757448
research-article2018
JHLXXX10.1177/0890334418757448Journal of Human LactationAbout Research
Invited Commentary
Historical Methods
Jacqueline H. Wolf, PhD1
Keywords
historical methods, primary sources, secondary sources, historiography, oral history
Marc Bloch, an influential and innovative
French scholar of medieval history who
researched and wrote during the first half of
the 20th century, defined history as “the sci-
ence of men in time” (Bloch, 1963, p. 27). As
Bloch’s definition implies, historians approach
research in much the same way that scientists
do. They identify a line of inquiry. They pin-
point the population, locale, and era to be stud-
ied. Before beginning their research, they
immerse themselves in the historiography—
the books and articles that have been written
about the topic. They also read what other his-
torians have written about the salient features
of the period and locale they plan to study, just
Jacqueline H. Wolf, PhD.
as scientists do before they begin an investiga-
tion that will build on, or refute, another scientist’s findings. Of
all the sciences, history is perhaps most like geology. The
record to be examined, although incomplete, is available for
study. Yet the investigator, whether historian or geologist, can-
not rerun the series of events that produced the result now being
studied. And, like geology, history is both context- and time
bound. As Bloch noted of the historian’s craft, “The historian
does not think of the human in the abstract. His thoughts breathe
freely the air of the climate of time” (Bloch, 1963, p. 27).
After reading the relevant historiography, historians formu-
late the questions to be answered about their chosen topic. The
specific questions are particularly important. “Without ques-
tions of the right sort,” explains historian David Hackett
Fischer, “empirical projects are consigned to failure before
they are fairly begun” (Fischer, 1970, pp. 3-4). Then, rather
than set up a fully equipped laboratory to conduct their pains-
takingly delineated project, as some scientists do, historians
identify and then carefully examine primary sources—items
created during the era under study—that contain the evidence
that will help them fulfill the study’s aims. Relevant archives—
the institutions where archivists catalog and safeguard primary
sources—then become historians’ laboratories.
Primary sources are the main tool used by historians as they
develop answers to their questions (Tosh, 1991, pp. 32-34). A
few examples of primary sources include letters; diaries; per-
sonal papers; the papers of businesses and organizations; gov-
ernment documents; newspaper, magazine, and professional
Journal of Human Lactation
2018, Vol. 34(2) 282­–284
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journal articles; photographs; radio and televi-
sion shows; films; and, more recently, emails
and blog posts. Today, historians find the pri-
mary sources that are relevant to their project
not only in libraries and archives but, increas-
ingly, online (Trachtenberg, 2006, pp. 140-168,
228-248), although the authenticity of online
sources must be carefully verified. Archivists
and librarians are instrumental in helping his-
torians identify the primary sources relevant
to their project. Indeed, historians rely on
archivists in particular to ensure that their
search for primary sources is thorough.
Depending on the project, archival research
often entails extensive travel.
Oral history, an interview with an informant
about a past experience, can also be a valuable source. Oral
history interviews are freely given, in-depth accounts of a
personal experience grounded in a specific time, place, and
circumstance. Historians carefully prepare for oral history
interviews by learning about the topic to be discussed, iden-
tifying reliable informants, and formulating objective ques-
tions untainted by present-day views or pre-drawn
conclusions (Oral History Association, 2009).
Using primary sources, and perhaps oral histories, histo-
rians create secondary sources—articles and books written
after the period under study that contain information, anal-
yses, and conclusions about the chosen topic (Tosh, 1991,
pp. 30-33). Secondary sources can be just as important to
writing a comprehensive history as are primary sources. As
already noted, historians begin a project by first reading the
historiography—the secondary sources that other historians
have already written, essentially the history of the his-
tory—of the topic they are about to investigate (Kramer,
1989; Trachtenberg, 2006, pp. 51-60, 199-214). Thus, his-
torians draw upon and cite not only primary sources and
oral histories but also secondary sources in their work.
