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How to analyze a primary source

6 min read

To analyse a primary source, ask who made it, when, for whom and why, then read what it says closely, then judge what it can and cannot tell you. SOAPSTone (speaker, occasion, audience, purpose, subject, tone) and HIPP (historical context, intended audience, purpose, point of view) are checklists for those questions. Finish by comparing the source with another from the time. A worked example of Abigail Adams's 1776 letter follows.

The four methods, compared

Every method asks the same core questions in a different order. Use the one your teacher or exam uses.

MethodStands forUsed inBest for
SOAPSToneSpeaker, Occasion, Audience, Purpose, Subject, ToneAP history and English, many high schoolsSpeeches and letters
HIPPHistorical context, Intended audience, Purpose, Point of viewAP history sourcing (the DBQ)Explaining why a source says what it says
OPCVLOrigin, Purpose, Content, Value, LimitationIB HistoryJudging reliability for an argument
National Archives worksheetsMeet the document, observe its parts, try to make sense of it, use it as historical evidenceUS schools, all agesPhotos, maps, cartoons, posters, sound and objects as well as text

The US National Archives publishes free worksheets for photographs, written documents, artifacts, posters, maps, cartoons, video, sound recordings and artwork, in versions for younger and older students. They are the best choice for anything that is not a written text.

Step by step, whatever the method

  1. Identify it: what kind of source is it, who made it, when and where?
  2. Context: what was happening at that moment that matters to this source?
  3. Audience and purpose: who was meant to see it, and what was it meant to do?
  4. Read closely: what does it say? Which words are chosen with care? What is left out?
  5. Point of view: what about the author (age, class, gender, position, beliefs) shapes what they say?
  6. Corroborate: what do other sources from the time say?
  7. Judge: what is this source useful for, and what can it not tell you?

The document: Abigail Adams to John Adams, 31 March 1776

Abigail Adams wrote this letter from Braintree, Massachusetts, to her husband John Adams, then a delegate to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. It is long and covers news of the war, but one passage made it famous. Two sentences from it:

“I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands.”
Abigail Adams to John Adams, 31 March 1776, Adams Family Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society
“Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could.”
The same letter

The original is in the Adams Family Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society, which has digitised it with a transcription. Read the whole letter there before analysing it: the famous lines make more sense in context.

Worked example: SOAPSTone

Analysis
SpeakerAbigail Adams, 31, educated at home, running the family farm and household alone while her husband served in Congress
OccasionSpring 1776. The British had evacuated Boston on 17 March. Congress was moving toward independence, and new state governments would need new laws
AudienceHer husband, a leading member of Congress. A private letter, not written for publication
PurposeTo share news and to persuade John to limit husbands' legal power over wives in the new laws
SubjectIndependence, the coming code of laws, and the position of married women
ToneTeasing and serious at once: she threatens a ladies' rebellion with a smile, but the argument about tyranny is the same one the colonists used against Britain

Worked example: HIPP

  • Historical context: under English common law, which the colonies followed, a married woman's legal identity was largely absorbed into her husband's (coverture). She generally could not own property in her own name, make contracts or sue. That is the unlimited power she means.
  • Intended audience: one reader she knew well, which explains the frankness and the joking. She was not addressing Congress, though she hoped to influence a member of it.
  • Purpose: to use the revolutionary moment to argue for legal protection for wives, turning the colonists' language of tyranny and representation back on men.
  • Point of view: a white, propertied, well-read woman in New England. She speaks for women of her own standing. In the same letter she doubts whether slaveholding Virginians can love liberty as strongly as they claim, which shows how she connected the two questions.

Corroboration: what other sources show

John Adams replied on 14 April 1776 that he could not but laugh at her extraordinary code of laws, and treated the request partly as a joke. On 27 April she wrote to her friend Mercy Otis Warren complaining about his answer. Reading the three letters together shows that she meant the request seriously, and that he did not take it seriously.

A caution that good answers include: the letter is often described as a demand for women's votes. It is not. She asks for fairer laws and limits on husbands' power, and she mentions women having no voice or representation as a warning. That distinction is the kind of close reading that earns marks.

Value and limitation (OPCVL)

ValueLimitation
Written at the moment, before independence was declared, so not shaped by hindsightOne woman's view; not evidence of what most women thought
Private, so franker than a public statementPrivate, so it had no public influence at the time
Shows how revolutionary language could be applied to womenSays little about women who were poor, enslaved or Native American

Try it yourself: Lincoln to Albert G. Hodges, 4 April 1864

Practise with Abraham Lincoln's letter to Albert G. Hodges, a Kentucky newspaper editor, written after a meeting at the White House in which Hodges and two Kentucky politicians objected to emancipation and the enlistment of Black soldiers. Hodges asked Lincoln to put his remarks in writing. The letter ends:

“I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me.”
Abraham Lincoln to Albert G. Hodges, 4 April 1864, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 7
  1. Who was the audience, and why might Lincoln expect the letter to be published?
  2. Kentucky was a slave state that stayed in the Union. How does that context shape the letter?
  3. What is Lincoln's purpose in saying events controlled him?
  4. Find one source from 1864 that agrees with his account and one that disagrees.

If you want to hear the argument from the inside first, you can ask an AI recreation of Lincoln on Yuga why he wrote to Hodges, then test the answer against the letter itself. The recreation is not Lincoln and can be wrong, so your analysis must rest on the document. For where to find letters like these, see free primary source archives.

Questions people ask

What is SOAPSTone in history?
A checklist for analysing a document: Speaker (who made it), Occasion (when, where and why then), Audience (who it was for), Purpose (what it was meant to do), Subject (what it is about) and Tone (the author's attitude). It is widely used in AP history and English for speeches and letters.
What does HIPP stand for?
Historical context, Intended audience, Purpose and Point of view. It is used for sourcing in AP history, where the Document-Based Question gives a point for explaining, for at least two documents, how one of these factors matters to your argument.
What are the National Archives document analysis worksheets?
Free worksheets from the US National Archives for analysing photographs, written documents, artifacts, posters, maps, cartoons, video, sound recordings and artwork. Revised in 2017, they follow four steps: meet the document, observe its parts, try to make sense of it, and use it as historical evidence.
What did Abigail Adams mean by Remember the Ladies?
In her letter of 31 March 1776 she asked John Adams and Congress to make the new laws fairer to women and to limit the almost unlimited legal power of husbands over wives. She did not explicitly ask for the vote, though she warned that women would not feel bound by laws in which they had no voice.

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