A Historian At Work: Using Facts to Build "Stories." Part Two

Part One --- Part Two--- Part Three --- Part Four --- Part Five

Here’s my answer to the student’s question:

That opening scene is factual, based on the available evidence, and on common sense.

Remember that the first sentences of that excerpt from Part One, in which I describe Phillip walking to Langworthy’s shop? Here’s what I knew: The Best family had almost no money at the time. They’d recently emigrated, and put all of their cash into the piece of property they bought. So it’s unlikely they used a horse to get around Milwaukee. Horses were (and are) expensive, and regular folks relied on their feet to get from one place to another. Moreover, in 1844, there wasn’t any public transportation in town.

So it’s safe to assume that Phillip walked to Langworthy's shop. But I could also assume that he walked because of the short distance between his house and Langworthy’s shop.

How do I know that? I found one of Langworthy’s advertisements in the newspaper, and it included his address. Next, I found a map of Milwaukee that dated to the period. If I remember right, the one I used was produced around 1850 or 1852 (I’m too lazy to rummage through my files to find it right now to find the map), which was close enough to 1844 to give me a visual image of the town’s streets at the time of Phillip’s trek.

Then I used a current map of Milwaukee to calculate the distance from the Best’s brewery to the shop. I also walked the path myself when I visited Milwaukee to do research. It’s not far -- a half mile or so?

But what lay in between the two points? What did Phillip see as he walked from his house to the riverfront and Langworthy’s shop? How do I know about the millrace, the docks, the tanneries, and so forth?

I determined that by reading eyewitness descriptions of the town as it appeared in 1844: Letters written during the 1840s, diaries, newspapers, government documents. Once I’d done all of that, I was able to construct a mental image of Phillip making his way along the crowded sidewalks to Langworthy’s shop. But that image was based on multiple, verifiable facts. Reliable facts.

Next time: How do I decide which sources are reliable?

A Historian At Work: Using Facts to Create "Stories". Part One

Part One --- Part Two--- Part Three --- Part Four --- Part Five

A few weeks ago, I was asked to speak to a class at a nearby university (the students had read my history of American beer as part of their course work). One student asked a good question. I don’t remember now her precise wording but it went something like this:

In the first chapter of the book, you describe Phillip Best hauling his new brewing vat through the streets of Milwaukee. But that scene reads like a story; like fiction rather than fact. How do you know that’s what happened? Why should we believe you?

Again, I’m paraphrasing her question but I'm bringing it up here now because it gets to the heart of what historians do. For those who don’t have a copy of the book at hand (Hey! Whatsa mattah wit you? GET ONE.), the scene she’s referring to takes place in the first few pages of the book. The setting is Milwaukee in 1844 and concerns Phillip Best, the man who founded what eventually became Pabst Brewing Company. He’s a recent emigrant, and he’s trying to find someone to make a brew vat for his family’s new venture.

Late summer, 1844. Milwaukee, Wisconsin Territory. Phillip Best elbowed his way along plank walkways jammed with barrels, boxes, pushcarts, and people. He was headed for the canal, or the “Water Power,” as locals called it, a mile-long millrace powered by a tree-trunk-and-gravel dam on the Milwaukee River. Plank docks punctuated its tumbling flow and small manufactories--a few mills, a handful of smithies and wheelwrights, a tannery or two--lined its length. Best was searching for a particular business as he pushed his way past more carts and crates, and dodged horses pulling wagons along the dirt street and laborers shouldering newly hewn planks and bags of freshly milled grain. He had only been in the United States a few weeks and Milwaukee’s bustle marked a sharp contrast to the drowsy German village where he and his three brothers had worked for their father, Jacob, Sr., a brewer and vintner.

Phillip finally arrived at the shop owned by A. J. Langworthy, metal worker and ironmonger. He presented himself to the proprietor and explained that he needed a boiler--a copper vat--for his family’s new brewing business. Would Langworthy fabricate it for them? The metalworker shook his head. No. “I [am] familiar with their construction,” he explained to Best, “. . . but I [dislike] very much to have the noisy things around, and [I do] not wish to do so.

Eventually Phillip persuaded Langworthy to make the vat, and a few weeks later, he returned, picked up the vat, and took it home:

It’s not clear how Phillip transported his treasure the half mile or so from Langworthy’s shop to the family’s brewhouse. Perhaps his new friend provided delivery. Perhaps Phillip persuaded an idling wagoner to haul the vat on the promise of free beer. Perhaps one or more of his three brothers accompanied him, and they and their burden staggered through Kilbourntown--the German west side of Milwaukee--and up the Chestnut Street hill. But eventually the vat made its way to the Bests’ property--the location of Best and Company and the foundation of their American adventure.

