A primary source is a document or other sort of evidence written or created during the time under study, or by one of the persons or organizations directly involved in the event. Primary sources offer an inside view of a particular event. Some types are:
Original Documents (excerpts or translations acceptable)
Creative Works
Artifacts
Useful Keywords When Searching for Primary Sources in the Library Catalog
| Diaries | Correspondence | |
| Sources | Personal narratives | |
| 20th century | Biography | |
| Interview |
Digitized letters, papers, photographs, scrapbooks, financial records, diaries, and other primary source materials.
• American Indians and the American West
• American Politics and Society
• Civil Rights and the Black Freedom Struggle
• International Relations and Military Conflicts
• Southern Life, Slavery, and the Civil War
• Women's Studies
• Workers and Labor Unions
Alternative press journals, magazines, and newspapers covering feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Latinx, gays, lesbians, etc.
Documentaries, interviews, performances, news programs and newsreels, field recordings, commercials, raw footage, and thousands of award-winning films.
