For this assignment, begin by looking through the text of Steven Mintz’s Huck’s Raft: A History of American Childhood, and choose a paragraph where Mintz is making a point or providing information that is particularly interesting to you (it could deal with children’s experiences during the American Revolution, the Civil Rights Movements of the 1960s and beyond, the depression… the choice is yours). Mintz typically provides an endnote at the end of the paragraph that provides information on where he is drawing his information from. You should be choosing a paragraph that has an endnote that lists at least two sources. Then, you are to locate and actually get your hands on at least two of the actual documents that Mintz mentions in that note. In a 1000-1500 word paper (4-6 pages) you are to historiographically analyze Mintz’s use of (at least two) of these sources, pointing to instances where your reading of these sources converges with and/or diverges from Mintz’s. You should be analyzing the sources: – to see whether Mintz is using them appropriately, i.e. do they support the claims he is making, has he ‘stretched’ (or ‘understated’) the evidence; – to see what additional information they might contain, information that might support or undermine his arguments; and, – to try to better understand why Mintz includes what he does in the book and why other things have been excluded.

Huck’s Raft chapter seven- Laboring children second paragraph page 133. picture attached.

Paragraph chosen is about female work conditions. picture attached.

Source 1 https://www.google.com/books/edition/Lucy_Larcom_Life_Letters_and_Diary/16czAQAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover Pages 148-171

Source 2 https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_New_England_Girlhood_Outlined_from_Mem/SMQ2AAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover Pages 42-45 / 120-121 / 152-157