The document I chose was a receipt I received from the University of Delaware Bookstore on Tuesday, August 29, 2006. At about 1:30, I purchased two items. The first was a Linguistics 101 Workbook and the second was a pack of earbud headphones for my mp3 player.
This type of document, a receipt, has been around for centuries, however, the information on this particular one can show a lot about life in the 21st century. The first item that was purchased, the workbook, can serve as evidence that shows how education is thriving in our country. It was a struggle to find the workbook, which shows how college and a further education has become a more popular route taken by many people. The information from the workbook may also be used in the future to look back on this century and where education stood at a certain time. Years ago, English and the learning of certain languages was a popular option, but education has expanded more and more, and we are now studying, more specifically, the theories and roots of learing language and word structure, rather than simply teaching the language alone.
The next item I bought, the earphones, are also a great example of our thriving society. They show how technology has expanded so rapidly in the last couple decades. They even made me realize how much technology has increased in the past couple years, being that I was buying the earbuds for an mp3 player, while they were made for a more, up-to-date music device; the i-pod. Although the receipt is only a small piece of paper, there is so much behind it. A historian may not have known what I was buying the headphones for at that particular time, but by looking at the date printed on the paper, it would be easy for him or her to study today's technology.
In the near future, this receipt may be a very useful piece of information about a more recent economic debate. There is a debate going on about eliminating the penny from the monetary system. The...