Who made this source, and for whom?

Can an advertisement tell us what workers actually earned?

Context and mechanism

Provenance is the history of a source’s creation and custody. Record creator, date, audience, purpose, medium and how you obtained it. These details do not automatically make the source true or false. They help decide which claims it can support. A recruitment advertisement is strong evidence of what an employer wanted prospective workers to believe. Its promised pay is weaker evidence of take-home earnings.

Distinguish a statement from your inference. ‘The notice offers 12 units per day’ describes the notice. ‘Every worker earned 12’ infers an employment outcome. Deductions, hours, worker categories and actual payment may change that outcome. A payroll also has limits: it may omit unpaid labor or record an amount owed rather than received.

Useful sources can be partisan, commercial or mistaken. The goal is not to discard every interested author; almost all records were made for a purpose. Instead, match each source to the question, corroborate important claims, and preserve its context. A cropped image without a date or caption requires additional verification before interpretation.

Work through the evidence

Fictional mill notice promises 12 wage units for a full day. A fictional pay slip lists gross pay 12 and lodging deduction 3, leaving 9. The notice and slip need not contradict one another: gross promised pay and net received pay measure different things. Neither shows typical weekly earnings without days worked and worker coverage.

Your investigation

Annotate each record with creator, audience, purpose and one supportable claim. Write a two-sentence museum label that separates advertised gross wages from this worker’s net payment.

Sources and their limits

Recruitment notice

Full-day wage offered: 12 units; lodging available.

Fictional employer advertisement; intended to recruit, not document net household income.

Pay slip

Gross daily pay 12; lodging deduction 3; net daily payment 9.

Fictional individual employment record; one worker and one day.

Extend and revise

High school: Use a sourcing checklist and distinguish observation from inference with labels.

AP practice: Explain why purpose or audience matters to an argument, rather than merely naming it.

Introductory college: Trace the item through a catalog record and discuss how editing or translation changes access.

Which question is your source well suited to answer, even if it is unreliable for a different question?