Primary Sources are documents, contextual items created at the time of study, photographs, manuscripts, diaries, letters, autobiography, recording, artwork, newspapers, and/or artifacts which provide firsthand testimony or experience. Primary sources enable researchers to get as close as possible to what actually happened during an historical event or time period. To touch the past.
Examples can include:
- archives and manuscript material
- photographs, audio recordings, video recordings, films
- journals, letters and diaries
- speeches
- scrapbooks
- maps
- published books, newspapers and magazine clippings published at the time
- government publications
- oral histories
- records of organizations
- autobiographies and memoirs
- printed ephemera
- original artwork
- artifacts, i.e. clothing, ships, instruments, tools, china, household items, furniture
- research data, i.e. public opinion polls
Check out the below websites to connect with history.
