select ten (10) documents.

• Locate each document’s “heart”

• Write a brief annotation (comprised of no more than 3 sentences) that accurately and clearly describes the heart of each document.

• Explain the question(s) each document helps to answer.

• Create a Word doc. that contains all annotations in the same order as each document is presented.

• Attach your completed Bonus Army Eviction Primary Document Analysis below and submit it by the due date.

______________

Note: A strong annotation

1. Includes complete bibliographic information (already provided with each document)

2. Is grammatically correct and well written

3. Identifies a main point or central argument (the heart) related to the topic

4. Demonstrates how the document relates to the topic

______________

Module 12: Analyzing Historiography
Due May 3 at 9:30 PM
What you need to do in this Module

Read the contents of the Module below
Complete the Analyzing Historiography Activity found in Assignments

In medias res

In the last Module, we discussed the process of doing historiographical research, from selecting a topic, posing a research question, and investigating and collecting secondary and primary sources that will enable you to answer that question. In this Module, we will focus on how to read and to analyze and to interpret historiographical arguments. Critical analysis not only includes reading your sources, but ques­tioning them, challenging them, ultimately wearing them down with evidence that you find in other sources. Tracking down books and articles and other secondary and primary documents propels you into the middle of a conversation about your topic. (In medias res is Latin for “into the middle of things.”) In producing historiography, analysis necessarily falls between research and writing; you cannot have one without the others. As you come to understand what your sources have to say about your topic or how various writers have interpreted it — how they respond to, revise, or disagree with each other — you will figure out exactly what you want to contribute to the conversation.

Note this!

So, you have discovered and collected your sources. Congratulations, but don’t celebrate just yet. How do you know if the sources you’ve assembled contain the answers you need? You don’t, until you begin asking questions, and one way to do this would be to annotate your sources. Hence, the difference between a bibliography — a list of all of your sources — and an annotated bibliography, which includes your analysis of what your sources say. An annotation is a brief description of a scholarly work that includes the scope of the work (subject, place, time period) and the primary points made by the author. An annotated bibliography summarizes, evaluates, and assesses the value of the rele­vant material for your historiographical essay or the historiographical section of your research paper. Annotations help you to decide whether a book or article is really useful for your purposes. Writing an annotated bibliography may seem like a daunting task at first. Yet, you can break it down into manageable parts, especially if you find ways to cut corners.

How to read a book without really trying

“Don’t judge a book by its cover,” goes the old saying. The old saying is wrong. You can judge a book by its cover, literally and figuratively. Not only can people do so; they’re often right to do so. In a world of limited time and information — the world in which research papers get assigned and written — you simply can’t afford to give every book (or any other source) the same consideration. To be sure, there are some books that deserve careful study, and any book can surprise you with its depth or insight. The “trick” — and, like most, it’s one that requires attention to technique and disciplined practice — lies in knowing what to look for, along with the calibrated effort to take chances with investing time in something that may or not pay off.

But you might be pleasantly sur­prised to learn how you can scan intelligently and save yourself a lot of time. I included this section last semester in the course on Historical Methods, and I think it’s worth repeating here. This is a proven method that got me through graduate school, when I learned that you do not have to read every word of a scholarly monograph to acquire a good grasp of its contents. Your goal is to gather as much useful information as quickly as possible, and you can accomplish this goal by following this procedure which works best when the book you find has a dust cover:

Write down the entire title. Does the title give you some hint of the book’s contents? Most monograph titles first include a short title, a colon, then a longer description, and sometimes a range of dates. Others are brief. Do not assume a title will fit your needs unless you’ve taken a close look at the actual book. Students often miss the specific period covered by a book and discover too late that it will not be useful.

What other information can you get from the front cover? Is there an illustration? What is it? What kind of message does it convey? (A paperback will usually have an illustration; a hardback without a dust cover will not.)
If the book has a dust cover, what does the inside front flap tell you? What does the back cover tell you? Is there a succinct summary? Are there quotes from other scholars? Do their names and credentials give you any idea about the significance of the book you hold in your hand? Is there any information about the author? If there is a dust cover, check the inside back flap for information. Who is this person? What are her credentials? (Again, a paperback will include this information; a hardback without a dust cover will not.)

