D2.His.11.6-8: Inferring Who Made a Source, When, Where and for Whom

Overview

Lesson Procedure

60-70 minutes of class time across 5 phases.

1. Warm-Up5-10 minutes
2. Direct Instruction20 minutes
3. Guided Practice15 minutes
4. Independent Practice15 minutes
5. Closure5-10 minutes

1. Warm-Up5-10 minutes

   Warm-Up Prompt

   "You find an old note tucked inside a used library book. It has no name, no date and no address. It says: 'Meet us after the big game by the snack stand. Bring the poster!' Write down every clue in the note. Then list two other things you could check, outside the note, to figure out who wrote it, when, where, and for whom."

   Pairs share. Students usually list a school sports schedule, a yearbook, the library's checkout record or a friend who might recognize the handwriting. Name the four questions historians ask about every source, and write them on the board:

   • Maker: the person or group who created the source.
   • Date: when the source was created.
   • Place of origin: where the source was created.
   • Intended audience: the people the maker meant to read, hear or see it.

   When a source does not tell us these things, historians infer them: they reach a reasoned conclusion from clues in the source and from other historical sources, such as records, letters and later studies. The goal is a plausible answer, one that is believable and backed by evidence even though it is not proven.

2. Direct Instruction20 minutes

   Today's mystery source is a song. Source 1 is the first seven stanzas (groups of lines, like verses) of a song about a visit to an army camp. It was printed in 1824 in a book series called Farmer and Moore's Collections, sent in by an anonymous writer (one who gave no name), and nobody wrote down who made up the words, when or where. Many students will know the tune: it is one version of "Yankee Doodle." Knowing the tune does not answer our four questions, because many people wrote new words for it.

   The song uses the everyday speech of rural New England, called dialect. An old dictionary helps with three words. John Russell Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms (1859) calls "tarnal" "A New England corruption of eternal" and says "nation" can mean "very, extremely," as in "Only a nation louder" (line 20). It describes hasty pudding as "Indian meal stirred into boiling water until it becomes a thick batter or pudding," and Indian meal as "Meal made from Indian corn": cornmeal. Let students guess the rest from context: if the "swampin gun" is "As large as log of maple" (line 14), what must "swampin" mean?

   Four questions, and where the clues come from

   Question	Clues inside the source	Other sources that can help
   Maker	Words, spelling, what the maker knows well	Letters, notes, later studies that name a writer
   Date	People and events the source mentions	Records with dates, such as a journal of meetings
   Place of origin	Places, landscape, local names	Records or histories that say where those people and events were
   Intended audience	Who would understand the jokes, names and words	Evidence of who bought, sang or read it

   Read Source 1 aloud once for fun, then a second time looking for clues. Source 2 is from the official journal of the Continental Congress, the meeting of leaders from the thirteen colonies, in June 1775. In it, Resolved marks a formal decision, and "Esq." (Esquire) is a polite title for a gentleman. Source 3 opens with Washington's General Orders, instructions to the whole army; the page says he used them to introduce himself to his new army. Source 3 is from a National Park Service page about the house in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that Washington used as his headquarters. A siege is when an army surrounds a place to cut it off; Source 3 says Washington would "direct a siege" from Cambridge.

   11. Father and I went down to camp,
   Along with Captain Goodwin,
   Where we see the men and boys
   As thick as Hasty-puddin.

   52. There was captain Washington
   Upon a slapping stallion,
   A giving orders to his men—
   I guess there was a million.

   3. And then the feathers on his hat,
   10They look'd so tarnal fina,
   I wanted pockily to get
   To give to my Jemima.

   4. And there they had a swampin gun
   As large as log of maple,
   15On a deuced little cart—
   A load for father's cattle;

   5. And every time they fired it off,
   It took a horn of powder;
   It made a noise like father's gun,
   20Only a nation louder.

   6. I went as near to it myself
   As Jacob's underpinnin,
   And father went as near again—
   I thought the deuce was in him.

   257. And there I see a little keg,
   Its heads were made of leather—
   They knock'd upon 't with little sticks
   To call the folks together.

   1The report of the committee being read and debated,

   2Resolved, That a General be appointed to command all the continental forces, raised, or to be raised, for the defence of American liberty.

   3That five hundred dollars, per month, be allowed for his pay and expences.

   4The Congress then proceeded to the choice of a general, [...] when George Washington, Esq. was unanimously elected.

   [...]

   5FRIDAY, JUNE 16, 1775

   6The congress met according to adjournment.

