Primary and Secondary Sources
Primary Sources
For certain assignments you might be asked to use primary sources. Primary sources are works created at the time of an event, or by a person who directly experienced an event.
It is the content that matters and an on-line source can still be a primary source. For example, an online copy of a newspaper from May 8, 1945, is still a primary source even though the original article has been digitized.
Primary sources can include:
- Interviews, diaries, letters, journals, speeches, autobiographies, and witness statements
- Original hand-written manuscripts
- Government documents and public records
- Art, photographs, films, maps, fiction, and music
- Newspaper and magazine clippings
- Artifacts, buildings, furniture, and clothing
Secondary Sources
Secondary sources are works that are written after the original event or experience; they provide criticism or interpretation of the event or experience.
Some examples of secondary sources are:
- Textbooks
- Biographies
- Historical films, music, and art
- Articles about people and events from the past
Primary vs Secondary Video
Finding Primary Sources
To find primary sources try using Omni, Advanced Search, Subject contains ...
Use keywords for your topic or historic person along with one of the following words:
- archives
- charters
- correspondence
- diaries
- documents
- interviews
- letters
- manuscripts
- notebooks
- oratory
- pamphlets
- personal narratives
- pictorial works
- sources [this term is often used for collections of primary sources]
- speeches
Examples:
- canada history sources [Omni, Advanced, Subject contains ...]
- quebec province pictorial works [Omni, Advanced, Subject contains ...]
- soldiers canada correspondence [Omni, Advanced, Subject contains ...]
- speeches addresses etc canadian [Omni, Browse, Library of Congress subject heading]
- women canada diaries [Omni, Browse, Library of Congress subject heading]
- women canada diaries [Omni, Advanced, Subject contains ...]
- canada history to 1763 (new france) sources [Omni, Browse, Library of Congress subject heading]
Additional, Free Sources of Canadian Primary Sources
Digital Collections Purchased or Leased by TMU that Include Primary Sources
Some digital collections from Adam Matthew Digital that may be useful for American historical studies follow:
- Defining Gender, 1450-1910
- Eighteenth Century Journals I & II
- Empire Online
- Frontier Life
- Slavery, Abolition, Social Justice
Some of the Alexander Street Press collections may also be useful:
- Black Studies Center This link opens in a new window
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Black Studies Center brings together essential historical and current material for researching the past, present and future of African Americans, the wider African Diaspora, and Africa itself. It is comprised of several cross-searchable, component databases, which include: - English Historical Documents This link opens in a new windowEnglish Historical Documents Online contains over 5,500 indexed and fully searchable primary documents from 500 to 1914. This includes American Colonial Documents, which was previously out of print. The online version of the standard series of primary source documents in British history, conceived in wartime and with volumes published since 1953, can also be found here.Sources include government and cabinet proceedings, military dispatches, newspaper articles, pamphlets, personal and official letters and diaries. It covers political and constitutional topics and social, economic, religious and cultural history.
A Sampling of Books Collecting Primary Sources
Further Explorations into Primary Sources
Primary Sources on the Web: Finding, Evaluating, Using -- a concise guide to finding and evaluating primary sources online created in 2015 by a sub-committee of the Instructional and Research Services Committee of the Reference and User Services History Section in the American Library Association.
