Connecticut’s Religiously Intolerant History, Pt. 1

Fairfield’s Last Witch Trial

A woodcut illustration from Joseph Glanvill’s “Saducismus Triumphatus or, Full and Plain Evidence Concerning Witches and Apparitions,” published posthumously in 1681 in London. The book purported to provide proof of witches’ magical powers, and attacked skeptics of these abilities. Glanvill’s text would become influential during the Salem Witch Trials a decade later.Public domain image.

When the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life ranked states using data from its comprehensive 2007 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, only 57 percent of respondents from Connecticut and Rhode Island reported that they believed in God with “absolute certainty,” placing it second-to-last in the country. The state placed similarly low in all other rankings.

Today’s religious landscape is almost the complete opposite of what it was in the 17th century, when Connecticut was the quintessentially theocratic state. The Calvinists who founded the colony steeped their everyday lives in religiosity, and saw the tools of government as extensions of their god-given duty to secure religious purity in society. The Congregationalist Church was for more than a century the state-sanctioned religious institution; all other belief systems, including other sects of Protestant Christianity, were officially disenfranchised and unofficially derided as atheistic abominations.

Life in a theocracy could be difficult for those outside of the state church’s good graces. Those who broke with the sanctioned practices of the official belief system would be ostracized by the community. They could find themselves unable to participate in civic life. They could even be prosecuted under those state and local statutes that enshrined religious intolerance.

The separation of church and state was incrementally accomplished over generations, often as a reaction to specific policies that had negatively impacted Connecticut’s own residents.

‘By the lawe of God of this colony thou deservest to dye’

The Calvinists, who were variously called “puritans” and “pilgrims” (a reference to John Bunyan’s allegorical moralist tale, “The Pilgrim’s Progress’), were products of a Europe that had been torn apart a century earlier by some of the bloodiest sectarian wars the world has ever seen. They sought to establish a society where they could practice their own brand of religious fundamentalism without interference.

They also believed in education. The most prominent among them were men versed in laws and letters. They built the earliest colleges in the colonies. They kept up with the scientific revolution in Europe and the emerging value it placed on empiricism and induction.

This led to some strange combinations of belief and skepticism. Connecticut’s citizens thought that Satan had direct influence in the world, and that witches had gained supernatural powers by creating pacts with the evil being.

Connecticut’s government was at the forefront of witch persecution. Numerous trials took place in the state during the 1600’s, including the first recorded execution for witchcraft in the U.S. in 1647.

A state law making witchcraft a capital offense that was passed in 1642 explicitly referenced passages from the Bible: “If any man or woman be a witch, that is, hath or consulteth with a familiar spirit, they shall be put to death. Exodus xxii. 18. Levit. xx. 22. Deut. xviii. 10, n.”

By the end of the 17th century, however, colonial jurisprudential culture had shifted, placing a greater emphasis on evidence that made witch trials increasingly difficult to prosecute.

In 1692 – the same year as the famous Salem witch trials – a new wave of witchcraft accusations from threatened the lives of several Fairfield County women.

The troubles began when Katherine Branch, a servant in the Stamford home of former selectman Daniel Wescot, started having epileptic-like “fits.” Wescot suspected Branch was possessed by witchcraft, and soon Branch began naming names: Elizabeth Clawson of Stamford. Mary and Hannah Harvey, Mary Staples, and Goody Miller, all of Fairfield. Finally, Mercy Disborough of Compo, now part of Westport. Several of the accused were known to have had rocky relationships with the Wescots.

The initial investigation called for a committee of five women to examine the accused for “devil’s marks.” These were marks supposedly placed on the witch’s body by Satan so that he could drink the witch’s blood. If a birthmark was considered suspicious, a pin would be stuck through it to see if it would bleed. If it didn’t, the woman might be a witch.

Clawson passed this first examination, but Disborough did not.

A special trial was set up on Sept. 14 in Fairfield. Bills of indictment against Clawson and Disborough were presented to a grand jury, while charges against the other women were dropped. Disborough’s indictment, transcribed by Secretary John Allyn, said she had “familiarity with satan the grand enemie of God & men & thes by his instigetion & help thou hast in a preternatutal way afflicted & don Harm to the bodyes & Estates of sundry of their Ma[jesties] subjects…for which by the lawe of God of this colony thou deservest to dye.”

Clawson and Disborough had both pleaded not guilty to the crime. To determine if they were actually witches, the jury needed more evidence. The accused women agreed to be tested by having their hands bound to their legs and being tossed into the water, the theory being that water would refuse to accept a witch. If they floated, it was evidence of guilt.

