LibGuides: Yonkers High School IB: Finding Materials: Primary and Secondary Sources

Primary and Secondary Sources

What is a Primary Source?

A direct source from a particular event; a first-hand account from someone who was involved in an event; a work that was created during the time period studied.
A diary, newspapers from the time an event took place, a personal letter or correspondence.

CHINESE CRUSH FOE IN CHIHKIANG ZONE. (1945, May 11). New York Times (1923-Current File) Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/107140388?accountid=13701

What is a Secondary Source?

Uses primary sources to make an argument or provide an analysis; not from the direct time of the event that it is describing.
Criticisms, commentaries, a document that reviews or interprets a previous event or findings.

The Long Road Home by Ben Shephard
Call Number: D808 .S44 2011
ISBN: 9781400040681
Publication Date: 2011-02-22

Can a Source be Primary and Secondary?

Simply put, yes. For example a documentary about World War II could be used as both a primary or secondary source. It could be used as a primary source if it has first-hand accounts or if you are studying the art of documentary. It could also be used as a secondary source because it uses primary source material to analyze an event.

White light, black rain : the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by Steven Okazaki; Takafumi Kawasaki; Steve Condiotti; Masafumi Ichinose; HBO Documentary Films
Call Number: D767.25.H6 W45 DVD
ISBN: 9780783156552
Publication Date: 2007

Finding Primary Sources

Documenting the American South: First Person Narratives of the American South "Documenting the American South (DocSouth) includes sixteen thematic collections of primary sources for the study of southern history, literature, and culture."
Documenting The American South: Slave Narratives Documenting the American South, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, this page is specifically dedicated to the slave narrative.
In Motion: The African-American Migration Experience From the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture "In Motion: The African-American Migration Experience presents a new interpretation of African-American history, one that focuses on the self-motivated activities of peoples of African descent to remake themselves and their worlds."
Making of America Collection of approximately 1,600 full-text books and 50,000 journal articles from the antebellum period through Reconstruction.
National Museum of African American History & Culture Collections Search the collections of the National Museum of African American History & Culture to see high resolution images and contextual information on different objects, letters, documents, and more.

Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law This HeinOnline collection brings together a multitude of essential legal materials on slavery in the United States and the English-speaking world. This includes every statute passed by every colony and state on slavery, every federal statute dealing with slavery, and all reported state and federal cases on slavery. Scope: Worldwide. Dates: 18th-21st centuries.

Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database "This website provides the most comprehensive source of data currently available on the trans-Atlantic slave trade." In addition to a wealth of educational materials, gathered by Emory Univeristy and partners, it also contains records of nearly 35,000 slaving voyages between 1514 and 1866, gleaned from original documents and historical publications located in archives, libraries, and other institutions throughout the world.
Valley of the Shadow Virginia Center for Digital History, University of Virginia Library project that interweaves the histories of two communities on either side of the Mason-Dixon line during the era of the American Civil War, incorporating a narrative and electronic archive of sources.
100 Milestone Documents The Our Documents initiative is a cooperative effort among National History Day, The National Archives and Records Administration, and USA Freedom Corps and documents chronicle United States history from 1776 to 1965.

Primary Source Resources at Yonkers Riverfront Library

Annals of America [973 A]
Black abolitionist papers [973.09 B]
Black women in American history [305.348 B]
Documentary history of the negro people in the United States v.1: from the colonial times through the Civil War [305.896 D]
Public papers of the President of the United States [973.916 U (9 95)]
Slavery in America: from colonial times to the Civil War [326.09 S (11 00)]
Slavery in the courtroom: an annotated bibliography of American cases [342.087 F (9 94)]

Google Books

Google Books contains vast amounts of primary and secondary source materials and is particularly useful in searching for print materials that are out of copyright (printed before 1922).

Each book includes an 'About this book' page with basic bibliographic data like title, author, publication date, length and subject. For some books you may also see additional information like key terms and phrases, references to the book from scholarly publications or other books, chapter titles and a list of related books. For every book, you'll see links directing you to bookstores where you can buy the book and libraries where you can borrow it.

Viewing materials: If the book is out of copyright, or the publisher has given permission, you'll be able to see a preview of the book, and in some cases the entire text. If it's in the public domain, you can download a PDF copy.

Limited Preview: If the publisher or author has given permission, you can see a limited number of pages from the book as a preview.
Snippet View: Like a card catalog, the snippet view shows information about the book plus a few snippets – a few sentences to display your search term in context.
No preview: Google also displays search results for books that have not been digitized. As these books have not been scanned, their text is not searchable and only information such as the title, author, publisher, number of pages, ISBN, subject and copyright information, and in some cases, a table of contents and book summary is available.