   7The president from the chair informed Geo: Washington Esqʳ that he had the order of the Congress to acq[ain]t him, that the Congress had by a unanimous vote made choice of him to be general and com[mander] in chief to take the supreme command of the forces raised and to be raised, in defence of American Liberty, and desired his acceptance of it. Whereupon Colonel Washington, standing in his place, spoke as follows:

   8"Mr. President,

   9"Tho' I am truly sensible of the high Honour done me, in this Appointment, yet I feel great distress, from a consciousness that my abilities and military experience may not be equal to the extensive and important Trust: However, as the Congress desire it, I will enter upon the momentous duty, and exert every power I possess in their service, and for support of the glorious cause. I beg they will accept my most cordial thanks for this distinguished testimony of their approbation."

   [...]

   1"The Continental Congress having now taken all the Troops of the several Colonies, which have been raised, or which may be hereafter raised, for the support and defence of the Liberties of America; into their Pay and Service: They are now the Troops of the United Provinces of North America; and it is hoped that all Distinctions of Colonies will be laid aside; so that one and the same spirit may animate the whole, and the only Contest be, who shall render, on this great and trying occasion, the most essential service to the great and common cause in which we are all engaged." - General Orders, July 4, 1775

   2With these words, General George Washington introduced himself to his new army. Washington had arrived in Cambridge on July 2. That evening, he formally took command from Massachusetts General Artemas Ward, met with some of the army's high-ranking officers, and went to work—joining his temporary housemate and third in command Charles Lee, a professional soldier with a career of military service far exceeding that of any American-born commander, for a ride to examine some of the siege lines around Cambridge. Within two weeks, Washington moved west along the Road to Watertown to the grand Georgian mansion of the evacuated John Vassall. From there he would direct a siege and begin working to shape an army to match his vision.

   • Date: the earliest the song could be (Source 1, lines 5-7, with Source 2)

     The song's "captain Washington" is "giving orders to his men" in a camp. If that is George Washington, when is the earliest he could be giving orders to this army?

     Result: Source 2 says Congress resolved "That a General be appointed to command all the continental forces" and that "George Washington, Esq. was unanimously elected" (paragraphs 2 and 4). The next entry is dated "FRIDAY, JUNE 16, 1775" (paragraph 5), so the vote came the day before, June 15, 1775. Inference: the stanza was probably written after mid-June 1775. It depends on one assumption: that the song's captain really is George Washington.

   • Place of origin: which camp? (Source 1, line 1, with Source 3)

     The song says only "Father and I went down to camp." Which camp could it be?

     Result: Source 3 says "Washington had arrived in Cambridge on July 2" and rode "to examine some of the siege lines around Cambridge" (paragraph 2). An army camp where Washington gave orders in 1775 points to the camp around Cambridge, near Boston, in Massachusetts. Inference: the song was plausibly made in or near that camp. The local dialect in Source 1 fits New England too.

   • Maker: the speaker is not always the maker (Source 1, lines 1 and 13-16)

     The song is told by "I," a young person who went with "Father" and is amazed by everything in camp, from the crowd to a gun "As large as log of maple" (line 14). Was the maker a farm boy?

     Result: Not necessarily. A writer can invent a speaker, the way an author invents a narrator. What the song does show is a maker who knew camp life and New England speech well enough to joke about them. So the safest inference is "a New Englander who knew the camp," not "a farm boy."

   • Intended audience: who would get the jokes? (Source 1, lines 2 and 9-12, with Source 3)

     The song names "Captain Goodwin" and jokes about the feathers on Washington's hat. Who would enjoy this?

     Result: Jokes about real officers only work for people who know them or have seen them. Source 3 says the soldiers were "the Troops of the several Colonies" (paragraph 1), and they held siege lines around Cambridge (paragraph 2). A plausible intended audience is soldiers and their families in New England, people who knew the camp and spoke the same dialect.

3. Guided Practice15 minutes

   Sources 4 and 5 are by Oscar Sonneck, who worked at the Library of Congress. In 1909 he wrote a report for the Librarian of Congress about the history of four American songs. His report is a secondary source: a later study that uses older sources. A broadside is a song or notice printed on one side of a single sheet. Sonneck had found three early broadsides of this song, with fifteen stanzas each. Gloss a few of his words before reading: provincialisms (words used in one region), allusion (a mention), derisively satirical (mocking), greenhorn (a newcomer with no experience) and conjecture (a guess based on evidence).

   Pairs read Source 4 and underline every clue Sonneck uses. Then they compare his inferences with the class's inferences from Direct Instruction: where does he agree, and what does he add? Next, read Source 5. Ask: what kind of evidence is the claim that Edward Bangs wrote the words? (A note from a classmate, passed along by Hale, which Sonneck had not seen in full.) What other facts make it more plausible? (Bangs was in the Harvard class of 1777, so he was a student in 1775, and he "joined the Middlesex farmers in the pursuit of April 19, 1775," paragraph 3.) In paragraph 3, ask what the playful phrase "mount Pegasus" might mean, given that it marks the start of the years when Bangs "might have written the lines."