On Sept. 15, the two women were given the water test. According to Allyn’s notes, several witnesses testified that they both floated.

Meanwhile, a contingent of Clawson’s friends from Stamford rallied to her defense. Seventy-six people signed a letter vouching for Clawson’s good character.

The jury deliberated, but was unable to come to a conclusion in either case, and decided to send the case to the General Court in Hartford (then the state’s highest court).

The ministers of the court, who had plenty of experience with the prosecution of witches and were aware of the hysteria sweeping through Salem, were not convinced at all by the evidence. They returned their official opinion on Oct. 17 with four findings:

1. "The endeavor of conviction of witchcraft by swimming is unlawful and sinful, and therefore it cannot afford any evidence.”

2. "Unusual excrescences found upon their bodies ought not to be advanced as evidence against them without the approbation of some able physicians.”

3. "Respecting the evidence of the afflicted maid (the witness claimed to have been bewitched)…we cannot think her a sufficient witness; yet we think that her affliction being something strange, it well deserves a further inquiry.”

4. "As to the other strange accidents—as the dying of cattle, etc., we apprehend the applying of them to these women as matters of witchcraft to be upon very slender and uncertain grounds."

The General Court did not choose to question whether witches actually existed, but they did demand a higher standard of evidence than the trial in Fairfield had produced.

The group in Fairfield reconvened, and on Oct. 28, found Clawson innocent. Disborough, however, was convicted.

In the first half of 1693, petitioners on behalf of Disborough approached the General Court, calling the decision against her illegal. The Court appointed a commission consisting of Samuel Wyllys, William Pitkin, and Nathaniel Stanley to review the documents of the case.

The commission, reaffirming the General Court’s earlier skepticism, acquitted Disborough and decided that further witch trials should be avoided altogether. They cited the horror that had occurred in Massachusetts the year before, saying that the epidemic of litigations in Salem were “warning enof, those that wit make witchcraf t of such things wit make hanging work apace.”

No witches were convicted in Connecticut after that, though a few trials continued to take place until 1697. Many citizens still believed that witches walked among them, consorting with Satan and possessing children. The law against witchcraft was never repealed; instead, it was quietly expunged from later revisions of public acts.

Disborough escaped execution. She faded into relative obscurity, popping up only occasionally in public records from the early 1700’s. She had been subjected to dangerous and humiliating tests, put in jail and sentenced to death, but had narrowly managed to gain her freedom. In this early test of state-sanctioned religion, Connecticut had taken a small step toward reform.

Part 2: Anglican Infiltration

Part 3: (Coming soon)

Relics of Industry: The Rapidayton Gas Pump

This rusting Rapidayton gas pump stands in front of an unused building at the end of my street in Fairfield.

Rapidayton pumps were once common in the East and Midwest. They were produced by the Dayton Pump & Manufacturing Co. in Dayton, Ohio.

The company was started in 1908 by Frank M. Tait, a master of utilities throughout the first half of the 20th century. Inspired by his early interaction with Thomas Edison, Tait took over what would become the Dayton Power & Light Co. in 1905. At one time or another, Tait managed public utilities all over the U.S.

Rapidayton pumps ended after the company was changed in 1955 to the Tait Manufacturing Co. The assets of the Dayton Pump & Manufacturing Co. were used to create the Frank M. Tait Foundation, which sits today on North Main Street in Dayton.

The year that this pump was installed is unclear. There are only three digits available for the total purchase price, meaning the pump was built with the assumption that a full tank of gas would never cost more than $9.99.

Photographs by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

IBM strategist advocates ‘new mindset’ for corporate communications

IBM Communications Strategist and former business journalist Steve Hamm talks to UNH gathered students in the Vlock Center for Convergent Media Dec. 7 about the new opportunities that global communications are opening for businesses and media. Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

Corporations are shifting away from talking about themselves toward sharing ideas with people around the world, IBM Communications Strategist Steve Hamm on Dec. 7 told a class of University of New Haven students in the Laurel Vlock Center for Convergent Media in Maxcy Hall.

Hamm spoke to communications majors taking a copy editing course taught by adjunct Professor of Communications Mike Bazinet about his view that both journalism and public relations in the U.S. are broken at a time when a flood of disorderly information has created a great need for writers’ narrative talents. He urged the students not to be pessimistic, saying that there are also more opportunities than ever for positive change in both fields.

