LibGuide created by Cindy L. Craig in 2013. (clcraig@ufl.edu)
Primary sources are documents or artifacts that provide direct evidence of historical events. Often they are created at the time events occured. Examples include letters, diaries, musical scores, political cartoons, paintings, maps, and treaties. First-hand testimony recorded after events occured, including memoirs and oral histories, are also primary documents. Like detectives, historians gather facts from a variety of primary sources and use them to build a case for what actually happened. |