African American History: Primary Sources

What is the difference between a Primary and Secondary source?

Primary sources are documents that were created by an individual or a group of individuals who witnessed an event, time period or topic first hand. For those researching historical events, they are also characterized by having been written close to the time of the event. For example, a diary of a Civil War soldier would be an excellent primary source for someone researching the battlefield conditions during the conflict, as it would have been created by someone who actually experienced it. An 1863 newspaper article reporting on conditions during a battle from that same war would also count as a primary source. Even though it may not have been written by an individual participating in the war, it was written during the time that it was going on and provides some context to or an accurate description of the event in question.

Some examples of primary sources include:

• Photographs
• Letters
• Diaries, journals and logs
• Reports issued by private or governing institutions
• Newspaper, magazine, and journal articles that were written at the time of the event
• Autobiographies
• Legal documents and transcripts

Secondary sources are materials created years after the historical event, time period, or topic that it is addressing has passed. They are written by people researching or reflecting on a topic without having seen it first-hand, and both heavily summarize and draw quotes from primary sources.

Some examples of Secondary sources include:

• Biographies
• Textbooks
• Reference books
• Modern non-fiction history books
• Newspaper, magazine, and journal articles that were written a long time after the event in question
• Documentaries

To search for primary resources at Delaware State University's William C. Jason Library, please use the library catalog, found here.

Many primary resources on the local history of the State of Delaware and Delaware State University in particular are located in the Delaware Collection, on the second floor of the library, or in the University Archive.  On the page linked above, you can limit your search to those collections by:

• Typing the topic that you are searching for in the "General Keyword" field at the top of the page, or filling in any of the other fields as appropriate.
• Highlighting the collections you want to search in within the Collections box.

Other resources that you can look for using our library catalog include:

• Older newspapers available in microfilm and through our online databases.
• Diaries, journals, and autobiographies, distrubuted throughout all of the library's collections.
• Government and legal documents as seen in this guide.
• Magazines, journals, and serials available through our electronic databases

Use our WorldCat catalog, located here, to search for physical resources at Delaware State University and beyond. While you can obtain lots of resources from other schools and libraries using interlibrary loan, rare or older materials commonly have some borrowing restrictions. In those cases, it is best to contact the institution in question to arrange a visit to see the items that you are interested in.  

Here are some specialized and local collections with valuable primary resources: