1. Primary Sources

2. 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…

3. This is a copy of Benedict Arnold’s coded letter to Major Andre, with decoded transcript. A primary source.

4. Primary vs Secondary Sources
Interpretations based on analysis of primary and secondary sources

5. This diary is an “eyewitness” account of the beginning of the Civil War. A primary source.

6. Primary vs Secondary Sources
This is a secondary source about women in the Civil War.

7. Primary Sources Newspapers
This is the St. Louis Argus, an Afro-American newspaper.

8. Primary Sources Scientific Journal Articles
This is the first article about the discovery of DNA.

9. Primary Sources Letters
This is a letter to Dr. Martin Luther King asking for help for a son who is in jail.

10. Primary Sources Personal Narratives
This is a pioneer’s account of seeing Yosemite for the first time.

11. Primary Sources Congressional hearings, reports, prints.
Congressional Record  
Can be found in Microform and on LexisNexis Congressional.

12. Keywords for Finding Primary Sources in the Library Catalog
letters
personal narratives
diaries
speeches

13. 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”

14. Tools to use to find old periodical articles
Chronicling America. Selected newspaper pages from the Library of Congress. Free
Reader's Guide Retrospective.    Index to older magazine articles.
Newspapers – Pickler Memorial Library, a list of the newspapers and newspaper databases at Truman.

15. 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