   1If we turn to the text itself, it clearly reveals an American origin. It is so full of American provincialisms, slang expressions of the time, allusions to American habits, customs, that no Englishman could have penned these verses. Even if he could have done so, he would not have done so, because his poetic efforts in this form would largely have been a puzzle to his comrades. Had this text been a British production, it would have found its way to England, which apparently is not the case. To be a British satire on the unmilitary appearance of provincial American troops, as has been said, the verses would have to be derisively satirical, which they are not. They breathe good-natured humor and they deal not at all with the uncouth appearance of American soldiery, but with the experience of a Yankee greenhorn in matters military who went down to a military camp and upon his return narrates in his own naive style the impressions made on him by all the wonderful sights of military pomp and circumstance.

   2But the text helps us beyond proving a mere American origin. Our Yankee clearly describes not an imaginary camp, but a particular camp, and part of the desired effect was calculated by the author from personal allusions: Captain Gooding, Squire David, Captain Davis, Captain Washington. These names were unmistakably borrowed from life. [...] the allusion to and description of a "Captain Washington and gentlefolks about him" who is "grown so tarnal proud, he will not ride without 'em," etc., as a bit of humorously twisted characterization, fits none so well as George Washington, commander in chief. Without this allusion to George Washington, the date of the text would be indefinite within certain limits. With this allusion the conjecture becomes fairly safe that the text of "Father and I went down to camp" originated at or in the vicinity of the "Provincial Camp," Cambridge, Mass., in 1775 or 1776.

   1[...] Dr. Edward Everett Hale when printing the "Yankey's Return" in his "New England History in Ballads," 1903, remarked:

   2An autograph note of Judge Dawes, of the Harvard class of 1777, addressed to my father, says that the author of the well-known lines was Edward Bangs, who graduated with him.

   3The historian would have preferred to see the autograph note of Judge Dawes printed in full, as in this form it merely assigns the poem to a member of the Harvard class of 1777 without defining the date or place of Edward Bangs's poetic effusion. According to Doctor Hale's meager information, Edward Bangs might have written the lines any year between the time he was able to mount Pegasus and 1787, when part of the text was quoted in "The Contrast" written as Mr. Matthews suggestively pointed out in his monograph on "Uncle Sam" by a member of the Harvard class of 1776. In this connection it is also suggestive that Bangs had, as a college boy, joined the Middlesex farmers in the pursuit of April 19, 1775, that Harvard College was transferred from Cambridge to Concord in September, 1775, and returned to Cambridge in 1776. On the other hand there appears to exist no evidence, positive, circumstantial, or even traditional, that the words of the "Yankey's Return from Camp" were written or known before the war for independence, that is, before 1775.

   4[...] Thus, to sum up, it would appear that the "Yankee Doodle" text "Father and I went down to camp" originated in 1775 or 1776, and that we have in this particular broadside its first and original edition printed presumably shortly after it had been written. Since the fifteen stanzas are identical in the three earliest known editions, they clearly represent an accepted form of the text not only, but a form attributable to a single author, and it would really seem as if the authorship of Edward Bangs in 1775 rather than in 1776, rests on something more than tradition.

   Check for understanding: In Source 4, paragraph 1, Sonneck rejects one idea about the maker. Which idea, and what is his evidence? (That a British writer made the song to mock American troops; the verses are full of American slang and "breathe good-natured humor" instead of mocking.) Have students add one line to their notes: Sonneck's inference about the maker is plausible because...

4. Independent Practice15 minutes

   Source 6 shows Sonneck dating two of the printed copies. An imprint is the line on a printed item that names the printer and the city. A city directory is a yearly book that lists a city's residents and businesses with their addresses.

   Students work alone and answer in full sentences:

   1. Where was the Coverly broadside printed, and how do you know? (Quote paragraph 1.)
   2. Name the two outside sources Sonneck uses to date it, and say what each one shows.
   3. Isaiah Thomas had the songs "Bound up for preservation." In his own words, why did he want to keep them?
   4. Does the 1810-1813 date tell us when the words were first written? Explain.

