I can't speak on collections specifically tailored to high school level works. Off the top of my head, both the Library of Congress and the National Archives both have curated collections of documents in some form.

The National Archives are going to be in the form of their Online Exhibits - https://www.archives.gov/exhibits, it's a little bit annoying to go through because some of them are older. But exhibits are design with more of a wider-range of audiences in mind, so some of the documents within the exhibits might be a good fit for high school level analysis.

The Library of Congress' Digital Collections - https://www.loc.gov/collections/ are always interesting to go through. There is a lot though, and they get very specific, so not sure if that would be of use in your case.

Two other longer shot ideas, which would be a case by case basis would be to go to a couple major museums websites and see if they have anything similar to what the National Archives or LOC have. It'll likely be under "Education" or "Resources for Educators." Most university's libraries have research guides. You could google search "University history research guides." While those are going to be tailored to specific time-periods, they might give links to specific curated collections of primary sources.

Finally, what could be most useful is the National Archives does have their DocsTeach program. DocsTeach.org I have absolutely no experience with it in any form before, I just know of it's existence so I can't speak to how well it is. But they do have curated activities based around a specific American topic with analyzing documents - https://www.docsteach.org/activities/activities, those could prove useful.

These are tailored to US History, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are other programs similar to the LOC's Digital Collections or even DocsTeach in other countries. I'm just unsure on that specifically.

I am going to start this answer off by acknowledging that, at the end of the day, it is a very subjective answer. Unlike conversations around giant companies like Telsa, and who is responsible for its success, Disney is a media company and they're main product is art. Art made by a team of people. When that art becomes successful, it's hard to pick one person out of the entire team to point to being the reason for that success. This is a debate that gets brought up pretty consistently even today when movies win things like Best Picture and are wildly successful. Is it because of the director, the writers, the actors, or the thousands of crew members? To put it shortly, it's a team effort.

When you are talking about the beginning of the Disney Company and after the success of Snow White, the team effort statement is really what's a play. Walt Disney, for as flawed as he was (and he had lots of them), was a talented and creative person. He was an okay animator and writer. Not the best in the world, but not terrible. His talent came with the general creative vision for the products. His eye for detail in animation, his eye for story-telling, all is what basically shaped and molded the early Disney films for what they were. He was the leader and the guide for his team of animators. Does that mean he should get all the credit for the success? This is where the conversation really starts to get subjective and why in any conversation about success attribution, you need to back it up with evidence. 

None of these Disney films would have been made or had the success they did without the animators and artists involved. A lot of the success of these films falls to them and needs to be credited to them. Some of the early animators and artists have become more well-known, and Disney themselves since the late 80’s has started to recognize this with the Disney Legends Award. 

The best evidence that can point to why the credit for the success falls to the team of animators and artists is the Disney Animators’ Strike in the summer of 1941. The Screen Cartoonists Guild (SCG), an animation union, had been spreading from studio to studio, unionizing workers, fighting for animators, fair wages, etc. Disney was one of the last big studios. Their arrival, to put it simply, exploded things in the company. It was a 5-week strike which saw Walt fire striking animators, jokes and belittlement of the strikers in the movie Dumbo, the US government got involved, some people have said after it was over during WWII, when the company told the US government what workers were working on propaganda films and what worker weren’t and could be drafted, the people that he said weren’t were all strikers (this I’m a little hesitant on as it’s evidence comes largely on interviews and statements from Disney employees). The US government sent Walt Disney on a goodwill tour to South America to fight against the spread of fascism, while they mediated deals between the SCG and other company leaders.

The reason animators had gone on strike in the first place, is in part because of the success of the previous films. The in early days of the studio, many animators and artists would say how much the studio felt like a family, and that Walt was almost laid-back in style of leading. People did not have free-reign to do whatever they wanted, but he was more lenient and took the time to really connect with the animators. He allowed animators to explore new techniques, he paid for his artists to take classes, it boils down to a good work environment. The success of the movie Snow White, meant the studio had a huge influx of money and needed to expand. They moved studios from Anaheim to Burbank, tripled the animators of staff, and added a lot more amenities. With that influx of staff, it’s hard for any company to still have that “family feel.” Those new amenities like “The Penthouse Club” were things of contention among employees. You had to pay for those amenities, that directly related to raises, in which Walt Disney would give out by his own criteria after seeing someone’s work. Which can’t happen with tripling staff size.

