Engaging with Primary Sources
Engaging with Primary Sources with SOAPS
Speaker: Who created this source? What do you know about them?
Occasion: What time and place is this source from? What is the historical context?
Audience: To whom is this information directed? One person or group of people?
Purpose: Why was it written? What did the author have in mind?
Subject: What is the topic? What information is the document conveying?
Newspapers
- New York Times, Historical (1851-3 year ago) This link opens in a new windowFull page and article images with searchable full text back to the first issue. Learn more about this database
- Saint Louis Post-Dispatch (1874 - 2003) This link opens in a new windowContains full text of the newspaper St. Louis Post-Dispatch from 1874-2003 including its title variants. Learn more about this database
Getting Started Working with Primary and Secondary Sources
Explore Primary Sources
Primary Sources provide direct or first hand evidence. This may be about an event, object, or person; work of art or literature; or findings from original research. The information primary sources contain is original and has not been rewritten or reinterpreted by someone else.
Examples of Primary Sources:
- Newspaper reports, by reporters who witnessed an event or who quote people who did.
- Speeches, diaries, letters and interviews - what the people involved said or wrote.
- Original research.
- Datasets, survey data, such as census or economic statistics.
- Texts of laws, legislative hearings, and other government documents.
- Original works of art, paintings, sculpture, building, poems, or literature
- Performances, singing, dance, theatrical
- Photographs, video, or audio that capture an event.
- Plant and animal specimens
- Coins, jewelry, pottery, clothing, furniture
| Discipline | Primary Source | |
|---|---|---|
| Art | Original artwork, e.g. Michelangelo's David | |
| Business | Annual report of a company, e.g. Starbucks | |
| History | Diary, e.g. the diary of Marie Curie, Anne Frank | |
| Literature | Poems, short fiction, or book of literature, e.g. Emily Dickinson, Maya Angelou | |
| Political Science | A bill that is passed into law, e.g. Equal Rights Amendment | |
| Sciences | Report of an experiment, e.g. an article analyzing the effects of gravity on ocean waves | |
|
Social or Behavioral Sciences |
An article reporting the findings of original research, e.g. an article on student's confidence and academic success | |
| Theater | A video recording of a theater performance, e.g. Hamilton, Phantom of the Opera |
Locating Source Material
What other primary source types could you consult?
The information primary sources contain is original and has not been rewritten or reinterpreted by someone else.
Original documents: records, files, reports, maps, first-hand accounts of events, interviews, letters, personal journals, diaries, videos/sound recordings, original research including scientific data, opinion polls, government documents, social media posts
Creative works: memoirs, photos, films, poetry, drama, novels, art work, gardens, code, advertisements, GIFs
Relics, artifacts: jewelry, pottery, furniture, clothing, tools, architecture/buildings
Secondary Sources
Often produced sometime after an event has occurred, interpret, analyze, and comment on primary sources.
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Books
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Interpretive articles from journals, magazines, newspapers
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Reviews
A source can be primary or secondary depending on how it is being used. Often newspapers are considered secondary sources as journalists report, analyze, and interpret events and the experience of others. Newspapers can also be used as primary sources. If you are researching how American attitudes on welfare spending have changed during the past twenty years, newspaper editorials can serve as primary sources of public opinion.
Librarians and your instructor can help you identify primary and secondary sources for your projects.
- Polling the Nations (1986 - ) This link opens in a new window500,000+ questions and responses, from 14,000+ surveys, conducted from 1986 through the present in the United States and more than 100 other countries around the world.
- Pew Research Center"Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. [Pew] conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, content analysis and other data-driven social science research."
- CQ Researcher (1991 - ) This link opens in a new window44 reports per year. Explores a single "hot" issue in the news in depth each week, featuring comments from experts, lawmakers and citizens on all sides of every issue.
- Statistical Abstract of the United States (ProQuest) This link opens in a new windowStatistical Abstract of the United States is a one-volume, comprehensive summary of statistics on the social, political, and economic organization of the United States. Learn more about this database
- Statesman's Yearbook Online (1864 - 2007) This link opens in a new windowThe Statesman’s Yearbook is an annual publication covering the politics, cultures and economies of all of the countries of the world plus major international organizations. It is authoritative and up-to-date; meticulously compiled by a dedicated in-house editorial team since 1864.
- Statista This link opens in a new windowPortal for business and industry, government, and demographic statistics that integrates thousands of diverse topics of data and facts from some 18,000+ public and commercial sources onto a single, easy-to-search platform. Geographic coverage is worldwide, with particular emphasis on the United States, China, and European Union countries. Categorized into market sectors, Statista provides access to qualitative facts on agriculture, economics, finance, information technology, politics and society, and much more.
- America in Protest: Records of Anti-Vietnam War Organizations, The Vietnam Veterans Against the War (Archives Unbound) This link opens in a new windowFBI reports dealing with antiwar work carried out by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), and their surveillance of antiwar student groups and Communist organizations. Contains over 20,000 pages between 1967-1975.
- American Film Scripts Online This link opens in a new windowOver 1,100 (mostly unpublished) scripts. Also includes detailed and fielded information on the scenes, characters and people related to the scripts, and facsimile images for more than 500 of these screenplays. Gift of Mary Wickes in honor of her parents Isabella & Frank Wickenhauser.
- American West This link opens in a new windowDocuments drawn from the Everett D. Graff Collection of Western Americana at the Newberry Library, Chicago. Includes contemporary newspapers and posters, records of key railroad companies, papers of early pioneers, explorers and hunters, manuscript travel journals, store catalogues, maps, illustrations, and literary and historical works.
- ARTstor This link opens in a new window
New interface available at JSTOR Artstor
Collection of nearly 2 million images, documenting artistic traditions across many times and cultures. Embraces architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts, and design as well as many other forms of visual culture.
- Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 (Archives Unbound) This link opens in a new windowEssential documents covering enactment and implementation of Clean Air Act Amendments and other environmental issues, comprised of various staff and office files from George H. W. Bush presidency (1989-1993).
- Empire Online This link opens in a new windowOver 70,000 images of original documents relating to Empire Studies. The images are sourced from libraries and archives around the world, including a strong core of document images from the British Library.
- Everyday Life and Women in America, c.1800-1920 This link opens in a new windowSources are drawn from the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture, Duke University and the New York Public Library. Contains monographs, pamphlets, periodicals and broadsides addressing political, social and gender issues, religion, race, education, employment, marriage, sexuality, home and family life, health, and pastimes.
- First World War: Personal Experiences & The First World War: Propaganda and Recruitment This link opens in a new window“The First World War: Personal Experiences,” drawn from archival collections around the world, provides an intimate glimpse into daily life in the army and auxiliary services, battles, trench warfare, weapons and equipment, and thoughts on the enemy, as seen through the eyes of the men and women who served in the First World War. Rather than official publications or newspaper accounts, this collection includes diaries, letters, scrapbooks, sketches, and photographs. Key features include interactive maps, 360° views of personal items and objects, and a virtual trench experience.
- Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950-1975 (Parts I and II) This link opens in a new windowManuscripts and typescripts, newspapers, magazines, press kits, artist’s files, photographs, advertisements, memorabilia, and more from prominent library collections in the U.S. and UK. Key features include original video footage on key events and topics, and a multi-faceted chronology of the period with embedded articles and images.
- Rand Voices of Jihad DatabasesThis book presents the actual statements and writings of jihadis expressing their views on virtually every subject relevant to their cause. It is not about Islam as it is practiced in its many varieties in Muslim communities throughout the world, nor is it about Islamic fundamentalism or the various Islamist political movements. Rather, it is about a small group of Muslims who carry out and promote terrorism in the name of Islam. Because the jihadis' statements are often more appalling and more profoundly revealing than the accounts that have been written about jihadi terrorism, this book provides unfiltered access to a broad range of the stories, rationales, ideas, and arguments of jihadi terrorists and those who support them.
- Rock's Backpages This link opens in a new windowCovers five decades of history. Contains 17,000 articles, interviews, and reviews from a variety of popular music press, from fanzines to titles such as Spin, Rolling Stone, and British New Musical Express. Also includes a discussion forum, audio interviews, writer profiles, and links to radio stations and rock-related websites.
- Romanticism: Life, Literature and Landscape This link opens in a new windowDrawn from materials in the Wordsworth Trust, Dove Cottage, Grasmere, UK. Includes Wordsworth’s original verse manuscripts, working notebooks and some printed, annotated, editions, and materials from other Romantic writers and painters.
- Sabin Americana This link opens in a new windowWorks about the Americas published throughout the world from 1500 to the early 1900's. Included are books, pamphlets, serials and other documents that provide original accounts of exploration, trade, colonialism, slavery and abolition, the western movement, Native Americans, military actions and much more. Over 6 million pages from 29,000 works. Learn more about this database
- Victorian Popular Culture This link opens in a new windowComprised of four separate sections: Spiritualism, Sensation and Magic, Circuses, Sideshows and Freaks, Music Hall, Theatre and Popular Entertainment, and Moving Pictures, Optical Entertainments and the Advent of Cinema.
- Vogue Archive This link opens in a new windowComplete, full-text contents of Vogue magazine (US edition) in full color page image, from the first issue in 1892 to the present, with monthly updates for new issues. Learn more about this database
Special Collections at WU
- Documenting FergusonDigital repository that includes media-generated, original content that was captured and created following the killing of 18-year-old, Michael Brown by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri on August 9, 2014.