   1[...] The question now is whether or not the broadsides themselves help to trace the date of origin of this text. The "Yankee's Return from Camp" has the imprint, "N. Coverly, jr., Printer, Milk-Street, Boston." Reference to the Boston City Directories proves that this printer flourished between 1810 and 1823, the "jr." disappearing from the directory of 1818. However, the broadside can not have been printed after 1813, since it forms part of the curious collection of songs, ballads, etc., in three volumes, presented to the American Antiquarian Society by Isaiah Thomas in 1814, with the statement that it was "purchased from a ballad printer and seller in Boston, 1813. Bound up for preservation—to shew that the articles of this kind are in vogue with the vulgar at this time, 1814." Consequently the date of this particular broadside is fixed as between 1810 and 1813.

   2No such definite clew is given in the broadside of "The Yankey's Return from Camp. Together with the favorite Song of the Black Bird." The spelling of Yankey instead of Yankee suggests the second half of the eighteenth century rather than the first half of the nineteenth, but the argument is not a safe one, since the spelling with y is easily traced in early nineteenth-century literature. Indeed, it appears in the very chorus of Coverly's broadside, 1810–1813. [...]

5. Closure5-10 minutes

   Exit ticket (index card): Write one sentence for each of the four questions about Source 1: "A plausible maker is ___ because ___ (Source __)." Do the same for date, place of origin and intended audience. Circle the one you are least sure of, and say why.

   Teacher notes. The song uses dialect, including "tarnal" and "nation," which Bartlett's 1859 dictionary describes as corruptions of "eternal" and "damnation" used for emphasis; in the song they are part of the joke and are not aimed at anyone. Students may read Isaiah Thomas's word "vulgar" (Source 6) as "rude"; ask what the rest of his sentence, about "a ballad printer and seller," suggests it means here. Sonneck's conclusions are inferences: he says the conjecture "becomes fairly safe" (Source 4), and that Bangs's authorship rests "on something more than tradition" (Source 5), not that it is proven. Keep that language when students write. The words and the tune have separate histories; this lesson is about the words of one version only. Source 7, for homework, is printed below.

   1In "The Contrast" we find in Act III, scene 1, this amusing bit of dialogue. Jonathan, the first stage Yankee, when asked to sing a song, says:

   [...]

   2Marblehead's a rocky place,
   And Cape-Cod is sandy;
   Charlestown is burned down,
   Boston is the dandy.
   Yankee doodle, doodle do, etc.

   [...]

   3Enough of the dialogue has been quoted to make it self-evident that Royall Tyler did not write these verses himself, but merely borrowed them for his purposes from what the Germans so happily call the "Volksmund." Discounting some of the hundred and ninety-nine verses as part of Tyler's humorous poetic license, it is clear that many folk poets must have been at work to form such an endless chain of verses for Yankee Doodle, the single links of which would be left out or inserted according to local preferences, as is so often the case with folk songs. It is, furthermore, clear that the text, whole or in part, could not have become so well known and popular in one or two or three years in a country like America to make a reference to more than 199 ballad verses an effective bit of humorous exaggeration and comedy writing. Thus we seem to drift back toward Revolutionary times, but it is also significant that at least the verse "Marblehead's a rocky place" can not have been written before June 17, 1775, the day on which Charlestown was burned down by General Gage. Nor would there have been any sense in writing them after 1785, when the town was rapidly rising from the ashes.

   4Curiously enough, this verse, which seems to have been written between middle of June, 1775 and 1785, appears in none of the historically important sources of the publications of the "Yankee Doodle" text. No safe inference is to be drawn from this fact, but one is naturally inclined to believe that it was a local interpolation not belonging to the original text.

Differentiation Strategies

Assessment Guidance

1. Question 1 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   A historian writes that the intended audience of a camp song was "soldiers and their families." What part of the source is the historian describing?

   AThe people the maker meant it to reach BThe people who later printed copies CThe people who are named inside the song DThe people who have studied it since

2. Question 2 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   In Source 1, lines 25-28, the speaker sees "a little keg" with heads "made of leather" that soldiers knock "with little sticks / To call the folks together." What is the object, and what does the description suggest about the speaker?

   AA barrel of powder; the speaker is a soldier BA cart; the speaker is helping his father CA drum; the speaker does not know its name DA pudding pot; the speaker is hungry

3. Question 3 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Source 5, paragraph 3, says there is "no evidence, positive, circumstantial, or even traditional" that the words were "written or known" before 1775. How does this help a historian date the song?

   AIt proves the words were written in 1775 BIt gives no reason to place them before 1775 CIt shows the words were first printed in 1775 DIt means the words are older than the war

4. Question 4 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   In Source 4, paragraph 2, Sonneck says the names "Captain Gooding, Squire David, Captain Davis, Captain Washington" were "unmistakably borrowed from life." What does he infer from this?

