This guest post comes to us from Cheryl Lederle of the Library of Congress.
Is a newspaper a primary source? A political cartoon? A map? A lithograph? Is an excerpt in a textbook a primary source? How about a digitized facsimile? All of these questions came up during the Library of Congress’ 2011 Summer Teacher Institutes.
“Primary sources” are the raw materials of history — original documents and objects which were created at the time under study. They are different from secondary sources, accounts or interpretations of events created by someone without firsthand experience. Students will most often work with primary sources that have been digitized.
The definition seems clear enough until we begin to label particular items as primary or secondary.
“Columbus taking possession of the new country,” 1893
This image depicts Columbus landing on an island he named San Salvador, also known as Watling Island. Is it a primary source? That question provoked lively conversation among the teachers at the institutes.
The phrase “created at the time under study” provided a focus for their discussion and decision. The page about the item identifies this as a chromolithograph published in 1893, and Columbus is thought to have visited San Salvador in October of 1492. With those dates in mind, would this be a primary source for studying Columbus’ first encounter with land in the New World? It was created 400 years after the event, definitely not “at the time under study.”
How would the answer change if the picture were being used to study late nineteenth-century attitudes about the event? Most of the institute participants agreed that this picture would be a primary source in that context. They added that it would also be a primary source for the study of nineteenth century painting. At one point, I overheard a teacher remark “This is exactly the type of conversation you want in your classroom!”
“The First Thanksgiving,” 1932
Instead of asking whether a particular object is a primary source, it might be more useful to ask when that artifact would be a primary source.
When would this image be a primary source? When would it be a secondary source? Why is it important to know the difference? What could your students learn from studying this image?
Additional Library of Congress resources:
How would your students benefit from better understanding when a source is primary and when it is secondary? How have you introduced these concepts to your students?
October 4, 2011 at 4:00 pm
This is a great article that sparked a great conversation where I work. Thanks for posting. Is my blog comment a primary source? We love the questioning and inquiry theme of this post.
October 4, 2011 at 6:02 pm
Thank you for this commentary, however, there is so much more one could say, I wish it delved a bit more deeply. Time for someone to put together a lesson plan for our kids just on this topic! Do we have one yet?
October 5, 2011 at 1:11 pm
I just taught this concept last week. This explanation works well. I may refer students to your post.
October 7, 2011 at 11:11 am
I just finished teaching primary documents to 5 AP US History classes. Cheryl’s point about recognizing that a source can be a primary or secondary source according to the context is one I tried to get across to my students. We had several good discusions around that point by using examples like Cheryl’s. i hope I said it as clearly as she did.
October 11, 2011 at 3:50 pm
I like the idea of context for labeling a source primary or secondary. This may make it easier for students to understand why there are racial biases in Disney movies or fiction books of the day.
October 11, 2011 at 10:25 pm
I appreciated reading this article, and will use this in my presentation to my fellow teachers on understanding a primary source. I would agree with Neva in that we teachers could really use a step-by-step process to both teach our students and teachers who are new to the site. I hope someone from LOC will create these soon. Great article!
October 19, 2011 at 6:51 pm
Out of curiosity, how would the following be classified? My Great-Great-Great-Grandmother, toward the end of her life was asked by her grandchildren to record all the stories she had told them of her life from leaving Ireland as 6-year-old in the early 1800s, through many other pioneer experiences including being one of the first homesteaders in Nebraska. So she did, and I must say it is fascinating reading. She had some exciting experiences, and of course some sad ones and she had a wonderful sense of humor. She’s telling her own life experiences, but at many years removed from the actual events.
November 3, 2011 at 3:27 pm
Great post! When is something a primary source is a great way to frame the question. I like to explain it not as a feature of an object but instead as a feature of the relationship between an object and a question. So, if you are interested in the history of journalism then newspapers are the best primary sources around. If you are interested in the history of how historians have discussed slavery then the articles that historians wrote about slavery are the best primary sources.
In this case, instead of talking about primary and secondary sources you end up talking about the primacy of a given source for a given question.
It is fun to stretch this even further. There is some amazing work in environmental history that will look at things like tree stumps as primary sources. In which case the stumps can tell us about things like the weather in the past, the way they are cut can tell us about technologies and the flow of commodities from the time the tree was cut. In short, the tree stump, like all objects has traces of things that happened in the past in and on it and the work of the historian is to read and interpret those traces and weigh the integrity, that is to weigh out exactly what the traces of the past in a given object or artifact are and to interpret and understand it in it’s context.
October 8, 2015 at 1:26 pm
Very helpful. I’ve taught my students to focus on the timeframe under study in defining primary v. secondary sources, but then we’ve been confused by some of the other definitions and exercises out there. The idea of focus on when an item would be considered primary fits well.
May 7, 2017 at 6:17 am
Is a primary source, which is published in a textbook still a primary source??
May 8, 2017 at 3:04 pm
Great question, Carol! generally, we answer that the content remains “primary” whatever the container. Of course, there’s some loss of information (and engagement!), the farther the content travels from its original form. However, we hear legitimate debate on that, too…and along those lines, we’d love to hear thoughts from our readers!
May 30, 2018 at 12:49 pm
Are excerpts in a textbook considered as a primary source?
May 30, 2018 at 2:38 pm
Interesting question! is the excerpt from an item that would be considered a primary source?
July 10, 2018 at 3:11 pm
Thanks for the simple article to use with my students as “one more tool” to clarify primary vs. secondary sources. They frequently debate this dichotomy, based on when a source was created. This article will help reinforce the idea that it’s not only “created by someone who was there” but also “at the time” and to help them understand that any given source can be primary in some circumstances and secondary in other circumstances.
July 7, 2019 at 6:10 pm
This article and the sites are vey informative and helpful. I used one of the teaching kits with my students to teach about the Underground Railroad. It was excellent. I also used the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence in my unit on freedom. The students expressed their understanding of their rights and their feelings on freedoms in the United States. I look forward to more critical thinking discussions in the future.
July 7, 2019 at 7:29 pm
I used the kits for a unit on the Underground Railroad. I loved this article and the videos on discriminating what is a primary and what is a second source. I utilized the Bill of Rights and the original Declaration of Independence when I implemented my unit on freedom. I look forward to more resources to utilize in my classroom.
July 14, 2019 at 11:35 pm
Interesting! I learned so much more about primary sources just reading this article. I learned that a particular item could be a primary source depending on the time period studied.
July 15, 2019 at 10:54 am
I think I have a better understanding of a primary and secondary source. Primary source is a first hand account: handwritten letters from Modjeska Monteith Simkins, an African-American public health reform, social reform and the Civil Rights leader in South Carolina. Previously, my idea of the primary source was unclear. The article provided a lot of good information as well as a good strategy to used to discuss ideas and concepts.
May 19, 2020 at 9:43 pm
Using primary sources teaching visual arts will include interviews of the artists if they are alive, mostly audio visuals to study also the body language and the reactions during the interview, also seeing the explanation of the how and why the art is made, from the artist, transmit the certainty of learning from the primary source. In the case of 18 and 19 century artists I always compare what the art history books said and an analysis of the artwork itself, trying to find the coincidences between both sources.