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Ohio Youth History Day

What’s the Big Picture?

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Primary v. Secondary Sources

What is a primary source?

What is a secondary source?

How are they similar?

How are they different?

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Primary Sources

Direct or firsthand evidences about an event, object or person

Examples:
Historical Objects
Manuscript Collections
Interview with Eyewitness
Autobiographies
Government Records
Newspapers from the Era
Letters
Photographs
Music of the Era
Original Film Footage

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Secondary Sources

Created by studying primary sources and gathering information about an event, object or person.

Examples:
Biographies
Encyclopedias
History Textbooks
Media Documentaries
Books about the Topic by Historians
Interviews with Scholars/Experts
Articles about the Topic
Websites

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Primary or Secondary?

Your class’s history textbook

Primary

Secondary

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Primary or Secondary?

An interview with a historian

Primary

Secondary

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Primary or Secondary?

A painting

Primary

Secondary

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Primary or Secondary?

A letter written at the time of the event

Primary

Secondary

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Pre-Activity: Primary Source Analysis

Pre Activity Image 1: This cartoon comes from William Henry Harrison's campaign for the presidency against incumbent Martin Van Buren. Van Buren is depicted as a frock-coated dandy supported by Washington insiders, while Harrison is shown as a simple Ohio farmer bearing a club labelled "Reform."

What do you notice in this political cartoon? Discuss and share the above information. *The link takes you to the webpage where you can zoom in on the image more closely if desired.*
Ask students why they think it is important to look at primary sources when doing historical research. Why is it important to have information from an eyewitness of an event?
Discuss with your students how thoughts, feelings, and ideas about past events can change with time, and how that can change how we see them.
Also explain when people write about the past, even if they are being historically accurate, they still make choices about what things they write about, what things they leave out, and how they are going to write about it. By looking at primary sources, you can come up with your own ideas about a topic.

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Secondary Source Analysis

Why is it important to use primary AND secondary sources in our research?
Bibliographies and works cited
Use questions to guide your research

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Turn & Talk…

Why is it important to include different perspectives when doing historical research?
Write your ideas on a post-it and add it to the board when finished

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What’s the Big Picture?

Each group or pair will get a Source Guide. The Source Guide will give you 2 different sources to view. Both sources will be Primary Sources.
Look at the sources very carefully
Work with your partner to answer the questions as best you can
Consider: What will we learn from Primary Sources?

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Image 1

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Image 2

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Reflection Questions

What questions on your worksheet do you still have trouble answering? What other questions do you have about the sources you saw, the War of 1812, or the election of 1840? What other primary or secondary sources might there be that would help you answer those questions?
Why do you think it is important to look at many different sources when you’re doing historical research?
Why are primary sources important when doing historical research? Why are secondary sources important?