   AThat every name belongs to a Harvard student BThat the maker made up all the officers CThat the song was written for officers only DThat it describes a particular, real camp

5. Question 5 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   In Source 2, paragraph 7, the journal calls him "Colonel Washington" and then names him general. The song calls him "captain Washington" (Source 1, line 5). Which explanation fits Source 4 best?

   AThe song's maker was joking about him BThe song is about a different captain CWashington had been demoted to captain DThe song was written before June 1775

6. Question 6 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   In Source 4, paragraph 1, Sonneck notes that if the song had been British, "it would have found its way to England, which apparently is not the case." What does this point suggest?

   AThe song was first printed in London BThe song was banned in England CThe song was made for an American audience DThe song was carried to England by soldiers

7. Question 7 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   In Source 6, paragraph 1, which of these is Sonneck's inference rather than a fact he read on the broadside or in a record?

   ACoverly's imprint names a Boston street BThe broadside was printed in 1810-1813 CThomas bought the ballads in 1813 DThomas gave the ballads away in 1814

8. Question 8 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Sonneck calls Hale's information about Edward Bangs "meager" (Source 5, paragraph 3). What is missing from it?

   AThe name of the person who wrote the words BAny link between Bangs and Harvard College CThe name of Judge Dawes's Harvard class DAny date or place for when Bangs wrote it

9. Question 9 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   In Source 5, paragraph 4, Sonneck says the fifteen stanzas "are identical in the three earliest known editions." What does he infer about the maker from this?

   AThey were probably the work of one author BThey were copied from an English songbook CThey were written by Isaiah Thomas DThey were changed by each new printer

10. Question 10 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Why does Sonneck say the spelling "Yankey" is "not a safe" clue to the date of a broadside (Source 6, paragraph 2)?

    AIt appears only in British newspapers BIt was invented by Isaiah Thomas CWriters still used it in the early 1800s DIt proves the broadside was printed in 1775

11. Question 11 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    According to Source 5, paragraph 2, who received the note from Judge Dawes saying that Edward Bangs wrote the lines?

    AEdward Bangs, the man named as author BThe father of Edward Everett Hale COscar Sonneck, who wrote the report DRoyall Tyler, the playwright

12. Question 12 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    According to Diagram 1 and Sources 1 and 3, about how many years passed between Washington's arrival in Cambridge and the 1824 printing of Source 1?

    A12 years B36 years C38 years D49 years

13. Question 13 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    The Coverly broadside's imprint reads "N. Coverly, jr." Why does it matter that the "jr." disappears from the Boston directory of 1818 (Source 6, paragraph 1)?

    AIt suggests it was printed before 1818 BIt proves Coverly stopped printing in 1818 CIt shows the song's words date from 1818 DIt means another printer made it

14. Question 14 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    According to Source 3, paragraph 2, what did Washington do on the evening of July 2, 1775?

    AHe was elected general by the Congress BHe moved into the John Vassall mansion CHe took command from Artemas Ward DHe wrote a song about the camp

15. Question 15 of 20 · Short Answer

    Give the narrowest plausible date range you can for when stanzas 1-7 of Source 1 were first made up. Use at least two sources other than Source 1, and explain each end of your range.

    Show model answer

16. Question 16 of 20 · Short Answer

    Sonneck writes that the words originated "at or in the vicinity of the 'Provincial Camp,' Cambridge, Mass." (Source 4, paragraph 2). Name two clues or sources, other than that sentence, that support this place of origin, and explain each.

    Show model answer

17. Question 17 of 20 · Short Answer

    Compare the intended audience of the song when it was first made up with the audience of the Coverly broadside printed in Boston in 1810-1813. Use at least one quotation for each.

    Show model answer

18. Question 18 of 20 · Short Answer

    Sonneck uses three kinds of evidence about the maker: clues in the words, a classmate's note reported by Hale, and facts about Bangs's life. Rank them from strongest to weakest and explain your ranking.

    Show model answer

19. Question 19 of 20 · Short Answer

    In Source 2, paragraph 9, Washington says he fears his "abilities and military experience may not be equal" to the job. Infer the intended audience of these words, and explain how that audience may have shaped what he said.

    Show model answer

20. Question 20 of 20 · Short Answer

    A classmate writes: "Source 1 was made in 1824 by an anonymous writer in Farmer and Moore's Collections." Explain the two mistakes in this sentence.

    Show model answer

These standards connect to D2.His.11.6-8: prerequisites to review first, parallel standards at the same level, and next steps that build on it.

Standard text: National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards: Guidance for Enhancing the Rigor of K-12 Civics, Economics, Geography, and History (Silver Spring, MD: NCSS, 2013). NCSS was not involved in the production of this lesson and does not endorse it.