A primary source provides direct or firsthand evidence about an event, object, person, or work of art. Primary sources include historical and legal documents, eyewitness accounts, results of experiments, statistical data, pieces of creative writing, audio and video recordings, speeches, and art objects. Interviews, surveys, fieldwork, and Internet communications via email, blogs, listservs, and newsgroups are also primary sources.
Read more about primary v. secondary sources >>
When would I need to find primary sources? If you're working on a history project, you may be asked to find and cite primary sources to analyze something from the past, like posters from political activism in modern African history. If you're working on a sociology project, you may be asked to find demographic data on homeless in Los Angeles. Both documents would be considered primary sources in each case.
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There are many collections of free primary source material available online.
American Slave Narratives: An Online Anthology University of Virginia site linking to slave narratives taken from interviews with former slaves from across the American South.
Black Abolitionist Archive Collection of over 800 speeches by antebellum blacks and approximately 1,000 editorials from the period. These important documents provide a portrait of black involvement in the anti-slavery movement.
The Civil Rights Digital Library Primary sources from the US Civil Rights movement including news and television archives, and contextual material.
Cornell University Library Making of America Collection Access to over 100,000 articles from 19th Century journals.
Documenting the American South Primary resources for the study of Southern history, literature and culture through the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Digital Library of the Caribbean digitized versions of Caribbean cultural, historical and research materials currently held in archives, libraries, and private collections.
Digital Schomburg (Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library) Digitized images and texts, manuscript and archival finding aids.
Internet Archive A nonprofit digital library of public domain material, including the Way Back Machine.
The Library of Congress American Memory Collections written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience.
National Archives- Search by topic, time period, or place. Useful research guides available to help you.
NYPL Digital Gallery (a free database) NYPL Digital Gallery provides free and open access to over 800,000 images digitized from the New York Public Library's collection.
Online Archive of California free public access to searchable collection guides (also known as finding aids) for primary resource collections in repositories maintained by more than 200 institutions throughout California.
Slavery and Abolition Full text of selected publications from the 19th century. Millersville University and Dickinson College.
![Moi Egal à toi; [Portrait of a young Haitian woman.]](http://s3.amazonaws.com/libapps/accounts/86401/images/Moi.jpg)
