The Progression of Historiography in the 20th Century.
One of the most controversial topics for historians in the 20th century is the southern American institution of slavery. After more than a hundred years of its abolishment, the subject of slavery still sparks bitter debate among historians as to the institutions causes and effects. However, it is for this reason that the historiography of slavery becomes so relevant to the present time. Slavery provides the perfect picture of how the scientific method of historians has changed over the 20th century.
Before the 20th century, the narrative style was the predominant style of historians. Historians did not use primary sources or facts to support the things they were writing about but rather wrote down history as a story according to the terms they wanted to express. Therefore, the history that was being recorded had a significant bias and these pieces of work have to be interpreted rather than taken for face value. It would not be until the 20th century that a scientific history movement began and started to gain relevance. This movement preached a scientific approach to history where facts and primary sources were essential. Without these primary sources the validity of historical works would come into doubt.
One of the first authoritative works using the newly introduced scientific method was U.B. Phillips" American Negro Slavery, published in 1918. Because of this book, Phillips instantly became the authority figure on the subject of both slavery and the scientific method, and later historians would use this work as a measure of their own.
Phillips uses a series of memos from plantation owners to plantation overseers as well as first person accounts to try to prove his hypothesis that slavery was not a horrific institution. Phillips uses straightforward quotes from plantation owner guidelines such as, "Punishment must never be cruel or abusive" (Phillips p.