As you can tell, the student asked a good question: I wasn't there (even I'm not that old). So how do I know what happened? Is this fact or fiction? Next time: How historians "construct" the facts of their "stories."

A Historian At Work: The Basics, Part Two of Two

Part One --- Part Two 

"Years!" you say. "How can it take you years to write a book?" "Look at Michael Pollan? Or Thomas Friedman? Or Doris Kearns Goodwin? They publish a new book about once a year. What? You too stupid to do that? Are you lazy?"

I'm not sure about the too stupid part, but I’m definitely not lazy. But those people have something I don't have: Help. They rely on paid assistants to do the scut work, much of the research, and, for better or worse, much of their writing, especially of the first drafts.

What's scut work? Remember all those sources I mentioned above? Those aren't just sitting in a neat stack somewhere, waiting for me to leaf through them. I have to find them. I have to figure out what I want to read, what I need to read, and then I have to track down a copy of whatever it is -- newspaper, magazine article, traveler's diary. (*1)

If I'm lucky, the material is in the nearby university library, or that library can borrow it for me. If I'm not so lucky, I may have to travel to the place where the material is stored. For the beer book, for example, I used various repositories in Milwaukee, Chicago, and St. Louis.

And then I have to read and absorb and analyze it. (*2) And then I have to repeat the process, oh, another seven, eight hundred times. (No, I'm not exaggerating.) (Nor am I complaining. I LOVE my work.)

Months later, when I've conducted enough research so that I "know" my subject, I start writing. And as soon as I start writing, well . . . something amazing thing happens. As I write, my brain begins a conversation with itself and I truly begin to understand what my book is about, what all that research material means, and whether I ought to go this direction, or that direction.

Often that means I have to stop, go back to the sources, and re-read them because I've decided that my initial understanding of them was flawed. Or, more often, I realize that I need to read different sources, ones that I didn’t realize were relevant. And then I go back to my keyboard and start writing, and the creative process starts all over again.

And . . . five years later? I’ve completed a book. That's what I do. Any takers?

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*1: This is what historians refer to as "constructing a bibliography."

*2: Up until about, oh, two, three years ago, about 98% of this material was on paper or on microfilm or microfiche. I've spent hours of my life sitting in front of a microfilm reader, loading reels of film, slowly scanning the film, re-winding the reels, etc. (The good news is that these days those machines are electric, so at least I don't have to hand-crank to rewind the entire reel. I actually damaged my right shoulder in grad school just from cranking the handle of a microfilm reader.) Nowadays, I'd say about half the sources I use have been digitized. More about that later.

A Historian At Work: Verification and Digital Sources

In my previous post, a reader asked if a blog could be a source. The answer is "yes," and I discussed the issue in my reply. But there is another problem that historians face when it comes to digital sources: Permanence. Or, more accurately, lack thereof. What happens if that digital source vanishes? A little background: Historians "document" their sources for their work. Here's an example: This is from my most recent First Draft Follies blog entry

August Busch and Anheuser-Busch, Johnson said, constituted a "selfish" interest that had "openly and without shame . . . prostituted and exploited" the national pastime by making it the "handmaiden and adjunct of the brewing business." (*18)

I documented the source of that quote like this:

*18: Senate Subcommittee on the Judiciary, Subjecting Professional Baseball Clubs to the Antitrust Laws, 83d Cong., 2d sess., 1954, 71.

The "source" here is testimony from a congressional hearing held the second session of the 83rd Congress. The testimony was published, and this particular quote is on p. 71 of that published document. With that information, anyone can find the "source," and read it for themselves. (By the way, this is an example of a primary source.) What happens if a historian wants to use someone's blog as a source? No problem: They name the blog, the date of the entry, and provide the url. Like this:

Maureen Ogle, "First Draft Follies: Budweiser, Baseball, and . . . Communism," February 23, 2009, http://maureenogle.com/2009/02/first-draft-follies-budweiser-baseball-and-com...

All well and good. Unless . . . that link goes "dead" somehow. Doesn't matter how: I remove my blog and its contents, the host vanishes, some hacker destroys my site. Whatever.

