Primary sources are materials that provide firsthand testimony to a subject under investigation. Researchers often use these firsthand accounts of specific events to understand events from the viewpoint of people living during that time period.
Primary sources include documents and artifacts from the time period under study, such as:
Primary sources also include writings and recordings by witnesses who experienced the events or conditions being documented, such as:
When looking for primary sources online, it can be helpful to search for interviews and oral histories. Modern interviews and oral histories can often be found in news articles and videos.
Sometimes collections of primary source documents are republished in books. To find books like these, search WPI Library Search for books about your topic and add keywords such as oral history, journals, papers, letters, documents, primary sources, documentary history, or sourcebook to your search terms.
You can also look for memoirs or autobiographies to find first-hand accounts of historical events.
Here are some examples of books containing primary sources:
We Flew over the Bridge: The Memoirs of Faith Ringgold by 
Shattered Dreams? An Oral History of the South African AIDS Epidemic by 
Storytelling in Chefchaouen Northern Morocco: An Annotated Study of Oral Performance with Transliterations and Translations by 
Return to Childhood: The Memoir of a Modern Moroccan Woman by