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AMS/HST/WGS 382 Neumann: Finding Primary Sources

Definitions of Primary Sources

Primary Sources are the raw data which are directly associated with their producer or user and the time period in which they were created. Examples include:

Public Records -- government documents, , court records, wills, tax records
Offfical Records -- for the operation of governments, such as laws and legislation
Personal Documents -- diaries, letters, email, correspondence, oral histories, household managment records
Artifacts and Relics --the material culture of life; furniture, tools, machines, clothing
Organizational Records -- all organizations keep some form of financial documents and minutes, among other records; businesses, charities, civic clubs
Images -- photographs, posters, paintings, engravings, icons,
Architecture, City Plans, and Maps -- how neighborhoods change, cities develop, landscape changes
Media -- television news, newspapers, broadsides
Literary Texts -- text of a novel, essay, poem, play, short story, religious work

Primary Source Collections Focused on Women

Women and Social Movements in the United States This link opens in a new window
This database includes documents from the President's Commission on the Status of Women, Institute for Women's Policy Research, papers of women active in the women's movements as well as selected speeches diaries and other publications.
North American Women's Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window
Unpublished and published sources of women's diaries and correspondence. They provide a detailed record of what women wore, the conditions under which they worked, what they ate, what they read, and how they amused themselves. Colonial - present.
Unpublished and published sources of women's diaries and correspondence. They provide a detailed record of what women wore, the conditions under which they worked, what they ate, what they read, and how they amused themselves. Colonial - present.
North American Women's Drama This link opens in a new window
Plays of selected women playwrights, some unpublished or hard to find. Also included: selected playbills, production photographs and other ephemera related to the plays. Colonial era - present.
Twentieth Century Advice Literature This link opens in a new window
Full-text of handbooks, manuals, textbooks, etiquette guides, self-help books, instructional pamphlets, and how-to books that illustrate the standards of personal conduct for millions of Americans and reflected the prevailing social mores across the twentieth century. Titles include: "Official Preppy Handbook" and "Facts about Marriage Every Young Man & Woman Should Know" 1900-present
The collection provides a window into American social history by bringing together the instructional, prescriptive, behavioral, and etiquette literature that defined standards of personal conduct for millions of Americans and reflected the prevailing social mores across the twentieth century. The collection contains fully searchable handbooks, manuals, textbooks, etiquette guides, self-help books, instructional pamphlets, and how-to books that illustrate both how Americans actually behaved and how they felt they ought to behave.
Vogue Archive This link opens in a new window
The Vogue Archive contains the entire run of Vogue magazine (US edition), from the first issue in 1892 to the current month, reproduced in high-resolution color page images. Every page, advertisement, cover and fold-out has been included, with rich indexing enabling you to find images by garment type, brand, person pictured, and photographer/illustrator, as well as document type and document feature.

Questions To Ask About Primary Sources

1.What types of primary materials might have been produced? Remember to think both about printed materials such as documents as well as physical representations of culture such as art work and architecture.

2.Who would have produced these primary sources?

3.Who would have used and/or critiqued these primary sources?

4.When would these primary sources have been produced?

5.Would these primary sources have been published, unpublished, or represented in another form (an audiotape of an interview, for instance)?

Evaluating Images

Below are some basic questions that will help you to evaluate photographs.© Information-Literate Historian. NY: Oxford University Press, 2006. For a more comprehensive list of evaluative questions for evaluation of all types of images, see: Visual Literacy Toolbox: Bank of Questions (University of Maryland, College Park)

1.    What is the social and historical context for this image?
2.    Was the image meant to be displayed? Publicly? In a private home? On a wall? Is it a reproduction? Was it used for another purpose than the way you see it now?
4.    What might have happened before and after this image was created?
4.    What is outside the frame of the image? What has been left out? What should be in the image that is missing?
5.    What was the artist’s source for the piece of artwork? Was the artist the eyewitness, creating from the event, looking at the landscape, or posing the individual, or was the artist working from a newspaper description or from memory?
6.    What gender, race, and class issues are reflected here? How has the photographer addressed or not addressed those issues?
7.    What cultural presuppositions do you bring from your time that the contemporary viewer would not have had?
8.    What relationships or connections do the people have to the objects?
9.    How did the photographer set up the photograph? Can you tell that the photographer made choices about the angle, lighting, and focus (foreground, background) that might influence how you perceive -- and how the photograph’s contemporaries may have perceived -- the image’s meaning and effect? Be careful not to label or stereotype people or objects, as this may lead you to erroneous conclusions.
10.    Does the photograph or image ignore issues and details contemporary to its depiction or present them in a certain way that may lead you to a certain view about the image?

Last Updated: Oct 7, 2024 2:17 PM
URL: https://libguides.lib.miamioh.edu/HST382
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