Primary Sources vs. Secondary Sources: Can you tell the difference?
The writer or creator of the primary source is likely to be a participant or observer of an historical event, and offers an account of a particular time period.
Some examples of primary resources include:
- Letters Written by Ebenezer Huntington During the American Revolution
- Diary of a Common Soldier in the American Revolution, 1775-1783
- An Original Sketch by an English Officer on Board of One of Admiral Howe's Fleet while at Anchor in New York Harbor, just after The Battle of Long Island
- Memoir of a Revolutionary Soldier: The Narrative of Joseph Plumb Martin
NYPL Digital Collections Image ID: psnypl_rbk_946
Secondary sources are usually, but not always, created well after the event occurred. These sources add interpretation or analysis to a historical event or time period. Good secondary sources use primary sources as evidence. They usually attach a bibliography which can be a good starting point for catalog searches.
Some secondary sources include:
NYPL Resources for Locating Primary Resources
The staff at NYPL have written many helpful guides and blogs about using primary resources in your research:
Revolutionary War Diaries
Diaries are an invaluable primary source as firsthand accounts of what life was like, not only for officers and soldiers, but for a wide variety of people.
Genealogy databases like Ancestry Library Edition, which is available onsite at the library, includes collections like Journals and diaries of the war of the revolution with lists of officers and soldiers, 1775-1783 where you can read items like the Diary of Captain James Duncan in the Yorktown Campaign of 1781.
There are also digital catalogs like HathiTrust, which is freely available online, and has books like Memoirs of Mrs. Coghlan, (daughter of the late Major Moncrieffe) written by herself, and dedicated to the British nation; being interspersed with anecdotes of the late American and present French war, with remarks moral and political.
Research tip: If you're searching for Revolutionary War diaries, consider search terms like "personal narratives," "autobiographies" or "journals."
Resources at NYPL
- American Founding Era Papers, available from home with a library card
- America: History and Life with Full Text, available onsite at the library
- American Periodicals (1740-1940), available from home with a library card
- Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive, available from home with a library card
- U.S. History in Context, available from home with a library card
More Archival Collections
Explore these databases, all freely available from home:
- ArchiveGrid is a database for descriptions of special collections of more than 1,400 archival institutions including libraries, museums, and historical societies.
- Google Books provides previews of books and sometimes full text scans if the book is out of copyright.
- HathiTrust is a digital archive that provides access to over 17 million digitized items in a collaboration with academic and research libraries.
- Internet Archive is a digital library with access to digitized items like books, websites, images, and more.
- Other libraries, museums, and historical societies also have digital collections, like the Library of Congress.
Types of Primary Sources
- Correspondence
- Diaries
- Memoirs
- Prints
- Maps
- Newspapers
- Sheet music
- Broadsides
- Land records
- Family bibles
Types of Secondary Sources
- Biographies
- Books that interpret or analyze events
- Scholarly journal articles
- Textbooks
- Documentaries
Teaching with Primary Sources: Suggested Titles
Want to find these books at a library near you? Try searching WorldCat!
Interacting with History by Call Number: IAE 16-1452ISBN: 9780838912058Publication Date: 2014-06-09With nearly 142 million items and one of the largest bodies of high-quality, digitized content available, the Library of Congress (LOC) is an enormously useful resource for librarians and teachers. Yet it remains a mystery to many. Exploring the wealth of materials freely available for free from LOC, Lehman and a stellar roundup of contributors offer an up-to-date survey of teacher resources to help teachers and librarian educators shake the dust off state-mandated history and literature curricula.
Beyond the Textbook by Call Number: *R-USLHG D16.3 .K64 1996ISBN: 0435088807Publication Date: 1996-05-06Beyond the Textbook is a chronicle of what happened when several "interesting ideas" about teaching and learning history were put to the test in Providence, Rhode Island, public schools. Here, diverse mainstream students used documents and primary sources to actually construct history, acting as historians and drawing their own conclusions about the past.
NYPL Archives and Manuscripts
The Manuscripts and Archives Division
Archives are records of people and organizations as they lived and worked. These records can come in a variety of formats like meeting minutes, reports, correspondence, and more. Archives usually collect records that preserve cultural or historical events.
Search the Archives Portal to see the records in NYPL's collections.
Learn more by exploring the research guide, Getting Started with Archives.
Schedule a virtual consultation with the reference librarians in the Manuscripts and Archives Division or send an email to manuscripts@nypl.org