Virginia History: Primary Sources @ Grafton

Image credit: Historic Map Archive at Univeristy of Alabama

A Primary Source is a document that gives a first-hand account of an event or individual. That means the creator of the document experienced or recorded the event at the time, or very near the time that it took place. 

Woodrow Wilson at Mary Baldwin College, 1912. Photo Credit: Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library Archives on Flickr

Examples*: 

• Diaries, scrapbooks (and other personal papers)
• Correspondence (from telegraphs to e-mails)
• Memoirs, auto-biographies
• Financial, business records
• Photographs
• Video clips
• Speeches
• Government documents
• Sound recordings
• Statistics
• Laboratory research
• Newspapers (only in a historical context)
• Field notes

Adapted from George, Mary W. The Elements of Library Research. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008.