RDP Library: History: Primary Sources

About Primary Sources

You may come across the terms primary sources, secondary sources, and tertiary sources.

Primary sources are original works or research, before it has been commented on, analyzed, or interpreted.

Examples: art, diaries, maps, letters, newspapers, videos and films, photographs, speeches, manuscripts

Secondary sources provide commentary or analysis on primary sources.

Examples: history textbooks, journal and magazine articles that review or provide analysis, books that provide criticism or commentary

Tertiary sources consist of information which is a distillation and collection of primary and secondary sources.

Examples include bibliographies, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and directories.

Primary Source Collections

Peel's Prairie Provinces
A collection of digitized materials relating to western Canada. Includes an online bibliography of books, pamphlets, and other materials related to the development of the Prairies, as well as a full-text collection of many of these items.
Canadiana Online This link opens in a new window
Primary sources on Canadian history from the first European contact to the early 20th century.
Alberta Research Portal This link opens in a new window
This portal provides Albertans with access to the Gale Primary Sources database, including resources related to First Nations & Indigenous peoples, historical news archives, the Archives of Human Sexuality & Gender, and much more.
All Albertans share barrier free access to this collection. Gale Primary Sources uses geo-authentication, meaning anyone in Alberta with an Internet-connected device can access these resources with no need to log in or authenticate. You can access the entire collection through this website or through your library’s digital resources.
Frontier Life: Borderlands, Settlement & Colonial Encounters This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Primary source documents which provide insight into the anglophone world from 1650-1920, covering European and colonial frontier regions of North America, Africa, and Australasia. Includes material from the Hudson Bay Archives and the Glenbow Archives.
Gale Primary Sources: a barrier-free collection accessible by all Albertans in perpetuity.

Primary Sources on the Web

CBC Digital Archives
Provides access to interviews, newscasts, television and radio episodes, and a variety of media from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Héritage
"Chronicling the country and its people from the 1600s to the mid-1900s, this collection represents a vast and unique resource for Canadian historians, students, and genealogists."
Internet Archive
Among many, many things, this site does contain primary documents related to Canadian history. Be specific!
Internet Modern History Sourcebook (Fordham University)
"The Internet History Sourcebooks Project is a collection of public domain and copy-permitted historical texts."
Spartacus Educational
This listing provides links to internet portals and collections of primary documents. Hosted by Spartacus Educational.
Sports Illustrated Vault Archive
As this archive features scanned full issues, SI is useful for advertisements and cultural messages from 1954 on.
Tudor England (1502-1587)
Eyewitness accounts of people and events in Tudor England: letters, journals, etc.