A primary source is an item that was created during the period being studied and documents in some way what is being studied.
Examples of primary sources include:
- Newspaper accounts
- Letters, Diaries, and Scrapbooks
- Government documents (research data, statistics, congressional transcripts, laws)
- Personal accounts, Autobiographies, Memoirs
- Images and Museum Artifacts
- Speeches
- Data from scientific experiments
- Oral histories
If you are looking for historical primary sources, here are two strategies:
- Search in Library Databases and Research Guides:
- Search the Quick Search box If you are looking for primary sources on a certain topic, or click on the More search options link.
- Clicking on More search options will bring you to a page with extended checkbox filters. Look for the Content Type Filter group heading. Recommended filters for finding primary sources are: Archival Material, Manuscript, or Personal Narrative.
For example, you could search for medieval as a keyword and sources OR documents OR personal narratives as keywords.
- To find any kind of primary source - Sources OR documents (medieval sources, Civil War documents, papal sources);
- Personal accounts, autobiographies, or memoirs - Personal narratives OR Autobiography OR memoir (Pearl Harbor personal narratives, Battle of the Bulge memoir, autobiography World War II);
- Letters - Correspondence OR letters (Civil War correspondence, French Revolution letters);
- Diaries - Diary (Civil War diary, woman diary France);
- Oral history - Interview OR oral history OR speeches (Cold War interview, Japanese internment oral history, Malcolm X speeches);
- Pamphlet - Pamphlet (pamphlet chastity, rights of women pamphlet);
- Photographs or artwork - Pictorial works (Chicago pictorial works, World's Fair pictorial works).
