OK Coral

2.  In your answer to question one you indicated a number of differences between the information in the sources. How might these differences have come about 

There are many differences between the sources. They have occurred for a number of reasons.

Firstly some of the sources A and C are secondary sources and have been written around 75 years after the events of the OK Corral. However source B is an eyewitness account and is a primary source we can tell this from a quote “I was at the OK Corral at 2.30 pm”  

Therefore it is more reliable then sources A and C. The secondary source should not be taken as more reliable then the primary source B as information in a primary source tends to be more factual as the person in this instance witnessed the events.

Also the secondary source authors might take a bias view on the events and change evidence and information in favour of there opinion.  

3. The source from the “Daily Epitaph” claims to be an eyewitness account of the events. How useful is this source as an account of the events at the OK Coral? Explain your answer.  

Source B by Mr Coleman is considered to be a primary eyewitness account of the events at the OK Coral and is very useful. If you look into the account it might not be as reliable as first thought.

Firstly he is reporting his account of the events to a newspaper (The Daily Epitaph) and editors have a tendency to twist change and replace words to make the story they are publishing more interesting and exciting to the reader this aids the newspaper to sell more copies, therefore it might not be the full account of events.

The account has number dots (...) which could strongly suggest the editor has edited or purposely removed the comments made by Mr Coleman in aid to change or make the story more interesting to the reader or once again to favour there own opinion.

4. For a historian studying these events, would these sources be most useful in:

1. Telling us what happened at the OK Corral
2. Telling us about law and order in the West at this time
3. Telling us how people today think about these events
4. Telling us about a combination of the above.

Make use of examples from the sources to support the points you make.

Historian studying the events would find these Sources very useful as they all differ and can provide something different to give an insight into the events .

The different sources approach the OK Corral events in many different ways and Historian would have to take in consideration things such as who wrote them, when they wrote and how realisable the accounts are.

Firstly For example source A is a textbook account and is almost like a running commentary on the events that occurred in the fight “Billy Clanton’s gun hand as the youth poured fire at Wyatt”. Source B is a Newspaper Account Report which has had an eye witness report on the events of the OK Corral and you are almost drawn in by the account into a better view of what happened as it has been written in the first person “I was at the OK Corral at 2.30 pm”

Source C is also another Textbook account of the events. It is almost in one respect like source A but is a lot shorter and could not be considered better but might help historian pin point events more accurately then source A could. Source D is a pictured diagram of the OK Corral and could be useful for historians to aid them with the location of the OK Corral.

All sources apart from D would give a good view on law and order in particular a good example is Sheriffs source B says “ I then walked through the OK Corral about fifty yards behind the Sheriff”

The sources really do not give an insight into what people of today think about the OK Corral. Dates of the Textbook accounts could be taken into consideration as what we think today “Horan and Sann, A Pictorial History of the Wild West, Hamlyn 1954.”

OK Corral

Assignment Two