1
Department of Social Medicine, Ohio University, Athens, OH, USA
Corresponding Author:
Jacqueline H. Wolf, PhD, Department of Social Medicine, Ohio University,
313 Grosvenor Hall, Athens, OH 45701, USA.
Email: wolfj1@ohio.edu
About Research
To put the events that they are studying in broad cultural,
social, economic, and political context, historians use sec-
ondary sources to learn about the events that affected their
narrow inquiry. For example, in the article, “‘They Lacked
the Right Food’: A Brief History of Breastfeeding and the
Quest for Social Justice,” appearing in this issue of the
Journal of Human Lactation (Wolf, 2018), I put the story of
the nationwide effort to lower infant mortality in the turn-of-
the-20th-century United States in the context of the
Progressive Era, between roughly the 1890s and 1920, when
reformers worked to mitigate the detrimental effects of rapid
industrialization and urbanization. Similarly, if a historian
decides to study the concerns of pediatricians in the mid-20th
century, that historian will amass data not only on pediatri-
cians’ written words but also on the context that shaped pedi-
atricians’ thoughts—medical school curricula, the assorted
guidelines issued by pediatricians’ professional organiza-
tions, principles in medical ethics, the child-rearing practices
in current cultural favor, child mortality and morbidity rates,
mothers’ economic ability to care for their children, marriage
practices, childbirth practices, and the mechanics of the
healthcare system. In short, historians must have an in-depth
understanding of the factors shaping the topic they are
researching. The quality of a historian’s work, like any
research, is assessed by its accuracy, thoroughness, and
objectivity.
Like scientists, historians build on each other’s discover-
ies. If one historian has studied and written about the origins
of the infant formula industry in the second half of the 19th
century from the perspective of business and industry, for
example, another historian may choose to build on that sec-
ondary source by asking a different set of research questions
that focus on mothers and infants rather than on the motives
and activities of business owners. Why were women in the
19th century moving away from extended breastfeeding?
What were the health ramifications for infants of the move
from breastfeeding to artificial feeding? What were the reac-
tions of physicians and public health officials to the change
in infant feeding practices? Or a historian can ask the identi-
cal question or series of questions asked by a previous histo-
rian but about a different era, or a different country. Or a
historian can ask the same questions that another historian
asked and answered previously because she wants to revise
the history. Perhaps she has uncovered additional primary
sources demonstrating that the original historian came to the
wrong conclusion. Or she believes that the previous historian
did not interpret the primary sources correctly, or used
sources so selectively that the conclusions were biased.
An example of two histories about similar topics, but in
different locales, is Janet Golden’s (1996) history of wet nurs-
ing in the United States and George D. Sussman’s (1982) his-
tory of wet nursing in France. Joan Sherwood (2010) built on
Sussman’s history by closely examining a far narrower topic
than did Sussman; her book is about the use of French wet
nurses to cure French infants born with congenital syphilis
283
and the personal and legal consequences of that failed experi-
ment. Rima D. Apple (1987) wrote a book exploring why
women began to artificially feed their infants in the United
States. I wrote a book that asked a different central question:
Why were women not breastfeeding in an era when artificial
feeding was so dangerous (Wolf, 2001)? Despite examining a
similar era and population and using similar sources, we came
to different conclusions. Jessica Martucci (2015) has studied
the history of breastfeeding practices in the United States
since the 1950s. Bernice L. Hausman wrote two books on
narrow topics in recent American breastfeeding history: one
on breastfeeding controversies in American culture and the
other on breastfeeding and HIV/AIDS (Hausman, 2003,
2011). Any historian seeking to write another piece on the
history of infant feeding in the United States begins by read-
ing these, and other, works to learn the questions that histori-
ans have already asked and answered, the sources they used,
and the arguments they ultimately made, to place the latest
research project within the historiography.
