City Directories FANTASTIC resources to use if you are interested in learning more about what city life was like in the eighteenth-century. These give a great snapshot of what the workforce looked like and you can even learn the names of everyday individuals!
Deserter/Runaway Ads THESE are a great resource because they are detailed descriptions of working class individuals including sailors, soldiers, indentured servants, and slaves. They often describe clothing, the general appearance of the individual and even their height.
Maps MAPS are excellent because they of course provide a detailed snapshot which allows a historical to reconstruct the actual landscape of a particular area. Not only do they show buildings but also details of gardens and various other features. Most maps also include a scale allowing you to even calculate the size of buildings.
Material Culture & Artifacts MATERIAL culture is simplest terms means everyday items which we are now studying in the form of artifacts. If you wish to learn more about a particular group of people, you can often do so by studying the items they use on a daily basis to recreate what their lives looked like.
Newspapers EIGHTEENTH-century newspapers, as you can imagine, contain all kinds of details about day-to-day life which is fascinating to historians. These are the source for the deserter ads mentioned above.
Podcasts & Blogs I KNOW what you're thinking....and yes, it may seem strange that people who study history use something that is cutting-edge to help them study history. However, podcasts and blogs are being used as very effective tools for learning about the past, and there are certainly some out there of exceptional quality. Here are a few of the many that are available.