Primary Sources

A student comes up to you one day while you’re at your library’s service desk and tells you that her teacher has asked her to locate and use primary sources in her history research paper. How can we help this student find the information she needs? Let’s start out by defining a primary source. Primary sources generally:

• Refer to a first hand account or evidence of an event or topic
• Use the words of the witness or the initial recorder of an event
• Reflect the viewpoint of the observer as well
• May be used to produce a secondary source

Examples of primary sources include autobiographies, diaries, letters, memoirs, photographs, archival records, recordings, speeches, and newspaper or magazine articles written at the time a specific event took place. To see online examples of primary sources, the Library of Congress has a page of Primary Source Sets which includes documents, letters, maps, photographs, and sound recordings. One of the best all-around resources on primary sources is the American Library Association’s Using Primary Sources on the Web. Another really useful online resource for understanding how to use primary documents is Making Sense of Evidence.

Finding Primary Resources in Print

Okay, so now that we know a little about primary sources, how do we find them? Let’s start with the library catalog. We can take the subject our customer is researching and add “personal narratives” when we type it into the search box. We can also use the more general term “sources” in combination with our main subject. Many libraries have reference sources that collect various primary source documents. An example of this is the 22 volume Annals of America, which, in its most recent edition (2003), provides a selection of American historical documents from 1492 to 2001.

Finding Primary Resources Using Databases

Are there databases we can use? Well, let’s look at a couple of databases available through Sailor. Gale’s DISCovering Collection is designed for middle and high school students and our student needs primary sources on slavery. Let’s go to the DISCovering Collection’s basic search screen and type in “slavery” as our subject. Before we hit the search button, let’s click the box labeled “Primary Sources” and then search. Voila! Here are more than 25 primary source documents including the Germantown Mennonite Resolution against Slavery from 1688.

Let’s try a more specific Sailor subject database, namely History Resource Center: US. There are two methods by which we can locate primary sources. We can search for our subject using the Basic Search module and, after the results turn up, click on the tab labeled “Primary Sources.” Or, we can select the Advanced Search module. Using the dropdown menu, we select “subject” and type in “slavery.” We then proceed to the dropdown menu for document type, select “Primary Document, and then click on “search.” Now we have a list of more than 170 primary source documents on the subject of slavery.

Finding Primary Resources on the Web

Our student informs us that she also needs to locate some web sites with primary sources. Let’s start with the State Library Resource Center’s How Did They Live: Exploring Daily Life throughout History guide. The section entitled Primary Sources on the Web provides ready access to several of the most useful repositories of primary source material covering ancient, medieval, and modern history. Other valuable web resources offering primary resources include:

• American Journeys: Accounts of Early American Exploration and Settlement
• American Presidency Project – documents relating to the U.S Presidency
• Avalon Project at Yale Law School – important historical, legal, and political documents
• Core Documents of U.S. Democracy – from GPO Access
• Digital Schomburg – images and texts from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
• Making of America – Cornell University Library – primary source materials in American social history from before the Civil War through Reconstruction.
• Women Working, 1800-1930 – digitized material from Harvard University’s library and museum

Citing Primary Sources

The American Library Association’s Using Primary Sources on the Web contains information on both evaluating primary source web sites and citing web sites. The Library of Congress offers a guide for teachers on how to cite primary sources on its Citing Primary Sources page. This site offers guidance on both Chicago and MLA style.

Using primary sources allows students to use their analytical skills and knowledge of history to better comprehend historical events and personalities. If you need any assistance in locating primary sources, please feel free to contact the Enoch Pratt Free Library/ State Library Resource Center.