Primary sources are documents, images or artifacts that provide firsthand testimony or direct evidence concerning an historical topic under research investigation. Primary sources are original documents created or experienced contemporaneously with the event being researched. Primary sources enable researchers to get as close as possible to what actually happened during an historical event or time period. A secondary source is a work that interprets or analyzes an historical event or period after the event has occurred and, generally speaking, with the use of primary sources. The same document, or other piece of evidence, may be a primary source in one investigation and secondary in another. The search for primary sources does not, therefore, automatically include or exclude any format of research materials or type of records, documents, or publications.
As an example, a diary from an immigrant from Vietnam to the United States documenting her travel experiences from Vietnam to Orange County would be considered a primary source for research on Vietnamese immigration to Orange County. However, a book written by a professor that analyzes the various writings of Vietnam immigrants and interprets the experience of those immigrants is a secondary source for this research.
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Texts of laws and other original documents.
Newspaper reports, by reporters who witnessed an event or who quote people who did.
Speeches, diaries, letters and interviews - what the people involved said or wrote.
Original research.
Datasets, survey data, such as census or economic statistics.
Photographs, video, or audio that capture an event.
Primary sources were either created during the time period being studied or were created at a later date by a participant in the events being studied (as in the case of memoirs). They reflect the individual viewpoint of a participant or observer. Primary sources enable the researcher to get as close as possible to what actually happened during an historical event or time period
A secondary source is a work that interprets or analyzes an historical event or phenomenon. It is generally at least one step removed from the event is often based on primary sources. Examples include: scholarly or popular books and articles, reference books, and textbooks.
What is a Primary Source?
Primary sources are the historical documents used by historians as evidence. Examples of primary sources include diaries, personal journals, government records, court records, property records, newspaper articles, military reports, military rosters, and many other things.
In contrast, a secondary source is the typical history book which may discuss a person, event or other historical topic. A good secondary source uses primary sources as evidence.
The key to determining whether an item may be considered to be a primary source is to ask how soon after the event was the information recorded. This can be a problem with an autobiography, memoir, reminiscence, etc. if the author is working several years with only the memory of what happened. Your history professor will disallow most or all of these as primary sources.
Using Primary Sources on the Web This guide provides an overview of what primary sources are with examples. Information about finding, using, evaluating and citing them is also included. Site developed by the American Library Association.
Historians use the term “primary source” to describe a piece of historical evidence such as an artifact, photograph, newspaper article, book, or letter originally created during the era you are researching. Abraham Lincoln’s is a primary source, as are the uniforms Union and Confederate soldiers wore while listening to him speak on November 19, 1863. Portraits made of Lincoln while he was in the White House are examples of visual primary sources. Historical participants also create primary sources after a historical event or period takes place in the form of memoirs such as Civil Rights activist Anne Moody’s autobiography, Coming of Age in Mississippi. Primary sources are first-hand accounts from history.
Primary sources are valuable to historians because they give insight into the ways in which historical figures understood or internalized what they experienced, their place or significance in history, and give historians an understanding of historical figures’ opinions. Primary sources created by institutions, such as a census or survey, can help document basic statistics concerning an era. Primary sources are clues from the past.
Primary sources can be resultant from an historical subject writing for private use, such as the diary of Martha Ballard, a midwife from Hallowell, Maine, who kept a journal from 1785 to 1812. Historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich analyzed Ballard’s private diary in the early 1990s and made crucial arguments about the daily private lives of women in the Early Republic, earning Ulrich the Pulitzer Prize for History. Other primary sources result from the intent to publish, such as Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which actively tried to reach a large audience to garner support for abolitionism. Primary sources can also be published as transcriptions of other primary sources, such as a collection of the speeches given by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Primary sources in different media from the same historical event can be used in conjunction. For example, if a student was writing about the John F. Kennedy assassination, she could compare newspaper articles and coverage from different cities across the country to determine a sequence of events while showing the diversity of opinion on the assassination in 1963. She could analyze footage filmed during the parade route in Dallas, along with Walter Cronkite’s television broadcast during the announcement of the President’s death to portray how one recognizable American visually experienced the news. This same television footage could also be used to discuss how American’s consumption of new forms of technology changed the way they received news about the Kennedy’s death compared to Americans who relied on newspapers and radio. The student could read the Warren Commission, condolence letters sent to Jacqueline Kennedy, or listen to oral histories from everyday Americans in order to create the fullest account of what took place and the ways in which Kennedy and his death was historically significant.
A Selection of Primary Source Examples
• Books • Newspapers, Magazines, and Newsletter articles • Diaries • Courtroom testimonies, verdicts, legal documents • Songs, records, sheet music, concert footage • Interviews and oral histories • Treaties • Clothing, household items, textiles • Speeches • Photographs, posters, cartoons, novels, trade cards, advertisements, sketches, blueprints • Films and television shows • Radio broadcasts • Polls, the census, public works surveys• Memoirs and autobiographies
Randall Library also contains some unpublished materials in its archives and special collections departments. These are primary source materials that are often one-of-a-kind or rare. The University Archives collects materials on the history of UNCW, and Special Collections focuses on the history of Southeastern North Carolina, but both of these collections have significance beyond just our university or our region. For example, if you are researching the civil rights movement, you might use University Archives to investigate how college students in the South responded to this movement.
To find these collections, you can use the search box on the Archives and Special Collections webpage, but definitely also contact the University Archives or Special Collections staff. They know best what's in the collections and can tell you if anything they have is relevant to your research.