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HIST 600 - Historical Research

Primary Sources

Primary Sources for Historical Research

Primary sources are used by historians to get close to an historical event or person. They provided the best, closest evidence to understand history. They are sometimes difficult to identify and locate.
The following types of materials are examples of primary sources:
 
Diaries, journals, speeches, interviews, letters, memos, manuscripts and other papers that describe historical events that an individual observed or participated in.
 
Memoirs and autobiographies are often written after the events they describe.Reliability decreases with memory and time.
 
Records of organizations or governmental agencies can include minutes, reports, correspondence, vital records(births, deaths, marriagesa), permits and licenses issued, federal or state census data.
 
Published materials (books, magazine and journal articles, newspaper articles) written at the time about a particular event. While these are sometimes accounts by participants, in most cases they are written by journalists or other observers. The important thing is to distinguish between material written at the time of an event as a kind of report, and material written much later, as historical or political analysis.
 
Photographs, audio recordings and moving pictures drawings, paintings, political cartoons or video recordings,documenting what happened.
 
Artifacts of all kinds: physical objects, buildings, furniture, tools, appliances and household items, clothing, toys.
Opinion Polls may provide evidence that document the general worldview or attitude of a specific time period.
In general, select sources that were written or created closest to the time period you are researching.
 
Adapted from "Library Research Using Primary Sources." University of California, Berkeley and Finding Primary Sources for Historical Research University of North Carolina Wimington

Where To Find Primary Sources

Primary sources can be found in libraries, archives, and private collections throughout the world. Sometimes they are in paper, sometimes in microformat, and sometimes in digital format.

New! July 2015: AP makes one million minutes of historical footage available on YouTube

Worldcat is a global catalog of more than 1 billion items that contains descriptions of books, archives, manuscript collections, digital and audio-visual materials in libraries and other repositories around the world. Using Worldcat's ADVANCED SEARCH option you can limit your search by format, date, publication location, and many other parameters.

As more and more primary sources are being digitized, more finding aids and lists of collections can be found on the Internet.These websites can be used to search for primary sources:

Xavier University Digital Collections -- including the The Charles F. Heartman Manuscripts of Slavery Collection

Louisiana Digital Library -- Provides collections of images from Louisiana libraries, archives, museums and cultural institutions.

Archive Grid: Contains more than a million collection descriptions for primary materials housed in the US, UK, and Ireland.

Library of Congress American Memory Project: Provides access to the digital record of American history and creativity at the Library of Congress and many other institutions

National Archives "Getting Started with Primary Source Research"

European Library- Provides free international online access to holdings, maps, photographs, music, and digitized materials from 48 national libraries in Europe. Resources can be both digital (books, posters, maps, sound recordings, videos, etc.) and bibliographical