1. Introduction to Primary Sources
Definitions and Examples

2. Historians & Primary Sources
Primary sources are the evidence used by historians in their analysis/interpretation of the past.
Good history books and scholarly journal articles (secondary sources) carefully cite the evidence in footnotes.
Primary sources help us make personal connections with the past.

3. “The estimated infant death rates in colonial era Philadelphia was 234 per 1000 in 1751 based on baptismal and burial records.”
Cobb family graves ( ): George age 5 months; Isaac 1 year 5 months; Samuel 20 days; Samuel 16 days; Thankfull 19 days

4. “Discouraged by this turn of events, and bereaved by the deaths (1884) of his mother and his wife, Alice Hathaway Lee, Roosevelt retired to his ranch in the Dakota Territory.”
Roosevelt’s diary for February 1884.

5. Cartoons dealing with women and suffrage: Inside a woman’s brain; Leap year enthusiasts (1908); Dr. Seuss cartoon (1942);

6. Primary Sources: Definitions
“historical raw materials”
“the leavings, the shards, the remnants of people who once lived and don't live anymore”
“is material -- a document or other evidence -- that was created during the period or the event”

7. Your leavings… What have you done in the last 24 hours?
What evidence did you leave of your activities?
What evidence will be preserved for the future?

8. Primary Sources
Preservation of documents depends on a number of factors: the number of documents that were actually written (which depends on the complexity of the society and the extent of literacy), the durability of the material on which they were written, the desire to preserve them (along with the existence of institutions for that end), and the number of events which might have destroyed them (not surprisingly, peasant revolts have often involved destroying landlords' records; the fortunes of war and acts of God have also done their share to destroy documents that have nothing to do with the events themselves). Other things being equal, it seems logical that the chances for a document to survive are greater if it is more recent…

9. Written primary sources
Public/published
Newspapers
Magazines
Books
Written during time
Written later by participants (memoirs)
Gov’t reports

10. Written primary sources
Private
Letters
Diaries
Can later be published in book, microfilm, web formats
Unpublished material found in manuscript archives

11. Unwritten primary sources
Graphics
photographs
posters
art
maps
Artifacts
buildings
furniture
Coins
clothing
tombstones

12. Analysis of primary sources
Time and Place Rule
The closer in time and place a source and its creator are to an event, the better the source
Direct traces  contemporary accounts by firsthand observers/participants  accounts of the events created later by first hand observers/participants
Congressional hearing  newspaper accounts of the hearing / diary entries by participants / letters of observers  memoirs of participants published years later

13. Analysis of primary sources
Bias Rule
Every source is biased in some way
Evidence must be read or viewed skeptically and critically
Creator’s point of view and motives must be considered
Each piece of evidence must be compared with other evidence