Different types of documents in history

The first thing to note is that a historical document may be found in a variety of formats. For example, the original of a handwritten letter by George Washington might be available to researchers at the Library of Congress, but a copy of that letter might be available elsewhere as microfilm, in a published collection of documents, or in electronic form online.

Secondly, one of the main challenges of dealing with primary sources is locating them. Many historical documents have never been published, and they may only be available in archives.

Moreover, depending on the topic and time period that you are studying, you will have to look for different kinds of primary sources. For example, if you are interested in the issue of birth control in 20th century America, you can expect to find many primary sources, including:

  • court cases
  • legislative documents
  • newspaper articles
  • and letters

If you are interested in a topic from a more distant historical time period, such as the status of Jews during the Renaissance, you may have to look harder, but you can still find documents such as:

  • laws
  • novels
  • and pamphlets

If you’re interested in first-person accounts, you’ll want to take a look at sources like:

  • letters
  • diaries
  • autobiographies
  • oral histories
  • literary works
  • or polemical writings

In other cases, you will want to think about what kinds of organizations might have created records related to your topic. You might be able to find:

  • statistics
  • government reports
  • legislative documents
  • court records
  • transactions of an association
  • annual reports and financial records
  • or reports of non-governmental organizations.

Visual material can also provide a powerful window into the time period you are studying. For instance, maps not only reveal contemporary political boundaries, but also how people thought of them. Other visual sources include:

  • photographs
  • posters
  • advertisements
  • illustrations
  • cartoons
  • travel narratives
  • and motion pictures

Keep in mind that primary sources can have multiple meanings. For example, an 1854 map of the cholera outbreak in London can provide a new understanding of how the disease spread and why people were concern with the illness as a social problem.

Source:  https://primarysources.yale.edu/identify-types-formats

Source:  https://www.library.illinois.edu/hpnl/tutorials/primary-sources/

Primary sources include documents or artifacts created by a witness to or participant in an event.  They can be firsthand testimony or evidence created during the time period that you are studying.

Primary sources may include diaries, letters, interviews, oral histories, photographs, newspaper articles, government documents, poems, novels, plays, and music.  The collection and analysis of primary sources is central to historical research.

Note about primary sources: While there are many digital primary resources available, it is very important to remember that the majority of primary sources have not yet been digitized.

  • The Books link in the navigation bar at the left provides information for locating primary sources via UW Libraries Search
  • Under the Primary & Secondary Sources link in the navigation bar your find several options for locating these types of resources. 

Different types of documents in history

Different types of documents in history

A Gutenberg Bible printed in the 1450s on display at the US Library of Congress

Historical documents are original documents that contain important historical information about a person, place, or event and can thus serve as primary sources as important ingredients of the historical methodology.

Significant historical documents can be deeds, laws, accounts of battles (often given by the victors or persons sharing their viewpoint), or the exploits of the powerful. Though these documents are of historical interest, they do not detail the daily lives of ordinary people, or the way society functioned. Anthropologists, historians and archeologists generally are more interested in documents that describe the day-to-day lives of ordinary people, indicating what they ate, their interaction with other members of their households and social groups, and their states of mind. It is this information that allows them to try to understand and describe the way society was functioning at any particular time in history.[1] Greek ostraka provide good examples of historical documents from "among the common people".

Many documents that are produced today, such as personal letters, pictures, contracts, newspapers, and medical records, would be considered valuable historical documents in the future. However most of these will be lost in the future since they are either printed on ordinary paper which has a limited lifespan, or even stored in digital formats, then lost track over time.

Some companies and government entities are attempting to increase the number of documents that will survive the passage of time, by taking into account the preservation issues, and either printing documents in a manner that would increase the likelihood of them surviving indefinitely, or placing selected documents in time capsules or other special storage environments.

See also[edit]

  • Historical source
  • Archive
  • Diplomatics
  • Aultrus
  • Internet History Sourcebooks Project See also Internet History Sourcebooks Project. Collections of public domain and copy-permitted historical texts presented cleanly (without advertising or excessive layout) for educational use.
  • American Historical Documents from the Harvard Classics Collection
  • Some of America's historical documents from the NARA
  • French Renaissance Paleography Scholarly maintained website containing over 100 French manuscripts from 1300 to 1700 with tools to decipher and transcribe them.
  • French historical documents search engine

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Exploring Daily Life throughout History: How Did They Live?". Enoch Pratt Free Library.

What are the 3 historical documents?

Explore the Documents.
Declaration of Independence..
Constitution of the United States..
Bill of Rights..

What are the 6 historical documents?

America's Historical Documents.
Declaration of Independence..
Articles of Confederation..
The Constitution..
Bill of Rights..
Louisiana Purchase..
List of Lewis's Purchases..
District of Columbia Emancipation..
Emancipation Proclamation..

What are the 5 sources of history?

Historical sources can include coins, artefacts, monuments, literary sources, documents, artifacts, archaeological sites, features, oral transmissions, stone inscriptions, paintings, recorded sounds, images and oral history. Even ancient relics and ruins, broadly speaking, are historical sources.

Where are the historical documents?

The place where historical documents are preserved is called 'Archives'.