Instructions: Prepare an essay (750-words minimum) which evaluates the secondary source - “Everyman His Own Historian” by Carl Becker - using the “S.T.A.M.P.” system. LINK to Carl Becker's "Everyman...

Everyman his own Historian- Carl L. Becker
“Everyman his own Historian” was a famous speech delivered by the then president of the American Historical Association (henceforth AHA), Carl L. Becker, in 1931. It is a famous speech, which describes how historians are similar and at the same time different from regular people. In the essay below, we will understand in detail the message portrayed by this speech and describe what he wanted to convey through his piece.
1. Structure
Although this was initially a speech, which was later published by the AHA in their annual review, the speech was very formatted in structure. The speech consists of three parts, each part having an individual argument, and also complementing the argument presented in the part before. Filled with applications and examples, Becker has tried to make the speech as simplified in interpretation as possible. The speech starts with day-to-day examples, elaborated and embedded with his basic motive, followed by quotes from other sources in his last part to support his thoughts. He ends his speech by mentioning how the contents were his individual opinion, and one can have their own interpretation, thus giving the speech an open ending.
2. Thesis
The thesis presented in this speech is based on the beliefs of Becker himself. In this speech, the point which he tries to prove is that historians are no different than any other human individuals, like the title of his speech rightfully says “Every man his own historian”. His thesis in this speech is how every human interprets their history according to their specific needs, adding and omitting facts as per their preferences. It happens almost the same with historians, who are “Mr. Everybody’s historian as well as our own (pg. 230)”. So, the only difference between individuals and historians lies in the fact that individuals are historians for themselves with less burden of remembering facts accurately, while historians by profession are historians for themselves as well as...