Extend: Whose Questions Do These Sources Answer?

Use the maps and report in Lessons and Practice. The earlier map was issued in a magazine in 1775; its creator is unnamed in the catalog. The later map was published by Sampson, Davenport & Co. for a Boston directory in 1883. The legislative committee investigated Back Bay land disposal and payment. These source contexts help us ask about selection; they do not let us read a maker’s mind.

Perspective and evidence

Choose one map and the report. For each, explain one kind of question the source helps answer and one kind it cannot answer well. Use a detail or stated source purpose to explain your choice.

A voice still needed

Choose a question about how Back Bay changes affected people. Name a group whose own account is absent from the supplied evidence, and a kind of source you would seek. Explain what that source might add without guessing what the people felt.