Skip to Main Content
Primary Sources
Primary Sources are:
- Documentation for history as it is being made.
- Information in its original form at the time the event occurred or well after the events in the form of memoirs and oral histories.
- Material that has not been published anywhere else or put into a context, interpreted, filtered, condensed, or evaluated by anyone else.
- An account by an eyewitness or the first recorder of an event, in written or other form. Examples include:
- Diaries
- Letters
- Manuscripts
- Autobiographies
- Journals
- Memoirs
- Interviews
- Minutes of meetings
- News footage
- Newspaper articles written at the time of the event
- Professor's lecture
- Original documents such as birth certificates or a trial transcript
- Dissertation or theses (may also be secondary)
- Data obtained through original research, statistical compilations or legal requirements. Examples include:
- Reports or writings of a scientific study
- Documents produced by government agencies (For example: Congress or the Office of the President)
- U.S. census records
- Public records
- Records of organization
- Patents
- Creative works such as:
- Original works
- Poetry
- Music
- Photography
- Art
- Artifacts such as:
- Pottery
- Furniture
- Buildings
- Ancient roads
- tools and weapons that serve as raw material to interpret the past