A mirror and a record
From Love On The Dole to My Beautiful Laundrette, film has reflected and engaged the values of our culture. Unspool the links between film and society.
Film archives
If you have archive film and think it might be of interest, it might be worth making contact with some experts. A good place to start could be our list of national and regional film archives.
Related programme
Alan Sennet explains why even though film is a valuable primary source, historians must subject it to rigorous interrogation.
Summary
Finding information about the past in primary sources involves interpretation. It means asking a series of questions about the film, photograph or video being used. Answering many of these questions will require reference to secondary sources. At all stages of the process it is important to maintain a critical distance from the primary source and not assume the meaning or truthfulness of the item is self-evident. There is almost always a more complex story behind the evidence which it is the historian’s task to uncover.
References
- Angela V. John By the Sweat of Their Brows. Women Workers at Victorian Coal Mines, RKP, London 1984
- Arthur Marwick The New Nature of History: Knowledge, Evidence, Language, Palgrave Macmillan, 2001
Approaches to historical study
- Arthur Marwick, ‘The Fundamentals of History’
Use of Primary Sources
- The Library Of Congress: What Are Primary Sources?
- Saratoga High School: Analysis of Primary Sources
- The University of Auckland Library: Historical Primary Sources - A Guide
- University of Washington Libraries: Primary Sources
- Western Libraries: Primary Source Research
Film History:
- Academic Info: Film History [Contains links to many journals and other online resources]
- Online library catalogue for the University of Berkeley
- World Wide Web Virtual Library: Film History Index
- Digital History: Hollywood's America
Photography and history:
- Robert Leggat's Home Page: A History of Photography
- Midley History of Photography: R. Derek Wood’s articles on the early History of Photography, the Daguerreotype and Diorama
- Dictionary of Victorian London: Social History
- Hidden Lives Revealed: Children in Care 1881-1918 An interesting site that uses photography to illustrate a social history of the late Victorian and Edwardian Britain
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Content last updated: 07/01/2005