Without reading a word from inside the covers, you should now be able to draft a brief sentence about the book. Once you flip your way into the interior, there are shorthand tools that can give you valuable cues about what a source might have to offer, even if it does not have a dust cover:

First, start with the table of contents. Sometimes a book’s table of contents lays out its argument in encapsulated form. How is the book organized? What is its structure? Are there subsections; if so, what kind of issues do they cover? Is the book organized chronologically or thematically?

Next, read the preface and introduction. Most students instinctively skip these parts. This is a BIG mistake, because it’s probably the most important place to look. You save time here. In this section of the book the author explains why she wrote the book, how she grappled with previous scholarship, what theoretical perspectives shaped the research, and how she answered her research question. In other words, here is where you find the thesis (the answer to the author’s research question). The introduction is to history what the overture is to classical music: the place where themes get articulated and an interpretive line gets traced.

Read through the preface and introduction and try to locate the following:

The historical problem that propelled the historian into writing the book (purpose: why she wrote the book).
The question that guided her research (research question).

What other historians have written on the topic (Eureka! You’ve struck gold! This is historiography!).

The key primary sources used to find an answer to the question (evidence).

Her response to the research question (thesis or central argument, which often begins with the signposts: “I argue” or “I contend” or “I claim”).
Read the conclusion. Here the historian summarizes the key findings of the book and explains to you why the findings are important. She answers her “so what?” question that motivated her research in the first place. (What was at stake? What do we know now that we didn’t know before, and why does it matter?)
These steps should give you a basic idea of the book’s subject, approach, and argument, which will help you decide whether to keep reading the book and which sections are most important to your research. So far we’ve been dancing around the edges of books without ever really dipping our toes into the text itself. Taking the plunge is always an option; actually, at some point it’s going to be a necessity, if you’re going plumb the depths that a good research paper requires. But if you’re still weighing whether or where to make your move on any particular source, there is another place on the margins where you can go for guidance about whether to make a commitment to a longer-term relationship.

Look in the back, with what is sometimes called the bibliographic apparatus, footnotes, bibliographies, abbreviations, and the like (some­times it’s also called the “back matter,” which more broadly includes the index, sometimes the acknowledgments, and other documentation). In secondary sources, the sheer scale of such an apparatus is a sign of intellectual heft; it’s not uncommon for major works of scholarship to have a hundred pages of footnotes or more. Bibliographies also often reveal important clues. How big are they? Are they subdivided between primary and secondary sources? Does the author use lots of archival records? Bigger isn’t always better. Indeed, bigger can be overwhelming, which is why some histories, particular popular ones, use bibliographic essays, which are both readable and focused on the most important works. But even if you don’t actually use the text of a book, the bibliog­raphy may clue you in to others that you will later find important.

Comb through the footnotes or endnotes of your source for other books and articles that seem interesting, relevant, or important in the field. The footnotes of a well-researched, scholarly book will give you a grasp on past work on the topic more quickly and reliably than catalog searching or shelf-browsing ever will. Use the footnotes to figure out which primary documents the author relied on.
One other thing you can do in an introduction — and, for that matter any other part of a great many books — is get a sense of what the author is saying by skimming topic sentences. Topic sentences, which govern what a particular paragraph is about, are typically right at the beginning, with supporting material to follow. If you care more about what’s being said than how, a good history book will allow you to glean a great deal from simply reading those sentences on any given page. In between these topic sentences, you typically get lots of data, quotes, and other contextual information to support them. But you can get the gist of the author’s argument by skimming.

