Primary Sources
’n Gevangene werksaam in die tuin
What Are Primary Sources?
• Contemporary accounts of an event
• Written or recorded by someone who experienced or witnessed the event
• As, or just after it happened
• Well after the event
’n Gevangene werksaam in die tuin
“It had been by no means easy to flee into the mountains and to help set up what…should have become a partisan band affiliated with the Resistance movement Justice and Liberty. Contacts, arms, money and the experience needed to acquire them were all missing.”
-Levi, 13
Types of Primary Sources
Westminster E31/2/1
Official Records - information created or received as the result of an activity - saved, or preserved for evidence
Domesday Book, 1185-1186, Commissioned by William the Conqueror, King of England and Duke of Normandy
2nd century Latin will. Most wills were still written in Greek. Even more remarkable is that all Latin wills were done on clay tablets rather than papyrus
Hemmingway’s will, written in his own hand on September 17, 1955.
Wills
Photographs
Left: Correspondence between Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt, Feb. 23, 1944, FDR Presidential Library and Museum, http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/psf/box37/
Right: Photograph of damage at 10 Downing St from bombing, dated Feb. 20, 1944, FDR Presidential Library and Museum, http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/psf/box37/folo335.html
Correspondence
Diary of Jennie Andrews; entries about her late son Hiram; husband Orlando's activities; unwlecome house guests. October-November, 1876
River Falls MSS CO: Gerrish family papers, 1876-1909
Diaries
“One has to completely humiliate oneself to be what the Beatles were, and that's what I resent. I mean I did it, I didn't know, I didn't foresee; it just happened bit by bit, gradually, until this complete craziness is surrounding you and you're doing exactly what you don't want to do with people you can't stand, the people you hated when you were ten.”
- John Lennon, excerpt from an interview with Rolling Stone, 1970.http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/johnlennon/albums/album/171014/review/5942069/plastic_ono_band
Interviews
• Probates
• Deeds
• Homesteads
• Patents
• Court records
• Mining Records
• Works of Literature
• Audio and Video Recordings
•Data collected by researchers (fieldnotes etc.)
Other Types of Primary Sources
• Foundations upon which historical scholarship is built
• Don’t Speak Clearly (Interpretation needed)• Select, Organize, Interpret…
CRU-30a Raymond of Poitier, 1136-1149AD, bil. denier, Obv. portrait facing right with ruler's neck piercing circle, RAIMVNDVS around, Rev. cross with "Antiochie" around.
Hiberno-Norse Silver Penny
Using Primary Sources
Top Left: Birth Certificate of Mordchai Simakowsky of Mir/Emanuel Simon
Bottom Left: Inspection Card Mordchai Simakowsky of Mir/Emanuel Simon
Below: Proof of U.S. CitizenshipMordchai Simakowsky of Mir/Emanuel Simon
Creating a Narrative
• Interpretation or analysis of an historical event or phenomenon
•Journal Articles
•Scholarly or Popular books
•Reference Works
•Textbooks
Secondary Sources
Discipline Primary Source Secondary Source
Art Original artwork Article critiquing the piece of art
History Slave diaryBook about the Underground Railroad
Literature PoemTreatise on a particular genre of poetry
Political Science
TreatyEssay on Native American land rights
TheatreVideotape of a performance
Biography of a playwright
Summary