What are Primary Sources?
Primary resources provide firsthand evidence of historical events. They are generally unpublished materials such as manuscripts, photographs, maps, artifacts, audio and video recordings, oral histories, postcards, and posters. In some instances, published materials can also be viewed as primary materials for the period in which they were written. In contrast, secondary materials, such as textbooks, synthesize and interpret primary materials.
Primary sources enable the researcher to get as close as possible to the truth of what actually happened during an historical event or time period. Primary sources are the evidence left behind by participants or observers. Examples of primary sources include:
- Diaries, journals, speeches, interviews, letters, memos, manuscripts and other papers
in which individuals describe events in which they were participants or observers;
- Memoirs and autobiographies;
- Records of organizations and agencies of government;
- Published materials written at the time of the event;
- Photographs, audio recordings, moving pictures, video recordings documenting what
happened;
- Artifacts of all kinds; and
- Research reports in the sciences and social sciences.
A secondary source is a work that interprets or analyzes an historical event or phenomenon. Primary sources of material can be in any form, and are a source of direct evidence that describes or documents an historical event from the perspective of someone who was there. Students should be cautioned to examine primary resources critically to determine the author's perspective. As Amanda Podany (1997) has written in the History Social Science Framework for California Public Schools, "Most primary sources reflect their author's particular point of view; this does not make them less valuable. The reader simply needs to be aware of the author's perspective and to avoid taking the source at face value." In contrast, secondary sources are those resources that analyze an event and are produced by someone who was not present when the event occurred.
