Responses to classmates primary sources

Hey guys, here are my comments on all of your primary sources. They are all really fascinating and in several cases I found myself wishing I could read more!

Andrea - I think this is a really relevant source for your project because it specifically describes a black marriage and specific parts of that marriage. One thing that particular stood out to me was that the wife said she would be "an assistant in all departments", indicating a subservience. Was this an aspect of white middle class marriage - the position of the husband above the wife - that black partners sought to emulate? I think you are exactly right about making sure to take these autobiographical statements with a grain of salt, but I also think that this source can be considered as a wife's attempt to explain how she felt - or how she wanted people to think she felt - about her marriage and her relationship with her husband, so its biases may actually be useful in that way.

Brenden - These oral histories are really interesting - I think it's great that you chose men from a variety of backgrounds and with a variety of experiences. I'm sure you've thought of this, but one thing that came to mind is that you will need to account for the fact that these are old, proud men, and so a) their memories may not be entirely accurate and, perhaps more importantly, b) they may want to present their life stories in a certain way. However I think even with this this possible bias, using these oral histories in context with other sources will be really useful, because no matter what the exact "truth" is, these oral histories represent their teller's understanding of his own experience.

Alice - It's really great that you have found such pertinent, relevant primary sources about your topic - it looks like you will be able to take this in a great direction! Though I'm not sure exactly whether you are covering this type of question, to me, this brought up a lot of questions about exactly what the Pinkertons expected to have to handle, and what sort of contracts they were under. I think the report will be very useful to tease out some answers about the conflict between local people and "foreign" presences such as the Pinkertons.

Sylvie - This source presents you with a lot of interesting possible ways to use it. To the question of about biases - well, quite obviously, it is extremely biased, so what is important is figuring out exactly what the biases mean, and presumably, how this source reflects something larger about WFB or his points. For me, this raises questions about Buckley's intended audience as well as what he was asking them to do.

Chris - These quotes definitely raise a lot of questions about the place of Chinese servants not only within a family, but also as a part of American culture. The author seems to have her own understanding of a Chinese servant's place, and her comments remind me in a lot of ways of the comments you sometimes find about black slaves, particularly those who worked in the homes of the white family who owned them. Clearly, there is a lot of bias there, so my question would be about how Chinese servants themselves felt about the families they lived with, and how accurate this woman really was when she described the love of the servant for the family.

Tom - Both of these articles raise really interesting questions about the number of Republicans in Santa Clara County, as well as their actual power. The one about Republicans for LBJ seems to indicate that Republican support for LBJ is not very strong in the area, with only 100 people working to re-elect him. In each article, Republicans in general seem to be working somewhat on the defensive, so I'm wondering whether that is really true, or whether the bias of the newspaper/writer makes it seem that way.