Next, skim each chapter. Read the introduction and conclusion of each chapter. Look for each chapter’s research question and answer (thesis). Are there subheadings? How do they help structure chapter sections, guide your reading, and facilitate your understanding? Are there quotations? Do they support the author’s points? Are there illustrations, charts, tables? Do they support the author’s points?
Finally, if you have to, begin reading every other page. Before long, you won’t need to continue reading, unless you really want to. Afterwards, if your professor asks “Did you read that book?,” then answer the way I did when following this method: “Yes, I read in it.”
There’s more I could say here about how to skim a source. I hope you get the main idea, which is: sources are artifacts that can reveal a good deal more than what their authors explicitly say. Just having a consciousness of this fact is an important step. And if all else fails, read enough until you believe you are ready to annotate. Write a summary of the author’s research question, thesis and argument, based on what you’ve read or skimmed.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

You can apply this same method “to read” scholarly articles, like the ones you found on JSTOR, as depicted in the following mind map.

Scholarly articles are not like a novel, which should be read cover-to-cover; you should see the article as a source for bits of information and golden wisdom that you can extract or “mine.” While the style of articles often render them difficult to read, it also makes them easy to mine for information. These articles are actually close to what your HIST 4850 senior thesis or any historical research paper will look like. By taking a scholarly article apart, you can see how it was put together.

Your paper should have these same elements:

How does the article begin? Does it begin with an anecdote, story, or “hook” of some kind to try to grab your interest? Does it start by posing a historical problem? Does it wade right into a historiographical debate? (Your paper will need a similar introduction.)

Find the author’s research question.

Find the author’s argument/thesis; that is, the answer to their research question.
Hint: Both research question and argument/thesis should appear in the first quarter (¼) of the article.

Does the author situate their research question and argument/thesis in the context of what other historians have said about this topic? (You’ve hit pay dirt! This is golden. You’ve found more historiography!)

What sources does the author use? You can find these in the footnotes and bibliography or works cited section.

Are there visual elements? graphs? tables? If not, should there be?

How does the article proceed — chronologically or thematically?

By the end of the article, were you convinced or persuaded by the argument/thesis? Has enough evidence been amply demonstrated? If not, why not?
With this reading strategy in mind, there is no need for you to have to read any scholarly article all the way through. Once you are able to answer the questions I’ve suggested, then you can write an annotation about the article. Article annotations are similar to book annotations. I am not suggesting that you should avoid at all costs reading any article. You might be interested in the entire picture that an author paints in an article, or it may relate directly to what you are studying. In fact, there are some articles you should read all the way through, while you should focus on particular sections or information in others. In other words, be deliberate in your reading process. Such an intentional and selective approach to reading has become second nature to many historians through years of training and practice; we hardly notice what we do. Plus, we know something about the anatomy of a historiographical paper and what to look for.

The anatomy of a historiographical paper

Even if you don’t adopt a historiographical reading strategy like the one I’ve outlined above, by having taken this course you should know what to look for when reading any history book. Typically, students read both primary and secondary sources for information, because invariably that information could “be on the test.” Yet, as you now know, historiographical debates, historical claims, and sources and methods are also embedded in the text. In addition to these items, you should also be on the lookout for and prepared to encounter argument, acknowledgement of other scholarly positions, the researcher’s methods and evidence. And you should pay close attention to an author’s interpretive lens, biases or frame of reference which is sometimes revealed in prefaces or introductions and conclusions and constitute a kind of rhetorical code, which can be deciphered. Well-written introductions and conclusions can show the historian at work—using sources and historiography to construct historical meaning—provided you know where and how to look.

A historiographical paper typically has these five parts that connect the essential ingredients of historical research:

Topic, question, significance (T + Q + S)
Argument/Thesis
Primary source evidence
Historiographical debate
Bibliography
The structure of a typical historiographical paper seeks to answer these questions:

1. Topic, question, significance

What is the topic?
What is the question?
Why does your subject matter (“so what”)?

2. Argument/Thesis

What is your argument?
What is your thesis?
What questions will you need to answer to provide a persuasive argument?

3. Analysis of primary sources

How do these sources contribute to your argument?
What kinds of support do you find in the historical record?
How does each specific source contribute to the answer to your topic and thesis?

4. Historiography of secondary sources

How do each of these relate to your argument?
What have other historians said about your subject or question?
Why you have chosen these particular sources among those available to you?

5. Bibliography

Which primary and secondary sources were analyzed above?
Which primary and secondary sources did you find but did not analyze?
What other kinds of sources should you look for?

