Fiscal Crisis through the MAC Archive
For your final research paper, you will read secondary sources (academic books and articles) to help you understand the historical context of your research question. Then, you will read primary sources (sources created at the time that you are studying) to answer your research question and offer a (small) new perspective on this time period or historical event. Without the context provided by secondary sources, your primary sources will be mostly meaningless. Without primary sources, you will just be writing a report about what other authors have already said about your research topic. Bringing both together can generate new insights.
For this assignment, you will discuss and analyze one of the primary sources that we read at the Municipal Assistance Corporation archives in Newman Library on Wednesday 3/1. As part of your analysis, you must discuss how the primary source relates to the article we read for Monday 2/27 on NYC’s 1975 fiscal crisis.
For this assignment, choose one of the documents that we read from the MAC archive (or pairs of documents, if one is a response to the other). You may choose one of the documents you read in your group; or you can look at the other options and choose a different one.
Links to documents can be found embedded in the PDF that accompanies these instructions (see Blackboard).
Some of the links will take you to digitized BOXES of documents, not to the exact document you were shown in the library. These boxes contain the records produced by the MAC during specific date ranges. You will have to use the dates and info provided to locate the specific letter, memo, or report that was assigned. This is how archives work in real life!
For example, if you want to analyze “14 January 1977 letter to Mr. Zukowski, and next document, letter from Mr. Zukowski (dated Jan. 4),” you will follow the link to the PDF for all the documents created by the MAC in January 1977. You will look for the 14 January 1977 letter, which is filed with Mr. Zukowski’s original letter. Focus your analysis on the original (from Mr. Zukowski), which is the interesting part.
Instructions:
- Choose your document(s) by following the URLs embedded in the attached PDF. You can choose to analyze one of the docs you read in the library, or choose something else.
- Analyze the document within the context of the Municipal Assistance Corporation and the 1975 fiscal crisis.
- Purpose: Who is the author, why did they create this text? What kind of source is it (speech, letter, memo, report, something else?) What is the author’s goal? If you have a letter and a response to the letter, focus your analysis on the earlier of the two letters.
- Argument: How does the author try to make their point? What kinds of language, appeals, strategies, tone do they use to convince their audience?
- Presuppositions: (don’t worry about this for right now)
- Epistemology: what does the source reveal about the author’s worldview and society in which they lived? If there is more than one viewpoint expressed, you can compare them.
- Relate: Does this source confirm Jon Shelton’s argument and evidence in his chapter “Dropping Dead” about the 1975 fiscal crisis? Or does it provide any new insight into the crisis, not provided in Shelton’s chapter? Explain your answer, using specific examples from Shelton’s chapter and from your document.
- Writeup: Approximately 500 words. Please discuss the four prompts above (Purpose, Argument, Epistemology, Relate) using specific details and examples.
- Post your critique on the blogs@baruch class page. Make sure to categorize it as “Assignment #6.” Identify which document you are analyzing at the top of your post.
Posts will be graded (4 points maximum) based on the following:
- Do you respond to all parts of the prompt?
- Do you relate the primary source to Shelton’s chapter?
- Do you use specific examples from the primary source and Shelton’s chapter?
- Is your critique approximately 500 words long? You cannot answer all parts of the prompt in much less than 500 words. At the same time, you should practice writing concisely; please do not submit an 800-word critique.
