Art of Historical Detection by Research Proposal

On the other hand, in the Dust Bowl evidence, photos and statistics play a very important role, because they paint a graphic picture of what was going on in the country and how people were suffering. This type of evidence plays a much more important role than in the Sacco and Vanzetti case, which was not so much about photographs and statistics, but about print documents and even the political climate. This indicates how different cases require different perspectives and the use of differing evidence.

The difference in these two historic cases also points to the use of differing evidence to study different moments in history. The Dust Bowl affected millions of people who lost their farms, left the area, and moved to places like California to find work and start new lives. There were books written about it, news stories, and everything in between. The Sacco and Vanzetti case initially only affected the two men, although it did grow to become a national outrage.The Dust Bowl has more evidence collected about it, because it was a larger event and is more well-known, and that means historians have a much bigger body of evidence to pull from. It also happened during the Great Depression, when the arts community was working for the WPA in chronicling what was going on in the country, and there are a large amount of photographs and writings available covering the Dust Bowl. However, these two cases really do indicate how different historical evidence tells different stories, and that every case cannot depend on the same type of historical analysis and evidence. Each case is different, and each type of evidence is different, so the good historian has to be good at deciding what evidence to use, as well.

References

Davidson, James West and Lytle, Mark Hamilton. After the Fact: The Art of Historical Detection. Volume 2, Fifth Edition. New York: McGraw….....