Primary Sources Definition
What are Primary Sources? Primary sources enable the researcher to get as close as possible to the truth of what actually happened during an historical event or time period. Primary source is a term used in a number of disciplines to describe source material that is closest to the person, information, period, or idea being studied. A primary source (also called original source) is a document, recording, artifact, or other source of information that was created at the time under study, usually by a source with direct personal knowledge of the events being described. It serves as an original source of information about the topic. Similar definitions are used in library science, and other areas of scholarship. In journalism, a primary source can be a person with direct knowledge of a situation, or a document created by such a person. Primary sources are distinguished from secondary sources, which cite, comment on, or build upon primary sources, though the distinction is not a sharp one.
- Primary Sources in the Performing Artsclick on primary sources by subject
The Billy Rose Theatre Collection
TITLE: [Scene from Othello with Paul Robeson as Othello and Uta Hagen as Desdemona, Theatre Guild Production, Broadway, 1943-44] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Robeson_Hagen_Othello.jpg SOURCE:Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540The Billy Rose Theatre Collection of The New York Public Library is one of the largest and most comprehensive archives devoted to the theatrical arts. This image is a work of an employee of the United States Farm Security Administration or Office of War Information domestic photographic units, created during the course of the person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain.
Archives
- New York Public Library Archives & ManuscriptsOn this site, you can search The New York Public Library's vast holdings, initiate a research visit, submit a query to an archivist, and access digitized material.
- Internet ArchivesThe Internet Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, the print disabled, and the general public.
Letters & Diaries /Oral Histories
Guide to International Collections
New York Archival Collections
- FalesIt is especially strong in English literature from the middle of the 18th century to the present, documenting developments in the novel. The Downtown Collection documents the downtown New York art, performance, and literary scenes from 1975 to the present and is extremely rich in archival holdings, including extensive film and video objects.
- La Mama ArchivesRecords that chronicle the theater’s 50-plus-year institutional history, and documents the development of Off-Off-Broadway theater; queer, African American, Asian American, Native American, Latino and international theater forms; and experimental theater practices of various kinds. It contains approximately 10,000 unique items in a range of formats, including posters, programs, scripts, costumes, puppets, masks, musical instruments, correspondence, photographs, and audiovisual materials.
- New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman CenterOne of the world's most extensive combinations of circulating, reference, and rare archival collections in the area of theater and performing arts
Historical Image Collections
commons.wikimedia.org/
Victorian Popular Culture
