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Women's Studies: Using Primary Sources

What Are Primary Sources

Primary sources are original records created at the time historical events occurred or well after events in the form of memoirs and oral histories. Primary sources may include: 

letters,

manuscripts,

diaries,

journals,

newspapers,

speeches,

interviews,

memoirs, 

government documents,

photographs,

audio recordings,

moving pictures or video recordings,

research data,

objects or artifacts such as works of art or ancient roads, buildings, tools, and weapons.

These sources serve as the raw material to interpret the past, and when they are used along with previous interpretations by historians, they provide the resources necessary for historical research (American Library Association)