Several important items stand out from this anatomy lesson. The structure above emphasizes the interpretive and argument-driven nature of the history discipline, requiring you to make connections actively and consciously between each part of your research project. In parts 1 and 2, you develop a thesis and select evidence, rationalizing choices. This process pushes you to articulate the connections between evidence and argument, harkening back to this lesson first learned in Module 5:

The logic of a good argu­ment lies beneath the surface of any good work of history. An argument is an attempt to support a conclusion with reasons and evidence. An argument is not an assertion, nor is it an opinion, nor is it simply part of a dispute. Not all arguments are equal. Some are more persuasive than others.

Furthermore, the prompt in part 2 above —“What questions will you need to answer to provide a persuasive argument?” — invites reflection about historical and logical problems you must confront to support your historical claim. The question in parts 3 and 4 — “How does each specific source contribute to the answer to your topic and thesis?” — helps you consider whether the evidence can bear the burden of the argument and consider the challenges the argument must overcome. This step encourages deeper awareness of what you, the researcher, has to do to be successful. The primary source analysis helps you to select sources wisely and consider the concrete relationship between sources and argument. The historiographical portion of your essay in part 4 helps you grasp the idea that research is part of an ongoing conversation. Asking you to describe how historical works relate to the argument pushes you to identify a historiographical conversation and enter it. These steps, in turn, help you to build a bibliography of relevant primary and secondary sources. Including primary sources you have not yet analyzed helps you remember that a recommended 3 to 5 sources may not be enough for a final paper; you need to ensure you will have enough primary-source evidence related to the various questions you must answer. And you must give some thought to the kinds of sources you need to answer your questions.

A final lesson learned is, since all steps are potentially revised, research requires revision, as you, the scholar, adroitly move back and forth among sources, argument, and historiography. An important message here should move you away from the idea that historical research begins with an argument, or that historians primarily search for evidence that supports an argument, while ignoring contradictory evidence.

Aiming for the heart

By far, the most important part of the anatomy of any history research paper is the thesis. The thesis — something you’ve read a lot about in this Module — is the analytical heart and soul of any work of historiography. A thesis is an argument or an interpretation which is presented by the historian. It is far more than just someone’s opinion or point of view; it is based on a logical, systematic and persuasive argument supported by plausible evidence as revealed in the sources. Thesis statements almost always appear somewhere in the introduction. Why the introduction? In a mystery novel, the puzzle is not solved until the end. But in history papers, a thesis should appear first in order for readers to know what you are arguing and so they can evaluate your argument as they read. A thesis may vary in length from a few sentences to a few pages. It may be straightforward or multifaceted, comprised of a number of different strands or sub-theses. Sometimes the historian cues you into the thesis with statements such as “I argue” or “I contend” or other such signposts. (Rarely will you see “I will prove,” for as in most disciplines, one rarely proves anything in history. The real goal is persua­sion. It’s to make a statement about the past that isn’t, or even can’t be, proven.) Other times the thesis is less explicitly presented. Whether explicit or implicit, the thesis is the interpretive posture assumed, argument to be made, position to be defended, in its most pithy analytic articulation. If history is, as an old adage goes, philosophy reasoning by example, then the thesis statement of any historical work is the philosophy as yet embellished by example, the analysis as yet buttressed by evidence, the entire spool of interpretive thread that the historian will subsequently unravel. Identifying the thesis is absolutely essential for understanding and completing the activity that is attached to this Module.

Takeaways

Any research paper that you write should include historiography. Good research papers should demonstrate familiarity with the important work historians have already done. Not only is a paper that simply retells well-known stories uninteresting to read, but also it serves little academic purpose. You must have a good understanding of historiog­raphy for several reasons. First, knowing how particular topics have already been inter­preted and written about by historians helps you to develop their own research questions, especially because knowing the literature gives you the opportunity to pose questions about where the field currently stands, recognize gaps in interpretation and /or documentation, and engage with current scholars who are developing new directions in their work. In other words, a strong historiographical context offers a clear framework from which to begin a project and helps you to see how your inter­ests fit into larger historical questions being discussed in the profession. Second, historiography aids in defining and delimiting the exact scope of the research paper. If you recognizes that one aspect of your topic has already received adequate coverage and is not a source of much debate, you can mention it in passing and move on to less explored or more controversial areas. You may even be able to devise a working thesis, or line of argument, you will support in the paper. If you are baffled by how big or small your topic should be (who hasn’t been told that their topic was “too big”?) you can use histo­riography to figure out what you are going to write about and how much information you will need. Finally, to be able to effectively interpret primary source materials, you must have a good understanding of what is already known about the period in which those primary materials were produced. Without historiography you cannot really “do” history.