This story of the strike is to point to what came after the strike and because of the strike. A group of former Disney animators formed United Productions of America (UPA). They are most well known for works like Mister Magoo and The Dick Tracy Show. They are also responsible for the technique called limited animation. While the company itself is now closed, and the company is not well known outside of the animation world. Characters like Mister Magoo, and techniques like limited animation cemented themselves as major influences in animation history. This was a company of former Disney animators, who without Walt Disney, and a bit in spite of Walt Disney, went on to influence how companies like Hanna Barbera animated. 

After Walt Disney’s death, the company was in a slump in terms of film success until the Disney Renaissance. That could point to Walt Disney being the major factor in the success of the company and less the animators. Walt Disney was the face of the company, he was able to promote these films, and had quickly become a mainstream American figure. The story of the founding of UPA after the Disney animators’ strike points to the Disney animators and artists themselves being just as capable as Walt Disney in the success of companies and influencing innovation. To end this off. There are arguments to be made for both sides of why the Disney company was so successful, arguments in support of Walt Disney and arguments in support of the animators and artists. It is because of both of them. To answer directly your original question, Disney was heavily involved with things and had some skills in animation, but his skills were mainly in storytelling and molding the overall product. Who has the majority claim, Walt Disney or the animators and artists, to the company’s success is subjective and can be heavily debated forever.

For more on the Disney animators’ strike and UPA, I would recommend:

• Abraham, Adam. 2012. When Magoo Flew: The Rise and Fall of Animation Studio UPA. Middleton: Wesleyan University Press.

• Sito, Tom. 2006. Drawing the Line: The Untold Story of Animation Unions from Bosko to Bart Simpson. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.

Those two books cover the Disney strikes and SCG pretty well, and Abraham’s book is very interesting in terms of the story of UPA. I would also recommend two of Don Peri’s books which I listed below. Those are a collection of interviews, some of which are from people who worked at Disney during the strike. Interviews are tedious things to work with in terms of evidence, but they are interesting.

• Peri, Don. 2008. Working with Walt: Interviews with Disney Artists. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
• Peri, Don. 2011. Working with Disney: Interviews with Animators, Producers, and Artists. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.

Archives are going to be your main source for the topics. Without knowing specifically what topics you are looking for is going to be tough to give curated suggestions on where to look so these are just general places.

My first tip is to identify the location and scope. If you are looking at speeches by a President or the US during WWII, I would start with looking at the government's archives. There is the National Archives at archives.gov, the Library of Congress at loc.gov, and the Smithsonian at si.edu, all may be helpful. If you are looking for those kind of topics but on a state-government level, many states will have their own version. I would look up "[STATE] archives" or "[STATE] Historical Society." Keep in mind that the stuff in the archives don't have to be directly related to the government, they also have items in their collection related to culture as well. So don't not look there just because your topic isn't directly government related.

When it gets into more specific locations and more narrowed in scope, it gets harder to find. Worldcat.org could be helpful here. That searches thousands of library catalogs for whatever search term you put in. The immediate search results will bring up everything, but you can go and filter by just archival materials (if there are archival materials for that search term). I like using ArchiveGrid at researchworks.oclc.org/archivegrid/, it does basically the same thing as Worldcat, I believe many of the entries there are from WorldCat records. It catalogs around 1,500 different institutions' finding aids and allows you to search through that. I personally like it better than WorldCat, but it's largely the same data.

Newspapers are also a great primary source. The two big sites that digitize historical newspapers are Newspaperarchive.com and Newspapers.com, of the two of those, I find Newspapers.com to be the better option. I find the website UI is a lot easier to understand, and you get more research results based on how the website searches. I do have to give props to NewspaperArchive though, I think the shaped clipping tool on their site versus the rectangle on Newspapers. However, there are some newspapers that are only on either-or. It could be beneficial to look at both. Just keep in mind, both are very costly. You should still be able to search without an account but you wont be able to few specific papers.

