Historical Context

Historical Context Definition

Historical context is the setting in which a historical event, idea, or object takes place.

Historical context helps you understand your topic fully. When analyzing a text, historical context helps you understand how and why a text was written. Historical context helps you identify key influences when explaining a concept or event.

Historical Context Characteristics

Think of your topic as the center of a circle. Your topic is surrounded by everything happening around it. Historical context includes a bunch of things that might have influenced your topic (characteristics). Identifying these characteristics is important to decide what matters to your topic.

Characteristics That May Influence Your Topic

• When it took place (date)
• Where it took place (location)
• Major events that took place at the same time as your topic
• Religious conditions of the era
• Cultural traditions and beliefs of people in the same location
• Social norms of the time and place in which it happened
• Political landscape during the time it happened
• Economic structure of the place in which it happened

Fig. 1 - Historical context.

Your topic is at the center of all of this context! Historical Context shows you how your topic fits into each of these things.

Importance of Historical Context

Historical context is important for writing about how your topic fits into a historical era. It shows you the big picture. Think of your topic as one puzzle piece. Historical context provides other puzzle pieces needed to complete the picture. Without these pieces, you cannot see the entire picture.

Fig. 2 - The puzzle of historical context.

Historical Context: Seeing the Whole Picture

When you can see the whole picture, you can write much more interesting things!

Historical Context Can Help You Understand:

• The purpose and motivations of a writer, speaker, or artist
• Values or feelings that influenced a speech, text, or work of art
• The intended audience of a speech, text, or work of art
• Feelings caused by an event, experience, or object
• The importance of an event, experience, or object
• Connections between different sources

Historical Context Examples

Examples of historical context show how each characteristic can influence your writing. Historical context affects how you analyze texts and explain concepts.

Here are some examples of each characteristic of historical context in action.

Historical Context: Political Landscape

You are analyzing the use of satire in Gulliver's Travels. You decide to learn about the political landscape of Swift's time.

You learn Swift wrote the novel during Queen Anne's reign. While researching the politics of Queen Anne's reign, you learn the Whigs were in power. You see similarities between the political beliefs of the Whigs and the attitudes of Swift's characters. You now understand that Gulliver's Travels is not just an adventure story. It is a satire of Whig politics in Swift's lifetime.

Historical Context: Major Events

You are comparing two articles with different viewpoints on gun control. The first article supports stricter gun restrictions. The second article opposes strict gun restrictions. You identify major gun-related events that influence their opinions. You conclude that school shootings motivated the first writer's solution. You also decide that shootings caused by mental illness motivate the second author's call for alternative approaches.

Historical Context: Social Norms

You are arguing a position on school dress codes. You research the history of fashion for men and women. You learn early American men wore high heels, wigs, and makeup. You feel that social norms for men's and women's fashion change a lot over time. You argue school dress codes should not be divided by gender because gendered fashion norms always change.

Fig. 3 - Historical context is always changing.

Historical Context: Religious Conditions

You are writing a rhetorical analysis of John Winthrop's City Upon a Hill sermon. You research the history of the Puritans traveling with Winthrop. You learn they were hoping to establish a colony founded on Puritan beliefs. You also learn Puritan teachings suggested English Protestantism was immoral and ungodly. You conclude Winthrop appealed to their dislike of England's religious conditions by challenging them to be religious models in the New World.

Historical Context: Economic Structure

You are explaining the concept of "success." You discuss how success looks different depending on one's position in an economic structure.

You explain how "success" for the CEO of a company means earning profits for the company. You also explain how "success" for labor unions means achieving fair working conditions for their communities. You conclude that success looks different for everyone depending on who benefits from that success.

Historical Context: Cultural Traditions and Beliefs

You are analyzing Phyllis Wheatley's poem, "On Being Brought From Africa to America." You learn Wheatley was taken from Africa as a child and sold as a slave in America. You remember the American Constitution was founded on the principles of freedom and equality. You argue that Wheatley appeals to American beliefs in freedom and equality to challenge slavery in America.

Determining Historical Context

To determine historical context, put together all the information you have. Consider how your subject fits into all of it. Then, draw conclusions.

Fig. 4 - Determine historical context.

You can determine historical context by asking yourself the right questions. Consider what interests you the most about your subject. Is it how social norms influenced an author's writing? Or how different religious beliefs shaped the evolution of a major holiday? Think about what matters most to you.

Questions to Determine Historical Context

Here are some questions you should ask yourself to determine the historical context.

Historical Context: When did it happen?

Find out which historical era you are dealing with. If you are analyzing a text, look for a date of publication. When was the text you are analyzing written? When was the concept you are explaining first used?

Historical Context: Where did it happen?

Historical Context: What else was going on at the time?

Do some research. Use the characteristics of historical context to guide you. Focus on just one or two characteristics. This will help you stay focused. For example, you might look up major events of the time. Or you find out the political structure of the era you are studying.

Historical Context: What beliefs influenced people at the time?

Look up famous writings and works of art from the time period. What do they have in common? Consider how they reflect what people believed about the world around them. What cultural values shaped their thinking? What common fears influenced their actions?

Historical Context in Communication

To communicate historical context, introduce your topic, set up the historical context, get specific, and bring it all together. Stay focused on your chosen characteristics throughout the essay. Use evidence from sources to support your claims.

Steps for Communicating Historical Context

Use the steps below to write your essay's main point (aka the thesis statement).

1. Introduce the Topic

Introduce the specifics of your subject. Make it clear what you will be talking about in your essay: who, what, when, and where.

2. Set up the Context

Let the reader know which characteristics you will be examining. Broadly explain how this characteristic influenced your subject.

Fig. 5 - Attitudes create historical context.

3. Get Specific

Now, it's time to get specific. Name the key events, attitudes, or other influences you are writing about. Be clear about how they influenced your topic.

4. Bring It All Together

Now, bring all of these ideas together into one main point. Include the subject details and your specific ideas in one sentence.

Tips for Communicating Historical Context Effectively

Here are some helpful tips for communicating historical context. These tips will help you stay on track, support your arguments, and communicate clearly.

• Stay focused.

As you write the body paragraphs of your essay, be careful not to lose focus. There may be many historical influences on your topic. Good writers focus on just one or two characteristics they think are most important.

• Provide evidence.

Support your ideas as you explain the connections between your topic and its historical context. Use evidence to back your claims. If you are analyzing a text, use quotes and examples from that text as evidence. If you are explaining a concept or historical event, use evidence from sources you found in your research. Remember, for every claim you make, you must provide proof.

• Write in the past tense.

Remember, you are exploring the influence of past events and attitudes. When communicating historical context, it's important to write in the past tense. These things have already happened!

• Avoid generalizations.

When writing about history, it can be easy to assume things that do not quite apply to everyone. Avoid generalizations about large groups based on your research.

For example, when studying World War II, you find out the Nazi party was popular in Germany. You quickly assume all Germans supported the Nazi party. However, this is not true. Avoid assuming things you cannot know. Stay specific. Focus only on what you know to be true.