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Making Sense of Evidence
This section helps students and teachers make effective use of primary sources. “Making Sense of Documents” provide strategies for analyzing online primary materials, with interactive exercises and a guide to traditional and online sources. “Scholars in Action” segments show how scholars puzzle out the meaning of different kinds of primary sources, allowing you to try to make sense of a document yourself then providing audio clips in which leading scholars interpret the document and discuss strategies for overall analysis.
Making Sense of Documents
Making Sense of Oral History
Written by Linda Shopes, this guide presents an overview of oral history and ways historians use it, tips on what questions to ask when reading or... [more]
Making Sense of Films
Written by Tom Gunning, this guide offers an overview of early twentieth-century film and how historians use it, tips on what questions to ask when... [more]
Making Sense of Maps
This guide offers an overview of the history of maps and how historians use them, a breakdown of the elements of a map, tips on what questions to ask... [more]
Making Sense of Numbers
Written by Gary J. Kornblith, this guide offers an overview of quantitative methods, how historians use historical data, and step-by-step... [more]
Making Sense of Letters and Diaries
This guide offers an overview of letters and diaries as historical sources and how historians use them, tips on what questions to ask when reading... [more]
Making Sense of Advertisements
This guide, written by Daniel Pope, offers an overview of advertisements as historical sources and how historians use them, a brief history of... [more]
Making Sense of American Popular Song
Written by Ronald G. Walters and John Spitzer, Making Sense of American Popular Song provides a place for students and teachers to begin working with... [more]
Making Sense of Documentary Photography
In this guide, James Curtis helps students and teachers understand the documentary images that often illustrate textbooks but are almost never... [more]
Scholars in Action
Analyzing an 1804 Inventory
In this interview Barbara Clark Smith discusses strategies for analyzing household possessions, specifically a 1804 inventory of the possessions of... [more]
Analyzing Political Cartoons
In this interview, Michael O’Malley discusses strategies for interpreting political cartoons, specifically an 1876 Thomas Nast cartoon. The cartoon... [more]
Analyzing Blues Songs
In this interview, Lawrence Levine discusses strategies for listening to and interpreting music, specifically two blues songs, "Two White Horses... [more]
Analyzing Photographs
In this interview, Frank Goodyear discusses strategies for interpreting an 1853 photograph of Niagara Falls taken by Platt Babbitt. The daguerreotype... [more]
Analyzing Letters
In this interview, Teresa Murphy discusses strategies for reading letters, specifically three 19th-century letters written by labor activist,... [more]
Analyzing Abolitionist Speeches
In this interview, Carla Peterson discusses strategies for interpreting speeches, specifically abolitionist speeches. These two speeches, one by... [more]
Analyzing a Melville Story
In this interview Hans Bergmann discusses strategies for interpreting literature, specifically a short story by Herman Melville published in 1853.... [more]
Analyzing a Colonial Newspaper
This interview with Barbara Clark Smith discusses strategies for interpreting colonial period newspaper coverage, specifically a 1775 article about a... [more]