When historians study previously unexplored topics,
present-day concerns often have sparked their new inter-
ests. Women’s history became a newly defined and rapidly
growing field in the 1970s, for example, as women fought
for rights on a par with men in both public and private
spheres (Lerner, 1997). That the history of breastfeeding
practices across time, space, and culture is now the subject
of important and robust study can be traced to a series of
concerns sparked by the women’s health reform movement,
similarly stemming from second-wave feminism in the
1970s (Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, 1976;
Kline, 2010). During the Civil Rights Era, historians began
studying slavery from the perspective of slaves rather than
the perspective of government officials and slave owners,
as historians had done previously. As new social currents
rippled through assorted countries from the 1930s through the
1960s, historians began studying history from the bottom up,
rather than the traditional top down. Social history—the his-
tory of ordinary people in the workplace, on the street, in pri-
vate life, at war—then became a burgeoning field (Tosh,
1991, pp. 96-102) just as important, if not more so, as the
histories of kings and presidents and epic events, such as wars
and economic catastrophes. Histories of infant feeding fall
within the field of social history. And in examining the history
of everyday life, history became, and remains, an interdisci-
plinary field. Social history required historians to study and
use such disciplines as economics, ecology, sociology, anthro-
pology, demography, and psychology (Braudel, 1980, pp.
68-69; Hunt, 1989, pp. 1-4).
As evidenced by this description of how historians
research and write, history is not a static field any more than
are biology, physics, chemistry, and geology. Indeed, as the
sciences went well beyond the accumulation of static facts to
become concerned with the processes of change and evolu-
tion, scientists had to become more historical in their think-
ing (Carr, 1961, pp. 56-57; Gaddis, 2002, pp. 37-39). History,
284
like the sciences, is a dynamic, ever-changing discipline that
constantly offers new interpretations, discoveries, tech-
niques, and conclusions. A historical argument will change
based on new research questions, additional evidence, new
interpretations of evidence, and changing cultural values.
The data amassed by a historian guide the narrative analy-
sis, leading to the writing of a vibrant portrait and a series of
carefully drawn conclusions. Although historians attempt to
guard against presentism, by explaining the actions and deci-
sions of historical actors according to the standards of the
time in which they lived rather than according to contempo-
rary values, human affairs are, at their root, about morality
and contending definitions of what is moral, and so history
seeks to answer moral questions. Slavery was legal in large
swathes of the United States before the Civil War, for exam-
ple, but that does not mean that historians who study slavery
will describe and explain that institution solely in light of
slaveholders’ values, context, and standards. Quite the con-
trary, historians write stories with a moral arc, based on veri-
fiable facts, to persuade readers of their argument. In creating
the narrative arc of their stories, historians choose which evi-
dence to cite and where a particular story begins and ends,
and these decisions shape not only the story’s details but also
the conclusions drawn from the evidence. History is thus
both a science and an art that gives new meaning to human
activity (Cronon, 1992).
History helps us understand how we formulated the prac-
tices we adhere to, the behaviors we exhibit, the beliefs that
govern our conduct, and the institutions we have faith in.
Narrow histories—monographs—such as those on infant
feeding practices must connect to broader questions that illu-
minate a larger, more universal story—on maternal care,
infant mortality, or public health policy. One of the most
exciting aspects of researching medically related historical
topics is that a thorough, competent, clear history of a disease,
a treatment, a health system, or a cultural behavior that affects
health and illness can help us mitigate any practices today that
might be detrimental to human health and well-being.
Reading history creates better informed, more measured,
wiser actors in the public and private spheres. History can be
of specific benefit to those of us working in the field of infant
and maternal health—a field shaped by public policy in the
broadest sense—by teaching citizens and policy makers how
to support mothers effectively, why the social support of
mothers is helpful to children, and why better cared for chil-
dren create a stronger and more just society. Historical
knowledge in and about medicine is essential if health prac-
tices and policies are to evolve and improve.
Acknowledgments
I am indebted to Paul Milazzo, Steve Miner, and Katherine Jellison
for their helpful comments on a previous draft of this article.
Journal of Human Lactation 34(2)
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