Primary Sources
The vast wealth of information available to instructors and students has revolutionized the way we teach and learn. The explosion in the number, variety, and quality of primary-source documents available online holds the potential to increase both content knowledge and discipline-specific skills in students of all subjects.
What are primary sources?
The Library of Congress defines primary sources as “the raw materials of history—original documents and objects which were created at the time under study.” Primary sources, in other words, are artifacts of a specific time and place, created at that same time and place. For example, if you were studying the American Civil War, a soldier’s journal, a photograph of a battle, or a newspaper report would all be considered a primary source.
But primary sources are so much more than documents. In fact, you are probably already using primary sources in your classroom—any object from the time and place you are studying can qualify as a primary source. Some examples of primary sources include:
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First-hand accounts: diaries, autobiographies/memoirs, newspaper and magazine articles
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Official documents: laws, court proceedings, maps, speeches, military documents
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Visual artifacts: photos, prints, drawings, maps, political cartoons
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Audio/visual artifacts: film and sound recordings
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Data: graphs, charts, census reports, economic data
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Physical artifacts: clothing, equipment, personal and household items, weapons, flora and fauna
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Internet artifacts: blog posts, YouTube videos, tweets, Facebook posts
Some of those sources may surprise you. But just as personal letters can tell us about the lives of Americans during the Civil War, tweets and Facebook posts reveal the thoughts and feelings of modern-day people from around the world. In fact, the Library of Congress recently began a Twitter archive, and has collected nearly 200 billion tweets that it plans to make available to researchers!
Why Use Primary Sources?
Primary sources are powerful tools that engage students and activate processes of inquiry and critical thinking. Regardless of what subject you teach or what sources you use, primary sources:
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Engage students. Because they often contain a personal perspective, primary sources offer a direct connection between students and their subject.
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Develop critical thinking skills and construct knowledge. Primary sources represent specific points of view and can be biased or even contradictory (such as a pair of editorials arguing different sides of an argument). By examining primary sources, students are forced to compare, contrast, and critique various points of view, thus developing both critical-thinking skills and disciplinary knowledge.
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Develop research and information literacy skills. Most primary sources are incomplete on their own—no single document or artifact can reflect the complexity and context of a subject or time period—compelling students to critically evaluate sources and corroborate their findings through original research.
Using Primary Sources
If you’re new to teaching with primary sources, this can seem a bit daunting, but a primary-source activity can be very simple. Find a source and let your students view it. Have them offer their observations—what they notice about the object. Based on those observations, have students reflect on the significance of the source. Ask: Who created this source and when? For what purpose? What does it tell us about the subject we’re studying? Finally, have students create original questions to guide further discussion and/or research.
Once students are familiar with the method, you can ask them to find sources on their own and apply it independently. As they track their findings, a clearer picture of their topic will emerge, building content knowledge and allowing for expansion into larger research projects.
This simple Observe/Reflect/Question model can be applied to any primary source, and there are a number of guides and tools to help you and your students get started.
Finding Primary Sources
One of the biggest advantages of primary sources is that a large (and ever-increasing) number of digitized documents and artifacts can easily be accessed online. In fact, the internet is full of rich collections of primary sources, many of which are available free of charge.
Finding primary sources at DePaul
University Libraries
- Special Collections at the University Libraries are materials with a strong emphasis is placed on book illustration, particularly from the nineteenth century, and on books that exhibit the arts of printing, support many curricular uses, as well as provide scholarly resources.
- DePaul has an extensive image and document collection that faculty members can use in their teaching: the Digital Collections at the DePaul library.
- Vincentian Heritage Collections at the DePaul Library collects accounts of St. Vincent DePaul including secondary sources and Vincentian journal articles.
University Art Museum
- The Museum offers a wide variety of special exhibitions in all media throughout the year, from thematic and historical exhibitions to works by contemporary artists.
- Its collections are searchable online.
Finding primary sources outside of DePaul
The Teaching with Primary Sources Program at DePaul
Funded by a grant from the Library of Congress, the Teaching with Primary Sources program at DePaul University provides resources and programming in the use of primary sources by educators.