Between 1936 and 1938, WPA interviewers recorded more than 2,300 accounts from elderly Americans describing their own lives under slavery before 1865. How should a student describe these interviews?

James McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom, published in 1988, tells the story of the Civil War era by drawing on soldiers' letters, wartime newspapers and government records. What kind of work is it?

A Continental Army soldier kept a diary through the winter of 1777-78 at Valley Forge, writing each night about rations, sickness and the weather in camp. How was this source made?

E. B. Sledge fought as a Marine at Peleliu and Okinawa in 1944 and 1945. In 1981 he published With the Old Breed, an account written from his own wartime experience and notes. How should a student treat this book?

In 1954 the Supreme Court issued its written opinion in Brown v. Board of Education, setting out the Court's ruling and its reasoning in the justices' own words. How was this document produced?

A high school textbook chapter on Reconstruction condenses the findings of many historians into eight pages, with review questions at the end. How was this chapter made?

A ship arriving at Ellis Island in 1907 carried a manifest listing every passenger's name, age, last residence and destination, filled in by the shipping line before landing. What is this list?

A 1975 documentary about the Dust Bowl cuts between film shot on Plains farms in the 1930s and a historian on camera explaining what caused the disaster. How should a student handle the two parts?

Thomas Paine's Common Sense appeared in January 1776 as a cheap pamphlet in plain language and sold tens of thousands of copies in the colonies. Who was it made for, and why?

During World War II the federal government printed and posted large color posters urging Americans at home to buy war bonds. What purpose does that tell a student the posters served?

A textile mill bookkeeper kept a payroll ledger in 1912 recording each worker's hours and weekly pay. What was it for?

Three weeks before an election, a presidential candidate gives a speech at a rally listing everything wrong with the other party's record. Reading it later, what should a student expect from it?

On January 17, 1961, President Eisenhower used a televised address, delivered days before leaving office, to warn the country about the growing influence of what he called the military-industrial complex. Who was he addressing?

A Union soldier wrote to his wife in 1863 about the food, the mud and how much he missed home, and asked her to write back. What does knowing the intended reader change?

In the 1880s a western railroad company placed advertisements in European newspapers describing its Nebraska farmland as rich and cheap. Who was the target, and what was the aim?

A British officer stationed in Boston wrote an official report in 1770 on the shooting of civilians by his soldiers, describing the crowd as threatening. What does the report establish on its own?

A Freedmen's Bureau agent filed monthly reports in 1866 on schools opened, rations issued and labor contracts signed in his district. A student wants to know what freedpeople thought of the Bureau. What is the problem?

During the 1912 Lawrence textile strike a mill owner wrote to a newspaper saying his workers were content until outsiders stirred them up. A student wants to know what the strikers were demanding. What should she do?

In 1943 the federal agency that ran the camps holding Japanese Americans issued photographs captioned to show orderly, well-run facilities. What is the limit of these captioned photographs?

An 1898 New York newspaper editorial demanded that the United States go to war with Spain. A student writes that this proves most Americans wanted war. What is wrong with that?

An army officer's after-action report on the killing of Lakota people at Wounded Knee in 1890 explains the shooting as a response to resistance. What does a student still need?

A former president publishes a memoir explaining why he made the decisions he did in office. Why do historians read it alongside documents written at the time?

A student needs the number of immigrants admitted to the United States in each year from 1900 to 1910, not what arriving felt like. Which source gives her the figures?

A student wants to know the hours a specific New York garment factory worked its employees in 1911. Which source settles it?

A student is writing about how a Freedom Rider experienced the 1961 bus rides through the South. She finds a 1975 recorded interview with one of the riders. Should she use it?

A student claims that one Oklahoma county lost roughly a third of its working farms between 1930 and 1936. Which source would confirm the claim?

A student needs the exact reasoning the Supreme Court gave for its 1954 school segregation ruling. Which source should she go to?

A student wants the number of men present for duty in one Union regiment on the morning of a battle. Which source answers that?

A student is studying the arguments made for the new Constitution while the states were deciding whether to ratify it. Which source gives her those arguments as they were made?

A memoir written in 1990 describes a protest march the author joined in 1968, including how large the crowd was and how police responded. How should a student test that description?