If you are looking for local town history, look for local historical societies. They might not have their collections and finding aid listed online, but they could be a place you can contact and ask if they have anything. Local libraries might also have somethings on their website on local historical research or genealogy resources. If you are looking for local government stuff, depending on how recent things are, you could look and see if meeting minutes from City Council or City Planning commission are digitized. In my experience, most won't digitize their minutes from decades prior, just since they stated doing it. I've found that it's generally around early 2000s if you are lucky. But it could help depending on the time of your topic.

My last step that I always do, just to see what pops up, is just a simple Google search that looks like: "[topic]" AND "archive". This doesn't always work, but I have found some success, but I would say, for me, it's a 30%ish success rate.

To end this off, the one thing I would remember is that things might not be digitized. You might find that a certain archive has materials you really want to see and could be useful, but it's 14 hours away. Some archives will digitize things for a fee, some won't. Generally, it depends on the items themselves. Some items might be limited to who can look at it to begin with.

I can not speak for resources on international and global topics. So someone else can probably give you a better run down with finding international resources.

I wish you luck in searching!

I was thinking about it more since I posted the initial comment. (I made a separate comment thread just to keep the guide and recommendations separate). If you are interested in more scholarly and academic books and articles on Disney as opposed to popular books and articles (a couple of the books in my original comment might not be admittedly) I have some tips on how to search for them.

Academic and scholarly articles are going to be a little bit of a pain to actually read. You can find them easily with sites like Jstor.org; that is always my first go to. EBSCO is another option, but I just don't like the UI of the website, I think JSTOR is better but I digress. These sites will tell you whether the journal is scholarly and peer-reviewed. Google Scholar is an ok option, but it gets a lot of hits of non-scholarly work (which isn't necessarily bad, popular works can be very good, but I digress as the conversation between popular vs scholarly works is a whole other beast).

To get access to the articles is going to be difficult. This is where worldcat.org can be helpful. It will show you what libraries have access to the item. This doesn't necessarily mean you will be able to access it. The listings are a lot of times going to be listed due to them having digital access to it. Generally, that means you need to be a student or faculty to be able to see it. This does not mean you are totally out of luck. If you look on their catalog page it should tell you whether they have a bound copy of the journal it's apart of. Libraries don't loan these out, however, you might be able to go read it in person. That varies from library to library and sometimes specific journals. It never hurts to ask.

Another option is seeing if your local library partakes in Inter-Library Loan (ILL). This can be a hit or miss for articles. Sometimes you can get a scan of it, sometimes not. I personally have had to use ILL more for getting copies of dissertations and Master theses. Essentially, if your library or library system does not have it, they can send the request out to see if other libraries have a copy and can either send a physical or digital copy of it.

And if worse comes to worse, you might be able to reach out to the article author and if they can, they might send you a copy, or if they can't they might be willing to have a conversation about the topic. Don't take this as a first-step though. The vast majority of authors are going to be professors or working other job. A cold email is not going to be high on their priority list of things to get around to. So be kind and courteous and don't take it to heart if they don't respond or simply respond with a no.

For books, identifying if they are scholarly/academic publications is pretty simple. University Presses, you're good to go. You can also just google the publisher + "academic press?" and it should tell you. In my experience local libraries don't always have a good selection of academic press books. I think it's due to them being a bit more expensive and being for niche in topic. With this said. JSTOR and the other sites I mentioned above an be useful for finding them. If you're library does not have it, ILL is an option. Another option is see if the university closest to you has a community borrowers card, or community borrowers program. If they do, it'll be named something like that. What you can check out is generally going to be more limited and more restricted with loan periods, but they are more likely to have a wider selection of academic and scholarly books.

I wish you luck. Any other questions, feel free to ask or if I could be helpful in pushing in the direction of/helping find more works on specific topics!

OP, I am back with more books that I had read at some point. These wont be tailored or organized but are ones that I had found notes on and such so here they are.