“The landscape has been utterly transformed in just a matter of years,” he said. It’s shocking – just shocking.

Hamm should know. He worked in journalism for decades before joining IBM two years ago. He wrote for the Bristol Press in Bristol, Conn., the San Jose Mercury News, and Businessweek. He has written several books, most recently publishing a book honoring IBM’s centennial anniversary. He also writes for IBM’s “A Smarter Planet Blog.”

Hamm witnessed the decline of Businessweek firsthand, from being the top business publication in the world in the late 1990s to when it “essentially went out of business” in 2009. He said he changed roles because he knew that journalism was struggling and he wanted to work with a large organization where his writing would have more influence.

Hamm said, though, that there are also problems emerging in corporate communications, precisely because of its relationship to journalism.

“The old model was: you strategize around finding a journalist interested in telling your story, invest time to develop a relationship with them, understand the market, build stories, pitch them, and then they’d be published,” he said.

Increasingly, Hamm said, journalism has lost its emphasis on explanation and narrative. He said that stories on business news websites like Marketwatch.com are a jumble of sometimes-contradictory snippets without any kind of depth.

“In a world of tremendous complexity, we’ve got news in tiny bits,” he said.

One of the things that Hamm and his colleagues at IBM have been working on to overcome the collapse of in-depth reporting is to recreate deep conversations about ideas through newer media, such as social networking sites. To do that, corporations are expanding their focus of constituents as shareholders and customers to include governments, universities, other companies – and employees.

That is one of the aims behind “A Smarter Planet Blog” and its related Facebook page, “People for a Smarter Planet.” Both sites include discussion with writers and researchers who work for IBM, but also bring in perspectives from all over the world.

One recent innovation was to have “Smart Fridays,” during which people studying interesting phenomena explain their research through a series of posts on the Facebook page. In one recent series, a researcher showed that the height of high-heeled shoes fluctuates with the economy. In hard times, heels tend to get higher, while in prosperous times they get lower.

The conversation, while not specific to anything that IBM does, generated about 1.4 million hits in a few hours.

Hamm sees these types of crossover conversations as a positive step for corporate communications. “One thing corporations must do is say, ‘here’s our knowledge,’ and become a hub around networks to create a feedback loop of learning and influencing. These are the most valuable things in the world, where value can be created.”

Hamm said that no one, including IBM, has quite figured out how to take full advantage of the explosion of information technologies available. That is why it is vital for people from different walks of life to share ideas with one another and try new things.

“Communication is not the frosting on the cake. It is the cake now,” he said. “It is part of the core of what societies need to advance.”

The Year of the Protest

2011 has been the stage for a resurgence of a classic tactic for political reform: the protest. Although there are rallies of varying sizes around the world each year, few have had the numbers or tenacity to wield significant influence. This year, though, they provoked the toppling of governments, the breakdown of civil society, and violent suppressions that sometimes backfired. The last time such a wave of demonstrations gripped so many countries at once was during the student movements of 1968, more than 40 years ago.

Here is a month-by-month look at key moments in some of the year’s protests:

January: Tunisia

Tunsia was the first – and perhaps the most successful – uprising in what later became known as the Arab Spring. Civil activists began protesting against government corruption, unemployment and restrictions on freedom after the self-immolation of street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi on December 17, 2010. Bouazizi had committed the act because of treatment he had received by a municipal official. President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was forced to resign on Jan. 14, and peaceful elections were held in October.
Public domain photograph.

February: Egypt

In this Feb. 4 photograph, protesters flood the streets of Alexandria, Egypt, to call for the end of President Hosni Mubarek’s 30-year rule. Millions of protesters, many of them utilizing social media to organize their movement, held a stand-off against Mubarek’s regime for several weeks. Mubarek announced he would step down on Feb. 11, after members of Egypt’s military began refusing to crack down on demonstrators. The military, after taking over the provisional government, sparked a new wave of protests that claimed similar abuses under the new regime. Mubarek now faces trial for premeditated murder, and several rounds of contentious elections are under way.
Photograph courtesy of Al Jazeera/Jamal Elshayyal. Some rights reserved.

March: Yemen

Protesters march on the university in the capital of Sana’a in Yemen on March 1, 2011. Inspired by Tunisia, Egypt and other nearby movements, demonstrations in Yemen began over similar concerns about government corruption and unemployment. Yemenis were also upset over proposed changes to Yemen’s constitution to extend the length of terms for the president and legislators. President Ali Abdullah Saleh originally rejected demands from the protesters. But after months of crackdowns and defections, the government was left in shambles, and Saleh signed an agreement on Nov. 23 to resign within 30 days.
Photograph courtesy of Al Jazeera English. Some rights reserved.

