Primary sources are records that provide first-hand accounts or evidence of an event, action, topic, or time period. Primary sources are usually created by individuals that directly experience an event or topic. Common examples of primary sources include: letters, diaries, speeches, interviews, photographs, government documents, artistic works, works of literature (fiction; poetry), original research reports and data sets.
Below are some examples of primary source types that work particularly well with history classes. Remember that all of these would be *from the time period being studied*:
Complete editions from hundreds of US newspapers providing primary source content covering eras such as the Revolutionary War, Civil War, World War I, Roaring Twenties, Great Depression, World War II, Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam War, Information Age and more.
The experience and impact of African Americans as recorded by the news media.
This set covers 125 iconic primary documents from the 1600s to the present.
Also known as the Great Northward Migration and the Black Migration, this movement of more than six million African Americans from American's rural southern regions to its urban northern regions occurred over more than 50 years, from 1916 to 1970.
Combining full-text primary sources with in-depth expert analysis, the 125 entries in the 4-volume set cover important and influential primary source documents from the third millennium BCE to the twenty-first century.
Here, the lives of notable Americans are illuminated through an in-depth study of primary source texts that made them exceptional. .
Each "Primary Sources volume covers a decade in American history ,amplifying and illuminating the decade with first-hand accounts and other primary source documentation.
A historian and former presidential speechwriter presents an unprecedented two-volume collection of the greatest speeches in American history.
When searching our catalog for books and media, combine a relevant search term with a "primary source" term, such as diaries, correspondence, personal narratives, or speeches:
Examples:
