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Primary source analysis, modern Britain.
Question:
What does this primary source tell us about Margaret Thatcher’s understanding of social class and how useful is it for historians of modern Britain?
The primary source is a transcript of a TV interview of Margaret Thatcher by David Kemp for the program “World in Action”. The interview was broadcasted on Monday 3. February 1975 and was her last public statement before the election. Quotations was later published by the Sunday Times on 2. February 1976.
The primary source focuses on social class and on Thatchers point of view in this matter. Margaret Thatcher believes that every ordinary person shouldn’t be labeled by their social class but rather on their contributions to the society. Everyone makes different kinds of contributions and they all matter. She also believes that everybody with a good attitude towards life has the opportunity to improve themselves. That everybody is able to help themselves and their children to make a use of their talent and develop it as much as possible. She also uses herself as an example in which it is possible to achieve something big despite the fact that she went to an ordinary state school and without any privileges she worked her way to the top with just hard work and a supportive family. The possibility of doing whatever you like is achievable regardless of which class you were born in to.
It is clear that the british society is taking a turn away from the former class society, because it is has such a great importance throughout the interview. In the interview she is clear on the fact that the Conservative Party is not a class party and that they don’t favor the upper-class. Political interviews is always about promoting the Party’s political standpoint and this interview was done right before the election so it was of course important to Thatcher to express what she thought was important. It is possible that she’s exaggerating her beliefs and are telling people what they want to hear, because this important for the Party and herself, but it has a clear importance in this matter.
She wants the society to change so that the british people are able to develop as they want, to have full control over their own lives and to let other people have the same right. With this mindset she would get the vote from a lot of people from the lower classes, because they too want the change. With this theme being so central in the campaign it is obviously that there is a change in the british society. And the fact that Margaret Thatcher won the election shows that a lot of the british people agreed. This source can also be important for historians that isstudying Thatcher and her motivation and her struggle on her way to the top, because the source gives us an insight to her former life.

Primary source analysis, America.
Question 2:
What does this primary source tell us about how Southerners saw and justified Jim Crow legislation? What arguments about African Americans, Southerners and Northerners does Clark make and how does he use them to legitimize racial segregation?
The primary source is a speech preformed in 1908 by Congressman Frank Clark who praises segregation. The amendment raised a question about segregating cars and throughout the speech Clark gives us his opinions on why this would be a good idea.
It is clear throughout the whole source that Frank Clark agrees with the segregation and he is convinced that there is no discrimination or racism towards the negro race and that both races would benefit from it because the tension between the white and blacks would decrease, nor will it deprive the rights that the negro race already have. Clark describes this not as hate towards the other race, but more the patriotic love for his own. He is certain that the negro race wouldn’t come to any harm nor the white race. According to Clark the cars is furnished just as good for blacks as for whites. He also mention that the black race is filthy, unlike the white race, so the passenger coaches in those cars would not be clean for long and no white man would like to sit on it. Another argument that is used is that the white people of the south have taxed themselves to afford building schools and churches for the negros basically without anything I return. He also uses the argument about the revolution, their country and their beloved flag. They will fight to protect what is theirs by right, and that they have the right to do so. The American country has been the country of the white man, and so it shall be.
The biggest argument that is drawn up is the work of God. Clark believes that God Almighty didn’t create the two races to be equal and therefore there is no point in treating the negroes like they are. They have a low intelligence and repulsive features, the opposite of the ordinary white man. Despite his efforts trying to legitimate the white race as the strongest and their right to be the superior race with reasonable arguments, his language towards the negroes is overbearing and harsh.
Congressman Frank Clark’s speech about the segregation shows us how he, and a lot of southerners too because they voted him in to the Party, justified Jim Crow’s legislation. It doesn’t mean that everybody agrees with him, but there is reason to believe that a lot of them see the free blacks as Clark does.