Primary Sources
Primary vs Secondary Sources Primary Sources Firsthand account of an event or the documents associated with an event Examples: letters, diaries, personal narratives, autobiographies, speeches, congressional hearings, presidential papers, newspaper articles published at the time of the event, surveys, interviews, court cases or presidential hearings, laws or treaties, scholarly articles giving results of research, minutes of organization…
This is a copy of Benedict Arnold’s coded letter to Major Andre, with decoded transcript. A primary source.
Primary vs Secondary Sources Interpretations based on analysis of primary and secondary sources
This diary is an “eyewitness” account of the beginning of the Civil War. A primary source.
Primary vs Secondary Sources This is a secondary source about women in the Civil War.
Primary Sources Newspapers This is the St. Louis Argus, an Afro-American newspaper.
Primary Sources Scientific Journal Articles This is the first article about the discovery of DNA.
Primary Sources Letters This is a letter to Dr. Martin Luther King asking for help for a son who is in jail.
Primary Sources Personal Narratives This is a pioneer’s account of seeing Yosemite for the first time.
Primary Sources Congressional hearings, reports, prints. Congressional Record Can be found in Microform and on LexisNexis Congressional.
Keywords for Finding Primary Sources in the Library Catalog letters personal narratives diaries speeches
Examples of a Library Catalog Search for Primary Sources slave* and (sources or letters or correspondence) “vietnam war” and “personal narrative” “Harry Truman” and “presidential papers”
Tools to use to find old periodical articles Chronicling America. Selected newspaper pages from the Library of Congress. Free. 1836-1922. Reader's Guide Retrospective. 1890-1982. Index to older magazine articles. Newspapers – Pickler Memorial Library, a list of the newspapers and newspaper databases at Truman.
Some Web Sites that have Primary Sources Library of Congress – Digital Collections Historical collections digitized by the Library of Congress. FBI Vault-- This site contains scanned documents from famous FBI cases and files such as the Lindbergh Kidnapping and the Marilyn Monroe file. Missouri Digital Heritage Initiative