I had a difficult time thinking of a descent answer that held any form of merit when we were asked the question on the first day of class “What is history and how do we do it?” I honestly thought my answer was solid and made a lot of sense. What I see now is how that answer lacked any real depth of understanding. As a result of my education in this class, I am of the opinion that I have a greater understanding of how to answer the question. This understanding has evolved as I have learned more about thinking historically.
I have learned an extremely important thing and that is to not impose present day cultural values and norms on the past. Being a woman in Canada, in my generation, has granted me opportunity that previous generations did not have. Reading about the filles du rois, women during the gold rush in western Canada, and the strict governance when it comes to women’s sexuality; their place in society depending upon a virtuousness that could alter their chances of marrying into a life of posterity has imparted upon me a much more broad idea of being able to remain non-judgemental to these experiences. This historical information has made me really appreciate how far we have come. I certainly have an extreme admiration for the sheer strength and resilience of women of the pre-confederation time. I wonder if I would have this same kind of appreciation had this information never been documented.
I have learned that when we think historically we have to go beyond events that happened and we need to read between the lines and research our findings in order to establish accuracy. We need to be careful of the resources we use and when it comes to resources, we need to look to the time itself from first-hand accounts, the primary resources being of utmost importance. When we research we need to analyse who is speaking in the material that is at our disposal and from what angle or opinion might they be coming from and how does this affect the information that is being relayed. What bias could there possibly be? For example, the information on First Nations peoples was mostly written down by missionaries and others such as leaders in the military. This presents an inefficient exchange of knowledge that is being translated by someone not of the First Nations peoples. How much was lost in those exchanges, we will likely never know.
History, to me, is about remaining as open minded as possible to events that have lead to this very day; right to this moment of me writing this final journal article. We impart our experiences with others and document societies in order to gain a deeper understanding of this world that we live in. We do not know what the future holds, it is not a given, therefore I believe we document in order to know where we have come from and what it took us to get to this present day. That is how we do history.