Doing historiography is time consuming. But you can reduce the amount of time you spend researching by adopting a historiographic reading strategy that is both deliberate and selective. Knowing what to look for in your secondary sources is the key. Every historical work worth reading has a research question it is attempting to answer. It also contains an argument and a thesis. Finally there are sources which support its thesis or central argument. If you can learn to search for those pieces of a book or an article’s anatomy, it will save you a lot of time.

Finding the question an historian is attempting to answer or their thesis is often difficult if you don’t know where to look. In a typical monograph or historical study focusing on one specific question or topic, both the central question and the thesis are introduced near the beginning of the work. Identifying the question to which the historian gives an answer (their thesis) often provides an important leverage point for grappling with the onslaught of historical details that follow. Sometimes historians make their question explicit to their readers, usually in the introduction, and their thesis is supported by evidence throughout. It is also proven in the conclusion. In other monographs, however, the thesis could be implicit, hidden, emerging at the end of the work, or is complex, illogical, or contradicts the evidence. Whether you are dealing with the former or the latter, discovering the thesis of a work is essential to understanding and evaluating the overall monograph. If you find the thesis, then you can find everything else that is connected to the thesis: sources, argument and historiography. Often the types of sources or evidence the historian uses reveals the methodology employed. In most recent histories, the evidence is explicitly included in reference footnotes or endnotes. From these, you could ascertain whether the author used primary and secondary sources, and the sort of sources used gives us further indication of the historian’s approach and philosophy. Most often, historians do not explicitly discuss their personal philosophy, approach, methods, or theories. These may be deduced, however, by analyzing their use of evidence, their interpretation of the evidence, and their thesis, in the context of the author’s identity and frame of reference.

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Analyzing Historiography Activity
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Analyzing Historiography Activity

In Module 12 we discuss how to read secondary sources, such as books and scholarly articles, and the importance of analyzing those sources in order to produce an annotated bibliography. The word “analyze” is from the Ancient Greek ἀνάλυσις meaning “a breaking up” into smaller parts. When you analyze a secondary source you are breaking up or deconstructing that source, and the parts you should find after breaking it up include the research question, the sources of evidence, and the “heart” — its central argument or thesis. When you write an annotated bibliography, you invariably will discuss all three of these parts and how they relate to your historiographical topic.

The following exercise is intended to help develop and hone your skills in analyzing primary sources for historiographical purposes. We have discussed primary sources all semester and why they are central to the history discipline, as well as the role of the historian as detective to “draw testimony” from the witnesses of the past. A primary source provides direct or firsthand evidence about an event, and historians use primary sources to piece together an interpretation of the past that can be supported by the weight of available evidence. Doing history is always an act of interpretation based on critical examination of available historical evidence. In writing any history research paper, primary sources are essential. But before they can be used, they have to be analyzed and their meaning clearly interpreted.

This assignment and the cache of documents in the attached file offer the opportunity to practice interpretation and annotation. We’ll return to the eviction of the Bonus Army incident that you researched in the previous activity to analyze historiography using primary sources. The events that occurred in Washington on July 28-30, 1932, were seen by some contemporaries as a disgraceful and cruel treatment of U.S. veterans by the Hoover administration and by others as a defiant act of lawlessness and incipient revolution led by Communist agitators. How does the evidence support these views?

