Example source Answers for usefulness and reliability for Modern History
WORLD WAR 1 SOURCES
Source A: British Propaganda poster 1916
Source A is useful and reliable to a historian as it is a primary source. Source A is a British propaganda poster and was designed in 1916 by the British recruitment office or the Government, to encourage married men to enlist. Two years after the war had commenced the excitement and romantic ideas of an adventure had died down, so did the numbers for enlistment. There for propaganda posters such as source A were put in place. In this poster we can see illustrates 2 children and their father. The boy is interested and happy when playing with his toy soldiers, while sister is busy with an open book pointing and questioning her father about the war. ‘Daddy what did YOU do in the war?’. The facial expression of the father seems very blank and sad, this picture suggests that the father didn’t not go to war and had no way to answer his daughters question an now he feels ashamed and embarrassed for not enlisting to go to war.
Historians can see the use of this poster and why the Government would place these posters around. In 1914 for the First World War Britain had no problem in encouraging men to enlist. Many of these had reason such as; ones duty to defend the king country and empire, a great holiday, first full time job and impress the women. All these men shared the belief that the war would be a quick one and would be over by Christmas, so the need to volunteer quickly was so that they could avoid missing out on the action. However as the losses of the volunteering on the western front became known to many people, and the realisation that the war would not be over anytime soon the number of enlisting men dropped and because of this in July 1915 the height requirement dropped from 168cm to 157cm and also the age requirement increased from 19-30 to 19-40 historians can rely on the source to tell them that the British army needed more people and were desperate that not only did they have to make changes to
Source A: British Propaganda poster 1916
Source A is useful and reliable to a historian as it is a primary source. Source A is a British propaganda poster and was designed in 1916 by the British recruitment office or the Government, to encourage married men to enlist. Two years after the war had commenced the excitement and romantic ideas of an adventure had died down, so did the numbers for enlistment. There for propaganda posters such as source A were put in place. In this poster we can see illustrates 2 children and their father. The boy is interested and happy when playing with his toy soldiers, while sister is busy with an open book pointing and questioning her father about the war. ‘Daddy what did YOU do in the war?’. The facial expression of the father seems very blank and sad, this picture suggests that the father didn’t not go to war and had no way to answer his daughters question an now he feels ashamed and embarrassed for not enlisting to go to war.
Historians can see the use of this poster and why the Government would place these posters around. In 1914 for the First World War Britain had no problem in encouraging men to enlist. Many of these had reason such as; ones duty to defend the king country and empire, a great holiday, first full time job and impress the women. All these men shared the belief that the war would be a quick one and would be over by Christmas, so the need to volunteer quickly was so that they could avoid missing out on the action. However as the losses of the volunteering on the western front became known to many people, and the realisation that the war would not be over anytime soon the number of enlisting men dropped and because of this in July 1915 the height requirement dropped from 168cm to 157cm and also the age requirement increased from 19-30 to 19-40 historians can rely on the source to tell them that the British army needed more people and were desperate that not only did they have to make changes to