Point is if a historian used this "document" as a source, and then the source disappeared or was destroyed -- well, no one else can verify that he or she ever found it. For all we the readers know, he/she made up the source. (*1)

If I had printed a paper copy of that blog entry, then a historian would have what amounts to a back-up.

The historian would use the same citation, but add something like "From the collection of Maureen Ogle; Special Collections, Iowa State University Library." (I'm totally making that up, by the way; there is no "Maureen Ogle archive" at Iowa State University.)

I've noticed in the past few years, that writers who are citing e-sources often include the entire url, no matter how clunky or long it is, along with the date on which they accessed that web page. Presumably, this is to "document" their document.

But again, that document could vanish, in which case no one can prove (or disprove) that the historian actually accessed that page. How will this play out in the next few decades? I dunno. I'm guessing various historian-geniuses are contemplating the problem.

Me? For now, I'm trusting myself, being honest, and hoping that my readers will therefore trust me, too. But it's definitely going to be an issue in the years to come.

_____________________

*1: I hasten to add that this can happen with conventional, non-digital sources, too. There was an infamous case a decade or so ago of a historian making up sources to suit his needs.

A Historian At Work: The Basics, Part One

Part One --- Part Two 

I realize many of you don't know what historians DO. Don’t feel bad; most people don't. Nor should they. If I were reading a blog about, say, civil engineering or radial oncology, I'd need some basic background because I have NO idea what civil engineers and radial oncologists do. I mean I know that engineers build dams and bridges, but that’s the beginning, middle, and end of what I know.

So, I thought I'd provide some basic background on how historians work. If you're a historian or professional researcher, you can skip this part.

Much of my daily routine consists of doing research. I conduct that research using two kinds of material -- or, as historians say: "sources" -- primary and secondary materials (or "sources).

An example of primary materials, or, "primary sources" are letters written by Abraham Lincoln to his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln. A secondary source is a book or essay in which a scholar (a historian) analyzes those letters.

So, for example, when I decided to write a history of Key West, Florida, I needed to learn about Ernest Hemingway, who lived in Key West for many years. To research his life, I used primary sources such as letters that Hemingway wrote to his friends and family while living in Key West.

I also relied on secondary sources, namely biographies of Ernest Hemingway. The letters (primary sources) provided Hemingway's first-hand accounts of Key West. The biographies (secondary sources) provided details of Hemingway’s life (his childhood in Illinois, his years in Paris, etc.)

So when I'm writing a book, whether it's a history of Key West, of beer in America, or (my current project) a history of meat, I read a wide range of material. Lots of material. What feels like an endless river of material.

And once I've finished the research, then I have to write the book. (Which, I might add, is a quite different task that requires a different set of skills.) Which is why I only publish a book every few years. Ain't no way to speed up the process.

A Historian At Work: Why Now? What Now? How Now?

As a historian, I'm here to tell you that when it comes to "doing" history, these are interesting times. Ditto the endeavor of writing and publishing books. Interesting times, indeed!

Someone like me -- a working historian who writes books -- is experiencing (and sometimes being nearly swept under by) the confluence of two tides of change:

First, technology and our behavior are changing the way we experience, define, create, and consume words and ideas. The fact that you’re reading this "blog" on a computer monitor -- reading electronic images that convey words and ideas -- is evidence of these changes: Ten years ago, you would not have been reading me at all, and if you were, you would likley have been reading paper, not bytes.

Digitization affects my daily work as a historian. To a certain extent, it’s made my job easier; in other ways, more difficult. It’s one of the things I’ll be blogging about in this series.

Second, this sea change in behavior and technology has collided head-on with, and is being accelerated by, the cataclysmic upheaval in the global economy. ("Cataclysmic" is not too strong a word.) Publishing houses are collapsing (including the one contracted to publish my next book). Brick-and-mortar bookstores, even the giant chains, are closing their doors. The future of the newspaper as we know it (eg, a daily content delivery system based on printing presses and paper) is in doubt.

It’s hard to know what's cause and what's effect. Hard to know how much of the economic cataclysm is due to fundamental changes in the way we think about making, buying, selling, using "stuff." To what extent economic chaos is accelerating the demise of old modes of thinking/doing that were already dying.

All I know for certain is that the collision of economic upheaval and the "digital" revolution (can we call it that?) are having a direct and immediate impact on my professional life.

So that’s my focus here: the real-life consequences of these changes on my life and work as a 21st-century historian and writer.