In analyzing the documents, recall our original questions we were seeking to answer:

What was President Herbert Hoover’s exact role in the events of July 28-30?
Did General MacArthur exceed his directive or violate his orders?
Was excessive force used against the B. E. F.?
Were the Bonus Marchers nonviolent ex-veterans and their families or criminals and Communist agitators?
Other related questions could include:

Was the Hoover administration trying to provoke a conflict by ordering the eviction of the veterans from abandoned federal buildings?
Did the clashes between police and the Bonus marchers on July 28th constitute an actual riot?
Was Hoover justified in calling on the Army to quell the riot?
How clear and specific were MacArthur’s orders?
Under what authority did MacArthur act when he crossed the Anacostia River?
Did Hoover lose control of the Army?
Who was ultimately responsible for the eviction of the Bonus Army and why was it done?
These are only a few of the questions that are raised and addressed by the documents. Do not feel constrained to limit your analysis to these issues alone.

Your task:

Select ten (10) primary documents transcribed and reproduced in the attached file. For each of the documents that you select:

1. Locate the “heart” — its central argument or main point as it relates to the question(s) you are trying to answer.

2. Write a brief annotation (comprised of no more than 3 sentences) that summarizes each document’s central argument or main point.

3. Also, discuss the question(s) each document helps to answer.

______________

Instructions:

• Read and analyze all documents in the attached file.

• Select ten (10) documents.

• Locate each document’s “heart”

• Write a brief annotation (comprised of no more than 3 sentences) that accurately and clearly describes the heart of each document.

• Explain the question(s) each document helps to answer.

• Create a Word doc. that contains all annotations in the same order as each document is presented.

• Attach your completed Bonus Army Eviction Primary Document Analysis below and submit it by the due date.

______________

Note: A strong annotation

1. Includes complete bibliographic information (already provided with each document)

2. Is grammatically correct and well written

3. Identifies a main point or central argument (the heart) related to the topic

4. Demonstrates how the document relates to the topic

PAPER CONTINUATION ASSIGN FROM THIS PAPER

Student’s Name:
Instructor:
Course Code:
Date:

