Historical Skills Week 9: Using Objects in Historical Research

a) What five basic properties does Fleming mentions provide a formula for
including and interrelating all the significant facts about an artefact?

a. History where and when it was made, for whom and by whom and
why, as well as successive changes in ownership, condition and
function.
b. Material what the object is made of woods, fibres, ceramic
bodies, metals, glass, etc.
c. Construction techniques employed in manufacture.
d. Design structure, form and style as well as ornament and
iconography of the object.
e. Function uses and roles, or respectively, intended functions and
unintended functions utility, delight, and communication.
b) What
a.
b.
c.
d.

are the four operations to be performed on the five basic properties?

Identification (factual description)
Evaluation (judgements)
Cultural analysis (relationship of the artefact to its culture)
Interpretation (significance)

c) What are the benefits and drawbacks of Flemings proposed model for the
historian? Is it a sufficient model?
d) Can this model of artefact study apply to collections of HSTM? If so, in what
ways?
Provide an example. If not, why not?
2
a) What two types of display does Lord identify? What are the problems with
these types of display?
b) Explain Lords alternative to these two types of display (e.g. Foucaults
genealogy approach).
c) What might the dehistoricisation (removal of historical interpretation) for
museum exhibitions mean for the historian?
3.