Provide a window to the past……

What is a primary source?• Primary Source – original documents and

objects which were created at the time under study, or at a later date by someone with firsthand experience. (diaries, newspaper articles, letters, photographs, court decisions, patent applications, obituary, autobiography, maps, interviews, narratives, etc.)

• Secondary Source – accounts or interpretations of events created by someone without firsthand experience. (textbooks)

Background research first!Very important to do some background research

on your subject firstThis will give you ideas as to what types of

primary source documents you may find on your topic

Start with secondary to clarify primary!Albert Einstein, Scientist

Developed formula that led to atomic bomb 1939 letter to President Roosevelt informing him of the

potential that this type of weapon is being created in Germany

http://media.nara.gov/Public_Vaults/00762_.pdf

Maps as primary sourcesMaps can tell us about:

The people that made themThe times those people lived inWhat those people knew and didn’t know

**Note what North America looks like (upper left) on the map on the following slide

Waldseemuller Map of the World - 1507

Interviews/Narratives as primary sources

Contains original voice of subject in questionSecondary sources cannot adequately

capture first person accountsFirst person accounts of events help make

them more real

**Note the surprising admissions in slave narratives:

Ex-Slave: Caroline HammondFederal Writer’s Project – Library of Congress

Music as a primary sourceMusic served as a popular means of

communication in the pastMany songs were written to reflect the

atmosphere of the times

**Note the music written supporting women’s suffrage**

Music supporting Women’s Suffrage

Lyrics:“Daughters of freedom, arise in your might”

“March to the watch words, justice and right”

“Daughters of Freedom, the ballot be yours”“Wield it with wisdom, your hope it secures”

Images as Primary Sources

Posters as Primary SourcesCivilian exclusion order #5, posted at First and Front streets, directing removal by April 7 of

persons of Japanese ancestry, from the first San Francisco section to be affected by evacuation

One more example:Andrew Carnegie, Industrialist & Philanthropist

Funded many public libraries in early 20th century An extract from “The Best Fields for Philanthropy,” originally published

by Carnegie in the North American Review, December 1889.  

.............Bearing in mind these considerations, let us endeavor to present some of the best uses to which a millionaire can devote the surplus of which he should regard himself as only the trustee.

. . . A free library . . . provided the community will accept and maintain it as a public institution, as much a part of the city property as its public schools, and, indeed, an adjunct to these. . . .When I was a boy in Pittsburgh, Colonel Anderson, of Allegheny . . . opened his little library of four hundred books to boys. Every Saturday afternoon he was in attendance himself at his house to exchange books. No one but he who has felt it can know the intense longing with which the arrival of Saturday was awaited, that a new book might be had. . . . I resolved, if ever wealth came to me, that it should be used to establish free libraries, that other poor boys might receive opportunities similar to those for which we were indebted to that noble man.

Works Cited Bowman, John S. Andrew Carnegie. Englewood Cliffs: Silver

Burdett, 1989. Christie, Edwin. Daughters of Freedom: The Ballot be Yours.

1871. Boston: Ditson & Co., Oliver, 1871. Print. Einstein, Albert. Letter. 2 Aug. 1939. Albert Einstein’s Letters to

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Web. 07 Sept. 2012. <http://hypertextbook.com/eworld/einstein.shtml>.

Election Day! 1909. Illustration. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Cph 3a51845.

Exec. Order No. 5. 3 C.F.R. 1942 Library of Congress. Web. 07 Sept. 2012. <http://www.loc.gov>.

Hammond, Caroline. Personal interview. 11 June 1938. Waldseemüller, Martin. Waldseemuller Map. Map. Strasbourg,

France, 1507. Library of Congress. Web. 07 Sept. 2012. <http://www.loc.gov>.