Using Primary Source Documents

Primary source documents are writings - whether historic or contemporary - that have been produced by first-hand participant/observers. They can be items such as letters, drawings, diaries, reports or memoirs. As students work with these types of documents in the classroom, they develop their interpretative and analytical abilities and become better able to understand the ways in which written history is colored by individual authors' personal and cultural points of view. Further, because these documents are real and personal, they make the study of history more exciting, compelling and human than facts, dates and events packaged in a textbook could ever do.

This index of primary source documents contains many examples that may be useful to teachers preparing students to answer the document-based questions on the New York State Social Studies Regents exams. For additional information about how to use primary source documents and other types of primary materials - artifacts, images, artwork, film, and music, for example - the following sites may be helpful:

• DBQ/CRQ: Teaching with Documents by Peter Pappas
  This is a helpful informational site with practical advice and useful links.  
  (http://www.edteck.com/dbq/)
• New York State Education Department’s Online DBQ Courses
  Wondering how best to prepare students for the DBQs they’ll face on the new Social Studies Regents exams? This site is required reading. (http://www.emsc.nysed.gov/ciai/dbq/ssindex.html)

Topics

• World History
• U.S. History
• Demographics & Statistics
• Maps
• Miscellaneous

Related Lifelines pages

• News & Current Events
• Social Issues

World History

• The Internet History Sourcebook Project
  Features a variety of primary documents related to world history. Creation of Fordham University professor Paul Halsall. For a description of the project, click on the link above, or to access an individual sourcebook, check the links below. (http://150.108.2.20/halsall/index.html)
  • Ancient History Sourcebook | Medieval Sourcebook | Modern History Sourcebook | Byzantine Studies Page | African | East Asian | Global | Indian | Islamic | Jewish |  Lesbian and Gay | Science | Women's
• Rome Reborn
  An exploration of the Vatican Library and Renaissance culture, this site contains general information and links to many original texts produced during that era. (http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/vatican/toc.html)
• EuroDocs
  These links connect to Western European (mainly primary) historical documents that are transcribed, reproduced in facsimile, or translated. They shed light on key historical happenings within the respective countries (and within the broadest sense of political, economic, social and cultural history). (http://www.lib.byu.edu/estu/eurodocs/)
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum - Collections & Archives
  Students and teachers may use the museum’s online catalog to find and retrieve texts of original documents from the museum’s collections. (http://www.ushmm.org/uia-cgi/uia_form/db_group/collections)
• 18th Century Resources
  A vast collection of resources, including many primary documents, related to art, history, literature and other facets of 18^th century life.
  (http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/18th/)
• The Pompeii Forum Project
  The Pompeii Forum Project is a collaborative research venture that is archaeologically based, heavily dependent upon advanced technology, and so conceived as to address broad issues in urban history and urban design. Evidence gathered to date challenges commonly held and widely published notions about the evolution of the forum, especially during the final years of the city's life. The goals are to provide the first systematic documentation of the architecture and decoration of the forum, to interpret evidence as it pertains to Pompeii's urban history, and to make wider contributions to both the history of urbanism and contemporary problems of urban design.
  (http://pompeii.virginia.edu/)
• Creating French Culture
  Here you’ll find a collection of historical documents, exhibits and artifacts from the Bibliotheque Nationale de France. (http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/bnf/bnf0001.html)
• The World War I Document Archive
  Links to letters, articles, interviews and books from the first world war. (http://www.lib.byu.edu/estu/wwi/)
• Hanover Historical Texts Project
  This site, created in 1995 by students in the Hanover College History department, contains a variety of primary documents, most of them related to European and U.S. history.
  (http://history.hanover.edu/project.htm)
• The Avalon Project at the Yale Law School
  This site contains a vast collection of primary documents in law, history and diplomacy from around the World.
  (http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/avalon.htm)

