Historians use quantitative and qualitative methods. Historians have used marriage registers to figure out literacy rates. Because people in Britain learned to read before they learned to write, the ability to write with rudimentary skill meant they had some ability to read. By adding up people's ability to sign their name, historians could then quantify literacy rates. Historians have used cook books to explore the economic ties between empire and England in the nineteenth century.
Recipes containing curry, mangoes, and sugar cane indicate a heavy reliance on colonial products.
Historians have to be sneaky in figuring out what sources can say. In this class, you and your colleagues are the historians and your job is to figure out what happened in modern Britain. We will read some background information to get an overview of the time period. Then, you will get primary sources. You need to figure out what they say, for whom were they written, why they were written, how the documents speak to the time period, and what they might tell us as historians.