April: India

It all started with activist Anna Havare announcing that he would undertake a “fast until death” beginning April 5 that would last until India’s government enacted substantial corruption reforms. Hazare’s supporters, undertaking the practices of nonviolent resistance first championed by Gandhi, began a series of protests in New Delhi and elsewhere that called for the passage of the Jan Lokpal bill, which, if enforced, would further many of the protesters’ goals. Hazare was arrested in August, but mass outrage ensued, and he was released again and allowed to continue his hunger strike. The bill finally passed at the end of August, and Hazare ended his fast, though he has continued to push for more reforms.
Photograph courtesy of Pranav21391. Some rights reserved.

May: Spain

High unemployment, new austerity measures, and a government that people feel is more responsive to business interests than average voters sparked major protests in May throughout Spain that have been referred to as the 15-M Movement. The largest demonstrations took place as elections neared in May. The President of the Regional Electoral Committee of Madrid declared the gatherings illegal, but that increased the discord. In this picture, tens of thousands of protesters gather in Puerta del Sol in Madrid on May 20 to camp out until after the end of the elections, in which the ruling Spanish Socialist Worker’s Party lost to the populist People’s Party.
Photograph courtesy of Fotograccion. Some rights reserved.

June: Greece

Greek debt was at the center of the Euro crisis this year. The country’s sovereign debt problems resulted in the passage of numerous austerity packages in exchange for bailouts and protections from other European nations. The collapse of the Greek economy was met with violent reactions from citizens, who began a series of strikes and protests in May. The anti-austerity demonstrations became more and more pronounced, reaching a crescendo in June, when the Greek parliament voted to accept the European Union’s plans to put the financial system back in order. In this June 6 photograph, people gather in Syntagma (Constitution) square outside the parliament building.
Photograph courtesy of Protonotarios. Some rights reserved.

July: Malaysia

The Malay people are not well-known for mass demonstrations. But there has been growing unrest in recent years to the ruling coalition in Malaysia, Barisan Nasional, which has won every federal election since 1957. Tens of thousands of sympathizers with minority and opposition groups, organized by the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections (known as Bersih), marched in Kuala Lampur on July 9 to demand elections reforms. Only limited protesting is allowed in Malaysia, and there were threats of police intervention prior to the march. Water cannons and tear gas were used to disperse protesters, of whom 1,600 were arrested. In November, the lower house of Malaysia’s parliament passed a ban on street demonstrations that was roundly condemned by pro-democracy groups.
Photograph courtesy of Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved.

August: Chile

Students have been protesting Chile’s private education industry, asking for greater investment and control by the state in public education. Several waves of contention have swept the country. The first was in reaction to a proposal by then-Education Minister Joaquín Lavín’s proposal to increase funding for non-traditional universities, which have been known to exploit legal loopholes to make profits. More proposals followed, with each bringing a new wave of demonstrations. On Aug. 25, unions organized a major strike and protest that they estimated drew about 600,000 protesters throughout Chile in response to crackdowns on students and reforms that they said fell short. These marchers were in Pichilemu that day.
Photograph courtesy of Diego Grez. Some rights reserved.

September: Libya

Rebel supporters celebrate the fall of Libya’s capital, Tripoli, to anti-Gaddafi forces on Sept. 8. The country’s uprising began in February as part of the Arab Spring, then devolved into a civil war that drew the backing of NATO. Throughout the year, rebels and Gaddafi allies battled from city to city, with both sides seeing early victories. Finally, the rebels captured the remaining holdout cities. They found Gaddafi hiding in Sirte in October, and, in a controversial move, killed him without a trial.
Photograph courtesy of Ammar Abd Rabbo. Some rights reserved.

October: Occupy Wall Street

A group of protesters angered by income inequality set up camp in New York City’s Zuccotti Park, in the shadow of Wall Street’s skyscrapers. Hundreds of camps sprang up across the U.S. and the rest of the world. The occupiers were joined frequently for marches and demonstrations by others sympathetic to their causes. Their popularity spiked on Oct. 15, when coordinated protests were held in cities around the planet. A month later to the day, the encampment at Zuccotti Park was broken up by police. Camps across the U.S. and elsewhere were subject to crackdowns of varying severity, but protests and some camps continue.
Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

November: Syria

Sporadic protests inspired by the Arab Spring popped up in pockets of Syria at the beginning of the year. In March, mass demonstrations began taking place in opposition of the dictatorial rule of President Bashar al-Assad, the end of his Ba’athist Party’s control, and a lack of constitutional government. Assad's camp clamped down on protests with military force, serving only to ignite further uprisings and international concerns. In an unprecedented move, the Arab League approved near-unanimous sanctions against Syria in November. The United Nations estimates that about 5,000 people have been killed in the conflict so far.
Photograph by Syriana2011. Some rights reserved.