- Nicholas, Sammond. Babes in Tomorrowland: Walt Disney and the Making of the American Child, 1930-1960. Duke University Press, 2005.

- Eric Loren Smoodin, ed. Disney Discourse: Producing the Magic Kingdom. Routledge, 1994.

- Douglas Brode. From Walt to Woodstock: How Disney Created the Counterculture. University of Texas Press, 2004.

- Lescher, Mary. The Disney Animation Renaissance: Behind the Glass at the Florida Studio. University of Illinois Press, 2023.

- Telotte, J. P. The Mouse Machine: Disney and Technology. University of Illinois Press, 2008.

Here are some that I've used over the years for course papers, presentations, symposiums, etc. I've organized them by topic (mainly by topic of the paper instead of discipline). Included are both journals and books. The sources for the Disney Animators' Strike includes some books that talk about animation unions, and other related topics during that time period.

Club Disney -This is a little pat on my own back for this one, but I did a symposium presentation on Club Disney and the Privatization of Recreation. None of the scholarly source I used for that project were about Club Disney or Disney in general, that aspect of the poster and project was primary source research. But I included a link to that poster and a link to the Bibliography and Further Reading (which is the QR code on the poster). The books on the history of recreation are very interesting however. Not all the research and sources I have found on Club Disney are on there (most are) but afterwards, I've found a couple more photos and links to other documents, I'm just a little hesitant to share those specifically because those are found on company portfolios and LinkedIn pages.

Poster Link - http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1793/85245

Bibliography and Further Reading - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1v0qR2KLWs8TywskMvKDHBlE1FS94Dbxe/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=101512898295545506874&rtpof=true&sd=true

Disney Store (and some Disney Regional Entertainment) - This one I had a lot more sources that are based around business, marketing, shopping malls, etc, that I used because they mentioned Disney at some point, but Disney was not the focus. I did not include those but I can list those if wanted. I broke that rule for some if the idea of Disney is really prevalent, like for sources on themed attractions. The VR and computer ones by title may not seem relevant; those were used during some research on DisneyQuest.

Bryman, Alan. 2004. The Disneyization of Society. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

Bryman, Alan. (1995) 2005. Disney and His Worlds. Routledge.

Fjellman, Stephen. 1992. Vinyl Leaves: Walt Disney World and America. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Flower, Joe. 1991. Prince of the Magic Kingdom: Michael Eisner and the Re-Making of Disney. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Giroux, Henry A., and Grace Pollock. 2010. The Mouse That Roared: Disney and the End of Innocence. Lanham, MD: Roman & Littlefield.

Harrington, Seán. 2014. The Disney Fetish. Herts, United Kingdom: John Libbey.

Jelinski, Jessica. 2012. “Popularity of Virtual Reality Immersion in Theme Park Attractions of North America.” Undergraduate Dissertation, Bachelor’s Thesis. https://aquila.usm.edu/honors_theses/183.

Kokai, Jennifer A., and Tom Robson, eds. 2019. Performance and the Disney Theme Park Experience. Palgrave Macmillan.

Kozinets, Robert, John Sherry, Benet DeBerry-Spence, Adam Duhachek, Krittinee Nuttavuthisit, and Diana Storm. 2002. “Themed Flagship Brand Stores in the New Millennium: Theory, Practice, Prospects.” Journal of Retailing 78 (1): 17–29. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0022-4359(01)00063-x.

Mine, Mark. 2003. “Towards Virtual Reality for the Masses: 10 Years of Research at Disney’s vr Studio.” In EGVE ’03: Proceedings of the Workshop on Virtual Environments 2003. New York: Association for Computing Machinery. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/769953.769955.

Mlintz, Lawrence. 1998. “Simulated Tourism at Busch Gardens: The Old Country and Disney’s World Showcase, Epcot Center.” The Journal of Popular Culture 32 (3): 47–58. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0022-3840.1998.3203_47.x.

Pallant, Chris. 2011. Demystifying Disney: A History of Disney Feature Animation. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group.

Papoi, Domokos. 2016. “Automatic Speed Control for Navigation in 3D Virtual Environment.” MSc Thesis, York University. http://hdl.handle.net/10315/32670.