US History

• Chronology of US Historical Documents
  This is a helpful site from the University of Oklahoma College of law. It contains a timeline of notable American documents with links to the texts of many of them. (http://www.law.ou.edu/ushist.html)
• Core Documents of U.S. Democracy
  A site with lots of primary source documents from the U.S. Government Printing Office. (http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/locators/coredocs/index.html)
• The American Colonist's Library - A Treasury of Primary Documents
  Primary Source Documents Pertaining to Early American History - An extensive collection of historical works which contributed to the formation of American politics, culture, and ideals. (http://personal.pitnet.net/primarysources/)
• The Liberty Library of Constitutional Classics
  A list of the classic books and other works on constitutional government. (http://www.constitution.org/liberlib.htm)
• Women Pioneers
  Original stories from the early migrant women who braved the unknown to make a better life for their families, helping, in the process, to shape American life. (http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/features/women/women.html)
• American Slave Narratives
  This is a collection of narratives from more than 2,300 former slaves from across the American South who were interviewed by writers and journalists under the aegis of the Works Progress Administration. (http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/wpa/wpahome.html)
• United States Historical Data Census Browser
  The data presented here describe the people and the economy of the US for each state and county from 1790 to 1960. (http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/census/)
• The Valley of the Shadow
  From the Virginia Center for Digital History, this site provides an in-depth view of two communities during the Civil War. A variety of primary documents are indexed including public records, newspapers and letters.
• The National Archive’s Teaching With Documents Page
  Contains a variety of documents broken down by historic eras from the American Revolution to the present. The site also includes information for teachers related to working with document based questions. (http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/)
• Every Picture Tells A Story: Documentary Photography and the Great Depression
  This interactive site was developed by the CUNY American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning and the Center for History and New Media. Here you can view some of the most famous photographs taken during the great depression, including those taken by Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange, and learn how they were constructed and chosen for publication. (http://chnm.gmu.edu/fsa/)
• Duluth Lynchings Online Resource: Historical Documents Relating to the Tragic Events of June 15, 1920
  Primary documents related to the 1920 lynching of 3 black men in Duluth MN. Materials include: oral histories, newspaper account, government records and photographs. (http://collections.mnhs.org/duluthlynchings/)

Demographics & Statistics

• US Census Bureau
  Demographic facts and statistics from the US Census.
  (http://www.census.gov/)

Maps

• Map Collections of the Library of Congress
  The Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress holds more than 4.5 million items, of which Map Collections represents only a small fraction, those that have been converted to digital form.
  (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/gmdhome.html)
• National Geographic Map Machine
  This National Geographic Site contains a searchable index of maps of the world.
  (http://www.nationalgeographic.com/resources/ngo/maps/index.html)

Miscellaneous

• Ad*Access
  Draws on part of a large collection of magazine and newspaper ads mainly from US publications dating between 1911 and 1955. (http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/adaccess/index.html)
• New York Public Library - Picture Collection Online
  30,000 digitized images, dating from the 1700s through the first quarter of the 20th century. Images are taken from books, newspapers, magazines, original photographs, prints, and postcards in the NYPL's Mid-Manhattan branch Picture Collection. (http://digital.nypl.org/mmpco/)
• HistoryWired
  Offers an "experimental program through which you can take a virtual tour of selected objects from the vast collections of the National Museum of American History. Here you'll have an opportunity to look at hundreds of museum artifacts, most of which are not currently on exhibit."
  (http://historywired.si.edu/index.html)
• Powers of Persuasion--Poster Art of World War II
  Analyze the propaganda wars waged to influence public opinion during World War II. This site also contains lesson plans and information about how to use these posters in the classroom.
  (http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/wwii-posters/activities.html)
• Newseum
  Search 195 front pages from 27 different counties on this interactive museum of news from the Freedom Foundation.
  (http://www.newseum.org/)
• Within these Walls
  The Smithsonian National Museum of American History offers an online tour that follows the lives of the inhabitants of a house in Massachusetts, over the course of 200 years.
  (http://www.americanhistory.si.edu/house/)

Books in Your Libraries

• Links to books & other materials in the libraries of the Mid-Hudson Library System.
• History - Sources
• Or enter your own keywords in the search box to search the catalog:
  
• Need help?
  • How to find a book in your library.