December: Russia

Tens of thousands of protesters demonstrated in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia, over allegations of vote-rigging and ballot fraud in parliamentary elections by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s ruling United Russia Party, which clung to its shrinking majority despite electoral dishonesty. Putin himself is running for president in an election set for March in 2012. Protesters light flares in the chilly Moscow darkness in this Saturday, Dec. 10 photograph.
Photograph by Pavel Golovkin, courtesy of Cryptome.org.

Read more about protests:

- Occupy New Haven: an Operation in Progress

- Occupying Wall Street After Dark

- Grassroots Astroturfing and Political Terrorism

The Strands of Zen in Western Culture

Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

The Japanese adaptation of Buddhism known as Zen can seem out of place in Western societies. Those who subscribe to cultural moral relativism believe that unique historical circumstances shape moral values in different cultures, and therefore there are no universally-shared values. They would suggest that the difficulty Westerners have in understanding Zen – particularly its avoidance of reason as a means of working out ethical issues - is evidence of that gulf in universal values.

To say that Zen eschews reason, however, is an oversimplification of the practice. If examined in its nuances, Zen does defy cultural relativism by appealing to numerous values that have appeared in cultures all over the world. Its elusiveness is not unique to peoples of the West – it is counterintuitive by nature.

Reason looms large in the traditions of Western philosophy. Plato and Aristotle both placed a man’s reasoning abilities in a position above other aspects of his character (1, 2). Zen appears to evade reason - to actively sabotage it.

Yet these philosophical expressions all have commonalities that become visible at a more granular level. Plato sees reason as a moderating force that promotes the best possible functioning of the other faculties; a man “will always desire so to attemper the body as to preserve the harmony of the soul (3).” The ultimate aim, to Plato (and Aristotle) is ultimately to live as fruitful a life as can be attained.

Zen’s goal, if it can be said to have one, is similar. T.D. Suzuki says that Zen moves one step beyond reason to break free of the mental constraints of abstract concepts and concentrate on “life as it is lived (4).” Zen does not deny reason a role in life. Suzuki says that practitioners have their own doctrines, but that these do not come directly from Zen, because Zen has no “sacred books or dogmatic tenets (5).”

Zen’s insistence on constantly breaking free from conceptual constructs has similarities to philosophical strains of doubt that have appeared throughout the millennia. In ancient Greece, Pyrrho of Elis first developed a form of systematic doubt that came to be known as skepticism. Pyrrho discovered that he could find vulnerabilities in every philosophical argument. According to Historian Jennifer Michael Hecht, he thought that “since we can know nothing for certain, we must behave as such…We thus stand aloof from life and thereby achieve peace of mind (6).”

Later skepticism integrated its processes into academic philosophy by introducing an important check on the assurance of any conclusion. Carneades of Cyrene made provisional belief acceptable by suggesting that, although nothing could be known, careful scrutiny could show that one conclusion was more likely than another (7).

Carneades’ caveat made it possible for academia and science to maintain their long-term intellectual flexibility. The provisional approach to knowledge admits that, far from being absolute, reason has limitations. It is a deeper concession that there are always more things we do not know than things we do know. It is also profoundly Zen, with echoes in the writings of Suzuki and others.

Other movements in Western cultures continuously strived to break free from old patterns of thinking. Freethinking, transcendentalism, and some elements of postmodernism all contain threads of doubt that, to varying degrees, challenge conceptual paradigms.

Hecht says that American’s introduction to Zen also had an impact on the development of psychotherapy as some eminent professionals, such as Mark Epstein, imported the practice of meditation (8).

Western ideas have also resonated with Eastern thinkers. The Zen story “Not Far From Buddhahood” specifically tells of a student reading a passage from the Biblical Book of Matthew to Gasan. Gasan’s response to the passage is, "That is excellent. Whoever said that is not far from Buddhahood (9)."

