Categories of Primary Sources

Nature and Categories of Primary Sources

• Public and official records. “Public records: Governments keep a myriad of records to define their populations, create policies and procedures, and otherwise maintain civil order. …Census records, court records, certain types of statistics, wills, local administrative records, and tax records are all examples of public records.” Official records: To operate, governments have laws and guidelines, often, these records are published and more than one copy exists. These records are intended to make citizens aware of the rules and regulations, as well as the actions of their civil government. Examples of official records include laws, civil codes, legislative hearings, and treaties.”^[1]
• “Personal documents. Individuals have always generated amazing amounts of documentation that can teach us a great deal about their lives and societies. Diaries, letters, e-mail correspondence, oral histories, financial records, and household accounts are all incredibly rich research sources.”^[2]
• “Artifacts/relics. Individuals leave behind “stuff,” including material possessions and general debris, such as refuse. Analyzing what items humans produced, used, consumed, and discarded provides insight into the lives of the vast majority of humankind, few of whom leave any written or other personal records to be studied. Examples include furniture, paintings, tools, machines, clothing, textiles, firearms, cooking tools, farm implements, music, and art.”^[3]
• “Business and other organizations’ documents. Corporations and other organizations, such as unions, civic clubs, charities, and churches, produce materials that document their activities, as well as the roles and identities of their workers, members, constituents, and clients. Shipping manifests, inventories, financial records, meeting minutes, and production schedules can provide insight into a business, its goods, and its influence, for example, on the local economy, society, and labor pool.
• Images. Photographs, posters, paintings, engravings, icons, and videos are valuable records of events but also serve as chronicles of changes in the texture of individuals’ lives. Families grow and change. Cities and buildings damaged by war and decay fall apart and are rebuilt. Images provide glimpses not only of dress and decoration but also of values. How was a middle-class home decorated in Victorian England? What did Red Square look like in revolutionary Russia? How did illuminated Bibles reflect medieval culture? How did propaganda films reflect Nazi ideology?
• Architecture, city plans, and maps. A city’s map, neighborhoods, and mix of architectural styles indicate how individuals rich and poor relate as a society. Maps indicate how traffic flowed and how land was used. Rural land uses, environmental history, and landscape archaeology all tell us how individuals relate to the land and the importance of land in their society. Documents that provide this kind of information include photographs, city plans, blueprints, house drawings, and house plans, as well as maps. Physical buildings also provide information about their past as well as change over time.
• Media and other public communication. News and its path of communication have certainly changed over time, but its significance as a primary source has not. With the rise of commercial and industrial societies, individuals as well as governments and commercial interests needed to effectively find and disseminate information. What they have left behind are vast amounts of fertile material for study, including newspapers, magazines, learned societies’ publications, television news broadcasts, broadsides, and radio broadcasts.
• Literary texts. The text of a novel, essay, poem, play, short story, music, or religious work is a primary source. Written in a specific time and place, these works reflect the culture and thought of an era and location, even if the work is critical of the status quo or set in another time. Historians sometimes analyze popular novels and works of music alongside other primary source material in their research.”^[4]