What is a Primary Source?
"A primary source is a document,
image or artifact ... created
contemporaneously with the
event under discussion."
(Williams, Historian's Toolbox,
2nd ed., p. 56)
Primary sources are evidence from participants in or
eyewitnesses to an event.
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Examples:
- Diaries, letters, speeches, memoirs/autobiographies, oral interviews, newspaper & magazine articles...
- Images: photographs, sound & video recordings, maps...
- Artifacts: coins, receipts, schedules, tombstones, furniture, jewelry, DNA evidence...
- Public records: birth, death, probate, census records; court cases, official government documents...
- Creative works: paintings, movies, statues...
Formats:
- Original manuscripts or records
- Authoritative transcriptions in printed volumes or digital form
- Reproductions--digital, microfilm, facsimile...
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