The Bonus March
The Great Depression happened, causing the worst economic recess known to the industrial world from 1929 to 1939. The event was set when the stock market crashed, leading to enormous losses for investors. The Depression led to the closure of half of the banks in the United States (Temin 150). Unemployment rates quickly rose and during the 1930 numbers were almost 4 million. In 1924 the United States Congress issued for the allocation of certificates which could be redeemed at a thousand dollars. The Depression hit most significant around 1932, and at that time, most service members remained unemployed (Temin 150). The veterans demonstrated in what was later called “BONUS ARMY MARCH” to call for redemption of their bonus certificate before the designated time in 1945. Walter Waters led the demonstration, and veterans set out to move into the capital. President Hoover rejected an audience with leaders. A veteran of Foreign Wars (VFW) and the American Legion recruited members during these times with the offer of job security. The veterans camped close to Washington and were later displaced by orders from the president controversially.
Approximately twenty thousand veterans, most were jobless and homeless, arrived in Washington, D.C., to pressure Congress to provide immediate payments based on the severe economic periods (Gilman et al. 35). Several weeks were spent trying to negotiate terms, the House of Representatives passed the bill allowing for disbarment of the funds but was countered by the Senate who opposed the motion. Consequently, The United States Army made an eviction notice to the Bonus army. The use of teargas forcibly evicted veterans and their families. President Hoover’s reaction to the troubled citizens was considered a failure after many Americans were dissatisfied with actions taken to control the organization (Springer 150). This serves to highlight the disparity and tension among high state officials in Washington, D.C., for the bonus army (Feigenbaum and Fabian 123). The March serves to highlight various protest actions and disunified veteran organizations.
According to the Adjusted Compensation Act, veterans were allowed to take loans against their certificates at the Veterans’ Bureau and banks. VFW pushed the federal government to make payments to the veterans using the loan activity as their point of reference. The VFW’s employed the use of various tactics to capture the attention of Congress. Celebrities were invited to make public statements urging the government to payout (Huebner and Andrew 70). VFW members took to filling the rank of marchers. However, VFW withdrew from any sponsoring activity of the Bonus March. Part of the leadership was against March, arguing usurping being carried out by Communist Veterans (Gilman et al. 35). The Legion strongly condemned Hoover’s administration for the uncalled deployment of force.
VFW started carrying out activities independently, seeing the American Legion would not support them in the Congressional meeting. VFW planned public campaigns to showcase the veteran’s support for the bonus. The bonus ballots saw VFW receiving a landslide win in relief for their schedule. Small groups started moving out to cities in late 1931. The VFW discourages this and urged members to participate in the personal services of mobilization (Braatz 345). This came into light after the national government stops aiding homeless veterans. Early 1932 saw VFW mobilization activities intensify at both the local and national level. Signatures were collected with areas like Texas, securing over fifty thousand in eighteen days (Braatz 345). The VFW planned to use the media by launching a radio program titled Hello America that aimed to increase the recruitment scope in which commander would swear recruits an oath of obligation live. The plan was a success, with over twenty thousand new members becoming part of the organization.
VFW activism on the bonus was shelved by the Ways and Means Committee with the promise to discharge the bill through petition. The VFW failed to succeed in their quest for Bonus Push but gained more members and stature relative to the Legion. The growth trend increased with aggressive, demands that were widely publicized (Feigenbaum and Fabian 123). The BEF began settling in Washington after the Congressional Bonus members managed to garner sufficient discharge petition to pass the Patman bill through the Ways and Means Committee placing it a floor vote. The house was quick to adopt the Patman bill despite the little chances of it succeeding in the State (Frants 537). June 17, saw close to 5000 veterans taking to the government offer for free transport after the bill rejection.
The remainder of the Veterans occupied nearby abandoned buildings and in various encampments around the area. With time going by, food supply and sanitization become a problem. The Chief of police organized for donations from local to help sustain the population. Some states, such as Colombia, provided five hundred dollars to assist in feeding Marchers (Gilman et al. 35). On June 7, close to seven thousand Marchers paraded the Pennsylvania Avenue with a local band leading the procession. Leaders of the VFW maintained close contact with D.C. Chief of Police Glassford, who was a veteran and even served as the treasurer.
VFW national leadership denies an official connection with the demonstration being wary of the political backsplash that could arise from it. As the BEF grew in number, posters and communique were relayed to members to refrain from participating in the exercise. This led to conflict with VFW official who was grounded to the encampments for failing to take part in the activity that they had instigated. The leaders of the campsite denounced the national leadership of the VFW and requested an explanation for the withdrawal act. Later, it was established that of direct participation of the VFW in the March and trickery involved, which saw Communist leading BEF (Campbell et al. 170).
Accusatory statements were made towards the causes of the Bonus March with no distinctive boundaries between Legion and the VFW. On July 28, 1932, the federal government forced relocations of the Bonus Marchers. The riots led to the death of two veterans, and several police officers were injured in their effort to disperse the BEF (Benmelech et al. 545). Douglas MacArthur ordered the use of excessive force by the army troops. The result was the camps were utterly destroyed, and the places were burned to the ground. Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was the Democratic presidential candidate, would use this show of force as a reason for his election. Hoover administration claimed that the Communist party held the grounds and power had to deploy. The national organization and public outcry demonstrated by the use of force to displace unarmed citizens seeking compensation of money within their rights.
National leaders of the VFW defended the BEF as being legal (Rhodes 159). Newspapers and articles condemned methods used to evacuate the veterans claiming lousy leadership. VFW members all over the country were united in disapproving Hoover administration. During the period, close to fifty thousand new members joined. The VFW participated in political rallies issuing bias remarks to Congressional Bonus opponents. The VFW aimed to seek retribution for the Hoover Administration, treating them similarly to Communists and criminals. VFW had hopes that a Democratic administration would serve their interests better (Somervile et al. 2017). However, this was still a fairytale since the FDR indicated balancing of the federal budget would be of utmost importance, which would mean cutting veterans’ benefit.
The VFW challenged the American Legion as spokesmen for veterans’ interests (Somerville et al. 50). Deployment of aggressive lobbying strategies through radio and citizen involvement saw VFW grow with Legion reluctance in taking center stage of bonus demanding. The Depression created a sense of urgency in ascertaining the political economy of the United States. Historians view grassroots veteran political activities as a legacy in the economic recess period. Even after the March ended, VFW’s political standpoint was felt in Roosevelt’s presidency.

