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 in the TMU Library catalogue
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:
Additional, Free Sources of American Primary Sources
African-American Odyssey (Library of Congress; American Memory)
American Memory (Library of Congress)
American Presidency Project (John Woolley and Gerhard Peters at USCB)
Congressional Hearings, 85th Congress 1957/58 to Current (US Government Publishing Office)
Congressional Record v23 (1892)-v144 (1998) now available in digital format
Digital Collections (Library of Congress)
Digital Newberry (Newberry Library, Chicago)
DPLA Digital Publicl Library of America (portal)
AMDOCS: Documents for the Study of American History (University of Kansas)
Documenting the American South (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project (George Washington University)
FREE: Federal Resources for Educational Excellence [THIS MAY NO LONGER WORK]
Foreign Relations of the United States (U.S. Dept. of State. Office of the Historian)
Lesbian Herstory Archives (Brookly, NY); Herstories Audio/Visual Collections
National Archives (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration)
National Museum of American History (Smithsonian)
National Park Service (U.S. governmental organization)
The National Security Archive (George Washington University) - non-governmental library and archive of declassified U.S. documents
Presidential Libraries and Museums (portal by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration)
Primary Documents in American History (Library of Congress)
Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps (Library of Congress)
United States House of Representatives -- History, Art & Archives (includes oral history)
United States Senate -- Art & History (includes an oral history project)
The Vietnam Center and Archive (Texas Tech University)
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:
- English Historical Documents This link opens in a new window
A Sampling of Books on 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
