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 of Omni, Advanced, Subject contains searches:
Digital Collections Purchased or Leased by TMU that Include Primary Sources
Some digital collections from Adam Matthew Digital that may be useful for historical studies follow:
Some of the Alexander Street Press collections may also be useful:
- Black Thought and Culture
- British and Irish Women’s Letters and Diaries
- Oral History Online
- Smithsonian Global Sound
Historical Newspapers are listed on the bottom of the page for Journals and Articles.
- Black Studies Center This link opens in a new windowBlack 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:
A Sampling of Freely Accessible Primary Sources
Many governmental bodies, academic and public libraries, museums, and private organizations are creating digital collections. Often access is free of charge. Use a search engine to look for names of countries, provinces/states, cities, organizations, or individuals AND archives.
Africana Age: African and African Diasporan Transformations in the 20th Century (Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture/New York Public Library)[includes essays, photographs, maps and some very short videos; search function does not appear to work]
AMDOCS: Documents for the Study of American History (University of Kansas) [includes records about Vietnam from Lyndon Johnson's and Richard Nixon's presidencies in the 1960s and 1970s]
Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy (Yale Law School)
British Library, Digital Collections
Images of Colonialism (Harvard University) [over 700 images from Asia and Africa; many are digitized trade cards from the late 19th and early 20th centuries plus European newspapers]
Imperial War Museum, London. Royal Navy Photographs from the French Indochina War, Vietnam 1945-1954
Internet Modern History Sourcebook (Fordham University)
National Archives (US) - Access to Digital Databases - includes info on the Cold War, Vietnam War, diplomacy etcetera. Some documents such as telegrams can be viewed as pdfs.
National Army Museum (London) Online Collection -
The National Security Archive (George Washington University) - non-governmental library and archive of declassified U.S. documents
Prime Ministers Memorial Museum & Library (India) - (this site seems to have absorbed the former Nehru Memorial Museum & Library; digital content and galleries formerly online may no longer be available as of Aug 2024)
Pentagon Papers from the National Archives, USA (official title: Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force) commissioned by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in 1967. The papers include background reports on US involvement in the 1950s. These online documents include the full, unredacted documents that will be more complete than portions that were leaked to the media beginning in 1971.
The Vietnam Center and Archive (Texas Tech University) [includes extensive digitized resources, including oral histories and their transcripts]
See for ex. "Prospects for Defense of Indochina Against a Chinese Communist Invasion - CIA, 7 Sept 1950..."
Wilson Center Digital Archive: International History Declassified (Woodrow Wilson Center) Contents include the Cold War International History Project, Geneva Conference of 1954 to end the First Indochina war and bring peace to Vietnam and Korea, the first Indochinese War, the Algerian Revolution and the Communist Bloc, and the Vietnam War.
A Sampling of Books that Discuss the Use of Primary and Secondary Sources
Using Non-Textual Sources by Call Number: Electronic book (Access restricted to members of the TMU community)ISBN: 9781472506535Publication Date: 2015
Further Explorations into Primary Sources
Using Primary Sources on the Web -- a concise guide to finding and evaluating primary sources online written 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.
Kershner, Seth and Michael Mannheim. "A Guide to Vietnam War Resources: Government Documents, Oral Histories, Antiwar Movements." College & Research Libraries News 76, no. 9 (2015): 511-514. doi:10.5860/crln.76.9.9387.
Dye-Reeves, Amy. "The Origins of the Cold War: Deciphering Open Access Primary Sources." College & Research Libraries News 79, no. 11 (2018): 621. doi:10.5860/crln.79.11.621.