Primary Sources

What is a primary source? “Primary sources are the raw materials of history — original documents and objects that were created at the time under study. They are different from secondary sources, accounts that retell, analyze, or interpret events, usually at a distance of time or place.” (https://www.loc.gov/programs/teachers/getting-started-with-primary-sources/)

PACSCL has created amazing resources that offer primary sources on women’s history, the history of medicine, medieval manuscripts, and resistance work in Philadelphia.

Primary Source Sets

Subject-Based Digital Collections of Primary Sources, compiled for the 2022 National Council for the Society Studies Conference

PACSCL Projects

In Her Own Right: A Century of Women’s Activism, 1820-1920

For the Health of the New Nation: Philadelphia as the Center of American Medical Education, 1746-1868

Chronicling Resistance

Bibliotecha Philadelphiensis

Each project differs in how it presents primary sources. Some, like In Her Own Right, offer lesson plans. Others, like For the Health of the New Nation, present primary sources without context. All of the primary sources from these projects are free to download and use.You and your students can also search over 12,000 collections from libraries and archives throughout the greater Philadelphia area by using the Philadelphia Area Archives search portal.