It is nevertheless the case that Zen is difficult to understand. Yet Suzuki points out that this is not a problem that only Westerners encounter. Zen is, by nature, “extremely elusive as far as its outward aspects are concerned; when you think you have caught a glimpse of it, it is no more there; from afar it looks so approachable, but as soon as you come near it you see it even further away from you than before (10).”

All systems of doubt can be elusive. Hecht says that there is a narrative to doubt that involves communication and integration across cultures throughout history, including in the case of Zen. However, she says, the elusiveness of these traditions has commonly been portrayed in terms of a “mere collection of shadows on the history of belief (11).” Zen’s Western counterparts may be overshadowed by other philosophical systems, but they remain a robust and vital part of those cultures. And Zen itself is engaged in a productive exchange with that milieu.

References:

1. Plato. The Republic. Translated by Sir Henry Desmond Pritchard Lee. (Plain Label Books, 1955) chap. ix
2. Aristotle. The Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by David Ross. (Oxford University Press, 200) Book X, chap. vii, 194
3. Plato. The Republic. Translated by Sir Henry Desmond Pritchard Lee. (Plain Label Books, 1955) chap. ix, 573
4. Suzuki, Daisetz Teitaro. An Introduction to Zen Buddhism. (Grove Press, 1954) Chap. ii, 45
5. Suzuki, Daisetz Teitaro. An Introduction to Zen Buddhism. (Grove Press, 1954) Chap. ii, 38
6. Hecht, Jennifer Michael. Doubt: A History. (New York: HarperCollins, 2003) Chap. i, 41
7. Hecht, Jennifer Michael. Doubt: A History. (New York: HarperCollins, 2003) Chap. i, 43
8. Hecht, Jennifer Michael. Doubt: A History. (New York: HarperCollins, 2003) Chap. x, 473
9. Senzaki. “Not Far From Buddhahood.” 101 Zen Stories. (Kessinger Publishing, 2004) 16
10. Suzuki, Daisetz Teitaro. An Introduction to Zen Buddhism. (Grove Press, 1954) Chap. ii, 43
11. Hecht, Jennifer Michael. Doubt: A History. (New York: HarperCollins, 2003) Introduction, ix

Tips on Arguing: Primary and Secondary Sources

When you’re conducting research for an essay, a debate, or a report, you will often come across multiple sources of information about the same event or topic. How can you tell which of these to use?

One of the most tried-and-true methods for “ranking” information is to distinguish between primary and secondary sources.

A guide to research published by the University of Maryland says that primary sources “are from the time period involved and have not been filtered through interpretation or evaluation. Primary sources are original materials on which other research is based.”

Examples of primary sources include things like eyewitness accounts, photographs, newspaper articles from the time and place you’re researching, and physical objects (bones, pottery, coins, and so forth).

Primary sources are considered the gold standard in all academic research, as well as in journalism. The reason is simple: if you get your facts second-hand, you have no way to be sure that they’re accurate.

Secondary sources do have uses, though. Encyclopedias like Wikipedia are considered secondary sources; they pull information together from primary sources to give an overview of a topic. In this way, secondary sources can help someone to learn the basics of a new subject.

These kinds of sources are also great places to get commentary and analysis, because they often draw from multiple viewpoints or discoveries and make connections between ideas.

The quality of a secondary source can be tough to judge, which is why citations are so vital. If there are references, then the reader can go back and look at the primary sources that were used to find out whether or not the secondary source is accurate.

A simple example is Wikipedia’s entryfor “primary source.” The first sentence of the entry says, “Primary source is a term used in a number of disciplines to describe source material that is closest to the person, information, period, or idea being studied.” After that, there appear two citations: one links to the University of Maryland’s definition. You can go to the original definition, and see that although Wikipedia’s wording is slightly different, the idea is accurate. You can be confident in this case that Wikipedia didn’t just make it up or leave out important information.

As the entry goes on, it offers more citations – 31 in all, plus links to other outside sources, similar entries, and so on. This robust suite of references is what makes Wikipedia a valuable tool, because you can find hundreds of primary sources collected in one place.

Teachers have probably warned you against citing Wikipedia. They’re right to do so, but not because Wikipedia is deceitful or inaccurate (it does occasionally make mistakes, but so does everyone). The reason you shouldn’t cite it is that it is academically lazy not to read the primary sources for yourself.

Sunrise on the Housatonic

The sun rises over the opposite banks of the Housatonic River from the Stratford boat launch as clouds roll across the sky, refracting the light. The reflection turns the waters a purplish hue, streaked by birds plying the river in the distance. Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.