Tunes, lyrics, recordings, sheet music—all are components of popular songs, and all can serve as evidence of peoples, places, and attitudes of the past. Written by Ronald J. Walters and John Spitzer, the guide "Making Sense of American Popular Song" provides a place for students and teachers to begin working with songs as a way of understanding the past.
Making Sense of Films offers a place for students and teachers to begin working with early 20th-century film as historical evidence. Written by Tom Gunning, this guide offers an overview of early film and how historians use it; tips on what questions to ask when watching early films; an annotated bibliography; and a guide to finding and using early film online.
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but you need to know how to analyze the picture to gain any understanding of it at all. "Making Sense of Documentary Photography" provides a place for students and teachers to grapple with the documentary images that often illustrate textbooks but are almost never considered as historical evidence in their own right. Written by James Curtis, this guide offers a brief history of documentary photography, examples of what questions to ask when examining a documentary photograph, and an annotated bibliography and list of online resources for documentary photography.
This Flash movie begins by introducing history as a subject of study that requires thinking and asking questions. It then uses a case study about the opening hostilities in the Revolutionary War to show and explain historical reading and thinking. The movie includes historians thinking out loud about two primary source documents regarding the shots fired on Lexington Green on April 19, 1775.
Viewers simultaneously see the text and the comments and questions that historians make in response to that text (slides 5, 7). Longer, additional examples of historians thinking aloud and analyzing these documents are also available (slides 6,7). The narrator uses these examples to introduce and clarify four kinds of questions that historians ask: sourcing, contextualizing, corroborating, and close reading. With ten consecutive mini-episodes, the movie permits users to control the pace and choose to review or skip particular segments.
This national exhibit focuses on the Lansdowne portrait of George Washington, painted by Gilbert Stuart in 1796 (the last painting of Washington before his death). An historic tour from the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, this painting traveled across the country to eight major cities—Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Seattle, Minneapolis, Oklahoma City, Little Rock, and New York City—for the first time. Currently, Internet users may explore this historical portrait at the above listed site using three different filters: symbolic, biographic, and artistic. Each filter highlights a distinct component of the portrait, provides background information, and offers an interpretation of each individual element. In addition, the site contains biographical information on Washington's life and a teaching section for kids.
Advertisements are all around us today and have been for a long time; advertising-free "good old days" just don't exist. This guide offers an overview of advertisements as historical sources and how historians use them; a brief history of advertising; questions to ask when interpreting ads as historical evidence; an annotated bibliography; and a guide to finding advertisements online.
In an attic or an online archive, coming across personal correspondence and diaries can open a tantalizing window into past lives. 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 these personal texts; an annotated bibliography; and a guide to finding and using letters and diaries online.
Does the very thought of quantitative analysis make you shake in your shoes? "Making Sense of Numbers" provides a place for students and teachers to begin working with quantitative historical data as a way of understanding the past. Written by Gary J. Kornblith, this guide offers an overview of quantitative methods, how historians use historical data, and step-by-step instructions using actual historical data to determine totals, rates, averages, standard deviations, and coefficients of correlation.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s site provides a straightforward explanation of how to analyze the composition of historical paintings. Using Emanuel Leutze’s famous painting of George Washington crossing the Delaware, the site explains how artists use various elements of composition like lighting to convey particular messages about the events depicted in paintings. For lesson plans on how to interpret historical paintings check out this site.