Primary & Secondary Sources

Pine View Elementary 3rd Grade

What is a Primary Source?

• Original artifacts that come from the past.• Examples– Photographs, drawings, letters, diaries,

documents, books, films, posters, play scripts, speeches, songs, sheet music, and first-person accounts that are recorded at the time of an event.

Primary Sources Investigation

• Pictures of Primary Sources…• http://www.cyberbee.com/yesteryear/photo.

html

• What did you find interesting about the photos?

Primary Sources Investigation

• Examples of Primary Sources for Sound…• http://www.cyberbee.com/yesteryear/sounds

.htm

• Examples of Primary Sources for Documents• http://www.cyberbee.com/yesteryear/docum

ent.html

Primary Documents from America’s Past

• Primary Sources Help Us Better Understand History

• Check out the primary photos on this site…• http://www.digitalvaults.org/

• What pictures interested you? Would you want to learn more about any of them?

What Are Secondary Sources?

• Secondary Source - source created by someone either not present when the event took place or removed by time from the event. Examples are:– Textbooks– Journal articles– Histories– Encyclopedias.

Class Activity

• We are going to explore some primary documents to help us find out some information about people who chose to come to the United States over 100 years ago!• Most people at this time traveled by

ship and came to a place called Ellis Island.

About Ellis Island

• People traveled from all over the world to come to America to live and become a citizen. When they got here…this is what they saw.

Primary Source Photos of Ellis Island Immigrants

Primary Source Photos of Ellis Island Immigrants

Primary Source Photos of Ellis Island Immigrants

Primary Source Photos of Ellis Island Immigrants

Passenger Records

• Everyone who arrived at Ellis Island came by boat. They were called passengers. Every passenger had a record that told information about them.

• These records are primary sources that give us history about America and the immigrants.

Your Job

• You will be given a real passenger record. • Using your response sheet, look at your

passenger record and see what information you can find out about this person.

• We will put the places that our immigrants came from on a world map.

Additional Activity

• Are you interested in knowing where your last name came from?

• Type it into the Ellis Island website and have fun exploring possibly some of your own family history, or search the website to find out more about this interesting place.

• http://www.ellisisland.org/search/passSearch.asp