You might expect that primary sources take precedence over all other sources when writing an historical paper because they give you a direct window to the time and place that you are writing about. It is true that primary sources are very important for this reason. Any other source could be clouded by judgement or interpretation while a primary source is completely free of any such corruption. When I, as a researcher, read the primary sources, I am free to make my own interpretations  and choose for myself how I think the sources inform my research. However, secondary sources have their value as well. The arguments found in secondary sources can provide me with thoughts and insights that I may have been incapable of seeing myself. The danger with secondary sources is that you have to use them to inform your research question, not become your research question and answer. In the end, the answer to what ever your research question may be has to come from your own analysis of the primary and secondary sources.

Because the multiple components of my research question move through time with the progression of the Brook Farm community, my sources will likewise be ordered more less chronologically. However, this order will only really apply to my primary sources since these are clearly identifiable by the time in which they were written, and it is important that one can locate when they were written. The secondary sources are not so firmly held by the date that they were written because they, like myself, are analyzing a portion of history, not current events. Therefore, my secondary sources will be used across different times and will not be used chronologically with the primary sources.

When writing about really anything at all from history, it is very important to see the topic directly through the eyes of the people who lived at that time and personally witnessed or experienced what it is that you are writing about. Primary sources are the writings of those people, and therefore they are most helpful in providing us with a window into the topic of our choosing. The writings of residents of Brook Farm provide me with an image of the community that I could never receive from secondary sources written by other historians. For example, the letters written by Nathaniel Hawthorne while he lived at Brook Farm describe life at the community as he experienced it, as well as his thoughts on community life. Included in his thoughts on the community, I can look for clues on what Hawthorne thought of Utopia, and what it meant to him. Based on Hawthorne’s disappointment with community life at Brook Farm, and his eventual departure, I can surmise that he did not actually consider Brook Farm to be Utopian. Since Hawthorne was a transcendentalist, and his letters describe a desire for more time to think and write, it appears that Hawthorne expected a Utopian place to be somewhere that he was more free to be creative while living equally with others.

While I don’t have a primary source written by George Ripley, the founder of Brook Farm, a secondary source that writes biographically about Ripley also serves as a window into Ripley’s experience at Brook Farm and his ideas of Utopia. According to this source, Ripley was also a transcendentalist thinker, and therefore most likely had similar views of utopia like Hawthorne. However, as he began to read works by Fourier, the French Utopian thinker that inspired the American Associationist movement, Ripley’s view of utopia most likely evolved to include many of Fourier’s ideas. This evolution of thinking can be seen in the transition of Brook Farm from a transcendentalist community to an American Associationist phalanx.

The Harbinger, an Associationist newspaper written at Brook Farm, provides insight into the ideals of the Associationists that lived at Brook Farm when it existed as a phalanx. Because this paper was written by the residents of Brook Farm during its existence, it also qualifies as a primary source. The introduction of the paper thoroughly describes the mission of the Utopian phalanx, thereby providing a clear image of how the residents of Brook Farm understood utopia.

Our understanding of anything that we see, hear, or read is influenced by prior knowledge and the lens through which the experience occurs. Because of this fact of life, the reading of the sources for my seminar paper was also influenced by my recently gained knowledge of social utopias past and present. Also, because I was reading the sources in search of evidence for an argument based on the theme of social utopias, I was especially alert for any references to Utopian ideas, past or present. For example, when reading Nathaniel Hawthorne’s letters from Brook Farm, I paid more attention to his feelings about Brook Farm — what he thought about his time there — then I did to his general descriptions of Brook Farm. This way I could get a sense of whether or not Brook Farm was a better place for Hawthorne. In other words, whether on not it was utopian. If I was not reading the letters through a utopian lens, I may have noticed his descriptions of Brook Farm geography, or the other residents of Brook Farm, or his relationship with the people to whom he was writing the letters.

I had the same experience with other readings as well. One is particular was especially effected by my desire to find evidence of utopianism. The article by Preucel and Pendery was actually an archaeological study of Brook Farm to look at the differences in structures from its time as a transcendentalist community and its existence as an Associationist phalanx. However, I hardly even registered the author’s findings on this topic because I was only reading to see what the authors had to say about Brook Farm as a utopian community.

While it isn’t necessarily bad to approach something through a certain lens since such an approach can help you to find what you are looking for, much more can be gained by reading something without a specific mission the first time through in order to get a general sense of the paper.  After learning what can be learned from the book or article, one can then read it again with the lens and pull out the information most valuable to you as a researcher.