Paucsh, Randy, Jon Snoddy, Robert Taylor, Scott Watson, and Eric Haseltine. 1996. “Disney’s Aladdin: First Steps toward Storytelling in Virtual Reality.” In Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, 193–203.

Rukstad, Michael, David Collins, and Tyrrell Levine. 2001. “The Walt Disney Company: The Entertainment King.” Harvard Business School Cases, no. 701-035 (March): 1–27. https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=27931.

Sehell, Jesse, and Joe Shochet. 2001. “Designing Interactive Theme Park Rides.” IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications 21 (4): 11–13. https://doi.org/10.1109/38.933519.

Self, Rebecca. 1999. “Mickey and Minnie Aren’t Married? Disney, Family Values, and Corporate America.” PhD Dissertatoin, University of Colorado.

Sherry, John, Robert Kozinets, Adam Duhachek, Benét DeBerry-Spence, Krittinee Nuttavuthisit, and Diana Storm. 2004. “Gendered Behavior in a Male Preserve: Role Playing at ESPN Zone Chicago.” Journal of Consumer Psychology 14 (1-2): 151–58. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327663jcp1401&2_17.

Sherry, John, Robert Kozinets, Diana Storm, Adam Duhachek, Krittinee Nittavuthisit, and Benet DeBerry-Spence. 2001. “Being in the Zone: Staging Retail Theater at ESPN Zone Chicago.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 30 (4): 465–510. https://doi.org/10.1177/089124101030004005.

Strickon, Joshua. 2002. “Smoke and Mirrors to Modem Computers: Rethinking the Design and Implementation of Interactive, Location-Based Entertainment Experiences.” PhD Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/88355.

Wasko, Janet, Mark Phillips, and Eileen Meehan, eds. 2001. Dazzled by Disney?: The Global Audiences Project. Leicester University Press.

Song of the South

Bernstein, Matthew. 1996. “Nostalgia, Ambivalence, Irony: ‘Song of the South’ and Race Relations in 1946 Atlanta.” Film History 8 (2): 219–36. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3815336.

Inge, Thomas. 2012. “Walt Disney’s Song of the South and the Politics of Animation.” The Journal of American Culture 35 (3): 219–30. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1542-734x.2012.00809.x.

Mauro, Jason Isaac. 1997. “Disney’s Splash Mountain: Death Anxiety, the Tar Baby, and Rituals of Violence.” Children’s Literature Association Quarterly 22 (3): 113–17. https://doi.org/10.1353/chq.0.1208. Sperb, Jason. 2005.

“‘Take a Frown, Turn It Upside Down’: Splash Mountain, Walt Disney World, and the Cultural De-Rac[E]-Ination of Disney’s Song of the South (1946).” The Journal of Popular Culture 38 (5): 924–38. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0022-3840.2005.00148.x.

Sperb, Jason. 2010. “Reassuring Convergence: Online Fandom, Race, and Disney’s Notorious Song of the South.” Cinema Journal 49 (4): 25–45. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40801480.

Sperb, Jason. 2012. Disney’s Most Notorious Film : Race, Convergence, and the Hidden Histories of Song of the South. Austin: University Of Texas Press.

Terry, Esther J. 2010. “Rural as Racialized Plantation vs Rural as Modern Reconnection: Blackness and Agency in Disney’s Song of the South and the Princess and the Frog.” Journal of African American Studies 14 (4): 469–81. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12111-010-9132-3.

Disney Animators' Strike

Abraham, Adam. 2012. When Magoo Flew: The Rise and Fall of Animation Studio UPA. Middleton: Wesleyan University Press.

Holt, Nathalia. 2019. The Queens of Animation: The Untold Story of the Women Who Transformed the World of Disney and Made Cinematic History. New York: Little, Brown and Company.

Peri, Don. 2008. Working with Walt: Interviews with Disney Artists. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.

Peri, Don. 2011. Working with Disney: Interviews with Animators, Producers, and Artists. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.

Sito, Tom. 2006. Drawing the Line: The Untold Story of Animation Unions from Bosko to Bart Simpson. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.

Watts, Steven. 1995. “Walt Disney: Art and Politics in the American Century.” The Journal of American History 82 (1): 84–110. https://doi.org/10.2307/2081916.

Could it possible be this¹ (list of links below as well) gargoyle at the Batalha Monastery? This image is from a website ran by a Doctor of Art History who specializes in gargoyles. The URL for that image pages has the categorized under "gesturality-in-images-of-gargoyles-expressive-force-in-art". This is the same link for the first part of a two different posts on her site about "Gesturality in Gargoyles." First Part.² Second Part.³ The image itself does not appear on those two posts though.

The first part is probably going to be the most useful for you in terms on understanding what it means. I'm not going to pretend I know anything about gargoyles and symbolism. However, as the post goes into what pulling at the mouth could symbolize.

I poked around a couple different pages of the site and looked and found two more pages the gargoyle appears. However, it does not go into detail about it's symbolism. One is just using the photo in a basic overview of "Gargoyles in the History of Art."⁴ The other page uses it as an example of gargoyles being extremely detailed.⁵

Other pages on the site might be helpful to learn more about the imagery in general.

1 - https://doloresherrero.com/en/gesturality-in-images-of-gargoyles-expressive-force-in-art/gargola-del-monasterio-de-batalha-portugal-1/

2 - https://doloresherrero.com/en/gesturality-in-images-of-gargoyles-expressive-force-in-art/

3 - https://doloresherrero.com/en/gesturality-in-images-of-gargoyles-plasticity-in-art/

4 - https://doloresherrero.com/en/english-gargoyles-in-the-history-of-art/

5 - https://doloresherrero.com/en/the-enchanting-magical-imagery-of-the-gargoyles-at-the-monastery-of-san-martin-pinario-in-santiago-de-compostela/

In your original question you have already identified one thing you can do with it: writing. A history minor is going to improve your writing skills. It will teach you how to be a better writer. This happens with the technical side of your writing like grammar and sentence structure and with more exposition side of your writing with making people want to read it. In short, it will teach you how to make a statement and how to back that statement up. At the end of the day, you could have very good and sound arguments, but if you can't state them well with good writing, it's not going to mean much. That is applicable beyond history and into everyday life.

Studying history also teaches you research skills and analysis skills. You will read and research a lot more than you write in any history course or assignment you do. Not to sound like a broken record, but the research and analysis skills spill over into everyday life. It shows you can find sources, you can break them down and analyze them, both in their larger contexts and their specifics. That is going to be helpful in everyday as well. Whether it is reading a history book, or doing research in another field, knowing those skills are going to put you ahead of the curve for jobs.

The study of history is studying people. All of the humanities and social science are. With that said, when doing history, you are going to become more understanding. Understanding why people do what they did, why things are the way they are today. History is also a field that generates a lot of discussion not only with peers, but with the public as well. In the end, it is going to help you understand people and that in turn will make you more empathetic.

As per your credible author statement. That's a whole big can of worms that is very subjective. Who is considered credible is going to vary from person to person. That's not to understate the importance of credibility, you should still be doing your best to identify whether the author of any text is credible (which goes back to the researching skills). The point is, some people will draw the line of credibility at needing to be a books published by a university press and the author needs to have a PhD in the topic they are writing about. Some people make their own requirements more broader. In the end, it's all about analyzing who the author is, what their background is, what else have they done. Credibility is built up over time, it helps to have that academic background as a stepping stone, but that is not the be-all, end-all. Maybe you mix your two interests and write a book on the History of Engineering in the state of Illinois (I don't know anything about engineering). In that case, the engineering degree would help with credibility as well.

Getting into what you can do with it. Beyond very broadly showing those writing and research skills. There is some things you can do that involve history still, it may not make money, but it will still be something to continue your interests. Historical societies nearly 99% of the time always need volunteers to help in their archives, with their programming, etc. This, being a part of this subreddit's community, is something you could do. This community, brings in a lot of people when answering questions. Many have that academic background in history, many don't. There are ways to engage and still use that history minor. Engineering and architecture both heavily connected with each other, you might find an interest in architectural history, firms hire architectural historians for projects.

