Primary Sources are documents, contextual items created during study, photographs, manuscripts, diaries, letters, autobiographies, recordings, artwork, newspapers, and/or artifacts that provide firsthand testimony or experience. They enable researchers to get as close as possible to what happened during a historical event or 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.