Roosevelt Administration initiated the “the Hundred Days” recovery program as part of the New Deal. The program aimed at emphasizing reforms in the banking, security, and agricultural sector. The Economy Act aimed to cut federal expenditures by reduction of benefits that Veterans were to receive, saving almost 400 million dollars. The VFW participated in the direct mobilization against the Economy Act (Hausman and Joshua 1105). Initially, VFW offered support for Roosevelt’s Administration, but after the Economy Act, they raised a protest accusing the FDR of failing to act in the interest of ordinary citizens (Frants 537). Only two weeks into FDR inauguration, VFW coupled with well organization structure, annual meeting, and far-reaching political mobilization to resist its administration. VFW’s current political landscape included Congressional allies and high-profile spokespeople with media utility via radio and national print.
Roosevelt’s administration with budget director Lewis Douglas had been trying to prioritize budgeting through reduction of the veteran’s benefits (Hausman and Joshua 1105). The Economic Act relegated powers to Douglas, who was a veteran and, in doing so, excluded the Roosevelt from dealing with politically sensitive issues. However, plans failed, and the veterans expressed dissatisfaction. VFW officials attacked the New Deal (Rhodes 159). Veterans were willing to cut if the government had considered dissolving bureaus, which channeled vast amounts of government money. The VFW become among the first group to openly demonstrate against the Roosevelt administration.
The Roosevelt administration failed to act just in veteran issues by maintaining fiscal policies beneficial to the business community (Hausman and Joshua 1105). VFW leadership encouraged public outrage by presenting the problems to all elected officials. This included sending letters and telegrams to the White House. Democratic allies urged the federal government to take the issue seriously, some considering it to be walking dynamite. Contrary, the American Legion was passive to the Economy Act, and this raised suspicions, where the commander convinced veterans in support of the government. The passive action led to the Legion losing almost 20 percent of its members, compared to six percent of the VHF who later signed 40,000 new recruits. The net growth of VFW was attributed to their stand on Economy Act.
The VFW membership requirements which catered for overseas campaign such as Philippines Insurrection led to small bands joining together. Spanish-War veterans were at losses since the federal government insisted on them proving service to earn pension. The VFW was forefront in the war of publishing lists of people to legitimize their claim and adding additional backups procedures. Veterans blamed the National Economy League and termed them as “Wall Street” and “Big Business” indicating few individuals benefitted from the veterans going to war.
Consistent pressure of the VFW eventually yielded legislative results when Congress passed the Independent Offices Appropriation Act that provided a review panel for veteran’s appeal and allocated a hundred million dollars to be used in cuts. VFW launched attacks on the New Deal through Senator Huey P. Long who was involved in FDR’s nomination talking against concentration of wealth. VFW only agreed to work under the National Industrial Recovery Act form a patriotic perspective but still criticized payroll increase. Roosevelt’s administration was subsequently undermined, and the Legion group was trolled through comparison on articles indicating the commander’s betrayal to veterans by siding with the president. The leaders of VFW insisted on being loyal to the course and deserving recognition and becoming a veteran’s official representation.
In conclusion, the Great Depression caused by the collapse of the share market led to massive unemployment rates. War veterans claimed redemption of certificate bonuses to help them through the economic recess. A demonstration was organized led by Walter, where veterans would camp in Washington, D.C., and demand for reforms to be made. House of Representatives passed the bill, which was rejected by the Senate. Veterans camped in abandoned buildings and relied on relief food. President Hebert Hoover ordered a direct army attack on the unarmed veterans, which led to the death of two veterans. Hoover’s administration was widely criticized and cost him in the next election in favor of Roosevelt, who promised on caring for an ordinary citizen. However, with the enactment of the Economy Act, which saw a reduction of the veteran budget, VFW widely protested and resisted this. The Independent Offices Appropriation Act saw major reforms made, and veterans were given a platform to address their grievances.

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