The best thing is to take it one step at a time for the moment. Talk with some of the history faculty at the school you go to, talk to your advisor. The skills you will learn from the minor at the end of the day, will benefit you regardless of if you are doing specifical historical work or not.

You likely won't find any videos or images of the buildings being barren or empty from that time. Staff likely wasn't going to take pictures of it and post it online. Lay offs are not a popular thing Disney isn't going to let photographers or news reporters in to see empty buildings. That's bad PR. That then extends to not wanting staff to take those photos or videos as well.

Coming from a public history standpoint, you talk about wanting to show empty offices and few people, but is that truly the reality? I honestly don't know the specifics. I bring it up as to ask whether that is representative of the reality. You could very well find stock footage and such of empty office buildings in general. However, if empty offices weren't the reality, is that overstating the events? You don't want to be inaccurate or overstate the facts of the events.

Whether a document is of value isn't necessarily dependent solely on age. They can very well come into the conversation but it's just one of many factors. The most important is what can be learned from it and can it be useful for any one in the future doing research. That last bit is hard to determine. You don't know if it could be useful in the future because you don't know what people are going to be researching. That in turn gets into a tricky situation of where the line gets drawn. It essentially comes down to whether that document can add anything new.

Starting with your list of items:

The bank transaction receipts are probably not going to be useful in the future. You need to question what information can be gleaned from them? The people making the transactions and the reason for the transaction could be there. However, are those transactions a significant event? It could be a significant event for the local history. More likely than not however, it's a standard bank transaction. You could use it as a window into economic history generally however there are thousands of more documents available that could do that. The bills are likely in the same place as the bank receipts. They can be used as a window into the economic history of the town/county/state/country, however, that data could very well be out there already. It could be very useful for a town's economic history as opposed to a state's economic history.

The birth certificates, marriages, and social security items are probably not going to old an value. That's not to say the information itself isn't valuable. The information is very good for genealogical research. The issue comes in whether the abundance of that information. Those documents and the information provided in them are in multiple different places. Individual counties and states hold records. There are tons of genealogy databases and sites out there like Ancestry. The information is already out there. Having the original documents are great and adds something more than just looking at a computer screen. However, if the information is widely accessible in a digital format, the originals probably don't mean much outside of the family. I personally would keep them myself in case my family in the future wants to do genealogical research, but that's mostly because I know from the past that databases like Ancestry are expensive, and I can save my descendants a few bucks.

The newspaper clippings are in a similar situation as the genealogical documents. Historical societies at the state, county, and local levels usually have bounded copies of local newspapers or newspapers on microfilm. Furthermore, the newspapers could very well be digitized and searchable on sites like Newspapers.com and NewspaperArchive.com. It comes down to the question of, is there a need for an archive to have a dozen copies of the same article? Some archives will have a couple copies of the same article. I've been to a couple that will clip articles and have one copy in a biographical file, one in a subject file, and then have bounded copies and microfilm copies. The military documents come down to what they are specifically. They could be very well fall in line with the other genealogical documents. Those types of records could very well be out there already. However, a local historical society might like to have it in their collection if it's about someone who lived in the town. The letter could be useful to for a local historical society to show daily life during wartime. Those documents (not to sound like a broken record) are really going to be dependent on what information can be drawn from them and how they could be used.

As per your question of what you can do with them. See if the local historical society would like them. Don't take newspapers that are from a town on the other side of the country to your local historical society. They won't want them. Go through them and see if the documents are connected and relevant to the town/county. Did the people in the genealogical and military records live in the town? Are the newspapers from the town. Do a little bit of that sorting before taking asking. You want to know who to ask. Some very well might say no. Some historical societies might take everything that everyone gives them regardless of whether it is related to the town and just keep it on a shelf. Some might take them all and then go through them at a later date of whether it's something they will keep or get rid of. Many will say "let's look at them and see what there is." Historical societies and archives are generally the most likely organization to go to. There could be a different local group or organization that could but that's dependent on the place.

