Using Historical Evidence

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    Suppose you are writing an essay in which your thesis is something like this: "The 1920s were a time of increasing racial and ethnic prejudice in the United States." While you are brainstorming, you come up with four possible points to make. You have found specific information (and citations) to back up each of these points.
 

1) In the 1920s, black people in the South faced segregation in most public facilities. They were not allowed to drink from the same drinking fountains as whites. They attended separate schools, and they had to ride at the back of the streetcars.

2)  Throughout the 1920s, Latinos were almost completely absent from big city politics. In neither New York, nor Chicago, nor Philadelphia did they make up even 10% of all elected officials.

3) According to the renowned historians John Doe and Joseph Shmoe, "There was an increasing amount of racism during the 1920s. More and more people were prejudiced against African Americans."

4) A new version of the Ku Klux Klan was formed in the 1910s and grew to an estimated 1.5 million members by 1924. In its nineteenth-century version, the Klan had existed solely in the South. In the 1920s, it spread rapidly through the northern states as well, spreading hatred of Catholics, African Americans, and Jews.
 

Consider your thesis carefully.
    In this case, your thesis implies a comparison. If racial and ethnic prejudice were increasing, then we can presume a shift from relatively lower to relatively higher prejudice at some point in this decade. A persuasive argument would need to provide information about prejudice both in the earlier point in time (say, the 1910s or the very beginning of the 1920s) and the later point in time (during the 1920s). The problem with point number 1, therefore, is that it merely describes the situation in the 1920s. You could go on for page after page about all the ways in which Southern society was segregated in the 1920s, but you still would not conclusively prove your thesis. In fact, segregation was very bad in the 1910s, the 1900s, and even earlier. Point number 1, by itself, fails to demonstrate an increase in prejudice.

Select evidence that cannot be easily dismissed by the dreaded question, "So what?"
    A persuasive argument cannot rest on a lone example that may be insignificant. In considering point number 2, you need to ask how many Latinos lived in these cities during the 1920s. If Latinos made up less than 10% of the population of these cities, you arent proving very much by showing that less than 10% of public officials were Latino. (Also, there may be reasons other than racism that could explain a groups political under-representation. Furthermore, this example fails to compare the 1920s with an earlier period).

Dont rest your argument entirely on the words of experts.
    Point number 3 may seem very seductive. Here, some supposed experts are making exactly the point you want to make. You hope that your readers will be impressed by the support given your argument by these authorities. Setting aside the question of whether Doe and Shmoe really are experts, you need to think about how far this quotation takes you. The skeptical reader (such as your professor) may read this quotation and think, "Oh yeah? What makes them think so?" Youll still need to come up with some specific evidence to back up this quote.

Be alert for counter-arguments that could undercut your points.
    Point number 4 is clearly the strongest of the bunch. Here you have a specific point about the growth of a major racist organization during the 1920s. You can show that the new Ku Klux Klan had both a significant membership and a significant geographical reach. The Klan also represented ethnic as well as racial prejudice. Nevertheless, you need to be cautious even here. Although the growth of the Klan is a useful point to support your argument, you also need to remember that the Klan lost most of its membership in the late 1920s. You cant rest your entire argument on this one point. Its also a good idea to defuse major counter-arguments by addressing them directly: "True, the Klan did decline in the late 1920s, but by then it had created an atmosphere of racial bigotry that poisoned American politics for the entire decade. For example" (And then you develop your next powerful point).