Professor of History Co-Director

Primary Sources / Secondary Sources

             "Primary sources are by definition the surviving sources closest to the events and people whose stories we seek to tell. They may be letters, diaries, and books published by participants in events. Woodrow Wilson, Thomas More, Martin Luther King, Jr., Virginia Woolf, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Toni Morrison all wrote extensively or spoke so that their words were recorded by others. These written materials are primary sources for their lives. Or primary sources may be the earliest reports of those who knew or claimed to know figures in the past whom we study in the present.
            "Historians and others have written about these primary sources. They have produced secondary sources--narratives, interpretations, and descriptions--to tell us what they think the primary sources mean. These secondary sources, as we call them, embody hard work and careful thought--and often disagree with one another. No one serious about the study of history can neglect this treasury of research and thought, and students should demonstrate in the papers they write in college that they are familiar with what other people have written about a topic. The best history papers show a balance between primary and secondary sources."
                      --Richard Marius and Melvin E. Paige, A Short Guide to Writing about History, 5^th ed. (New York: Longman’s, 2004), p. vii.

"        "Primary sources are those closest in time or connection to any subject of investigation. They could be written, created, or used by the subjects you are writing about. Secondary sources, however, are always written about primary sources."
        "...good history should always refer to primary sources...
"Secndary sources, created from an analysis of primary sources, will be an important part of the information you will use to write a history essay."
            --Richard Marius and Melvin E. Paige, A Short Guide to Writing about History, 9^th ed. (New York: Pearson, 2015), pp. 13, 60, and 66.

Definition of primary sources as published by the Society of American Archivists:

Material that contains firsthand accounts of events and that was created contemporaneous to those events or later recalled by an eyewitness. … Primary sources emphasize the lack of intermediaries between the thing or events being studied and reports of those things or events based on the belief that firsthand accounts are more accurate. Examples of primary sources include letters and diaries; government, church, and business records; oral histories; photographs, motion pictures, and videos; maps and land records; and blueprints.

JOHN MCDONALD HOWE