Without seeing the document and being a representative of the local historical society or organization, nobody here can really give specifics on the documents and whether they hold value. The best thing to do is just ask. If you do a little bit of that organizing before hand, they will probably appreciate it as it would be a break from other people going to them and saying "I found this really old and cool sign from Texas at a antique store. Would you, the historical society in a town in Montana, want it?"

The historical value of something is fluid. It might not be of value to one historical society because it's not relevant to the town, but it could be for another. It might not be of value to one researcher, but it could be the document that ties another's work all together. It comes down to how can it be used.

I personally try to stay away from larger scope books. I initially stayed away from them unless it's a topic that I am getting into for the first time and have zero inkling on the topic. In that case I would read a larger to get a general understanding then go into books with more narrow topics.

However, I stopped doing that. It's mostly because the things that I am reading are in similar or the same in terms of topics. I also find that a majority, if not a vast majority of the narrower topics, do really well in contextualizing. It very well could just feel that way because I have the previous knowledge.

All that to say: read a book with a wider scope if it will help you with background knowledge. But, be aware of the natural flaws with having a wider scope, and don't just stop at the wider scope books. Read more on the topic. But, also don't be afraid to pick up a more narrowed book if you haven't read a lot of general background.

It takes time to get a full picture of things. That doesn't happen with reading only a wider scoped book or a couple narrower scope books. It takes reading a lot, and reading things multiple times.

EDIT: Spelling

Personally, it helps a lot if you are doing something with the knowledge. Even if it's not something you are putting out for the public. I personally will write a short couple of paragraphs for every chapter/every couple of chapters about what I found interesting, general thoughts, other connections, and just a list of relevant keywords. I found that it helps me remember more. I find myself going back to notes on books if I am researching something to see if I wrote down any keywords or information that could lead me back to the book as being useful for the current research project.

Just the physical act of writing things down and taking notes is helpful regardless of whether you use it for a research project or something of the like.

The most important thing that I've come to terms with is that you will not remember everything. Regardless of whether you are reading the book for fun, for research, etc. You won't remember every detail that's in it. It's honestly why I come back to books multiple different times to re-read them both for fun and for research purposes.

EDIT: Spelling/Grammar

I would initially look in the LOC's Free to Use and Reuse items - https://www.loc.gov/free-to-use/

The Smithsonian also has Smithsonian Open Access, which is their page for CC0 items. It includes both images, 3D assets, etc - https://www.si.edu/openaccess

Without known what type of images/the topic you are looking for, it's hard to say what is the cheapest or easiest. It's largely going to be dependent on the individual image itself. The LOC's Free to Use and Reuse and Smithsonian Open Access are great starting points (I personally would still double check the images).

Copyright is complicated, I am by no means an expert in it, which is why there are large law firms around the country that deal in it, just going based on with the LOC and Smithsonian say about these two collections on their respective sites.

I'm going to go off on somewhat of a limb here based on my experience doing research in the past that had crossed paths a little with the music in the parks and say, there is likely not going to be in any type of online archive like The Internet Archive. It's just way too recent and any other place online that has it is simply getting into piracy. Tokyo Disneyland's 40th was only 1-2 years ago. To be short, I'm sure Disney works to get any reuploads taken down, especially for releases like this where it's not someone recording the audio in a corner of the park (which is typically my experience when finding music online of older attractions) and not high quality like you mentioned it being in your post.

Looking at online prices for the boxset, it is super expensive but I would keep watching, maybe you'd get lucky. Or perhaps someone is selling the discs individually which could happen. It is a little surprising to me that Disney didn't realize a digital version as it seems like it'd be a good money maker.

As u/jezreelite pointed out in their reply, Renaissance Fairs and you can throw in Medieval Times as well. Those are really the only two amusement park aligned places that come to my mind. As jezreelite pointed out, the authenticity varies. If you look at history-based amusement parks in the past that have now closed/attempted/taken into a different direction, authenticity and accuracy always came into the discussion.

Beyond those two ideas. I would look up living history museums in your area. Those typically have costumed staff portraying people from that time period. There are discussions around authenticity and accuracy with living museums as well.

Edit: Grammar