InfoGuides: ARTH 599: Arts of the Indian Ocean: Find Images & Primary Sources

Understanding Primary Sources

What are primary sources?

Primary sources are documents (or other kinds of materials) created in the past that can help us gain insight into a specific time period. Primary sources provide ideas and evidence about events in the past. Scholars use the evidence found in primary sources to draw conclusions and construct narratives about the past.

In art history, primary sources might include:

letters or records of sales between artists, patrons, dealers, friends, etc.
exhibition reviews or eyewitness accounts of events (reviews of the 1913 Armory Show, photos of World's Fairs)
ephemera (items not meant to be kept long-term): ticket stubs, exhibit pamphlets, t-shirts, playbills, tote bags, etc.

Primary sources can also include the original object of study, such as buildings, original paintings or photographs, historic fashion or furniture, and other objects and remnants of material culture.

The boxes below include links to many digital collections of primary sources. You can also use these strategies to find primary sources in other ways (for example, diaries or letters that have been reproduced in books).

Digital collections: Digital collections are often organized by topic, or allow you to search by keyword or subject headings (i.e. special terms that are used to label what a source is about, like "Labor laws" or "Civil Rights Movement"). Digitized archival collections may also be organized using a finding aid.
Library catalogs: Some primary sources are reproduced/republished into books. To find these in a library, try searching for your keywords and one of these subject headings for primary sources:
--correspondence; --description and travel; --interviews; --maps; --narratives; --collections; sources; --pictorial works; --diaries; --biography, --quotations; --discovery and exploration

When working with primary sources, you can start with simple questions that help you understand the object's context (who made it, how, and why?). It's also useful to keep in mind what possible questions you can ask of the material beyond the obvious: what arguments or assumptions are made by the author of the material? How does it relate to other texts or sources? What rhetorical strategies does the author use?

The questions below are not a full list, but can help you get started with evaluating and thinking about primary sources and how they might support your own research.

Who created this document? Who took this photo? Who wrote and received this letter?
What do you know about this organization?
What do you know about the historical context of the source?
How does the source creator fit into this historical context? What was his or her role?
Why was this source created?
What kinds of factual information does it provide?
What is conveyed, but not necessarily intentionally?
What is not conveyed in this source? What isn't being said?
What us surprising, unique, puzzling, interesting in this source?
How does the creator of this source convey information?
How is the world today different than when this document was created?
How might this source have been received in its time?
How does this source compare to accounts in secondary sources?
What do you believe and what doesn't seem credible about this source?
What do you still not know and where might you find it?

Learn More: How to Read a Primary Source
Strategies for reading primary sources, from Bowdoin College.

Primary Source Databases

Digital collections may contain scans, transcriptions, or reconstructions of original sources. They often organized by topic, or allow you to search by keyword or subject headings (terms that describe what a source is "about").

NOTE: Digitized sources may not have robust metadata or modern descriptions. When searching in primary source collections, you may need to use language or terminology from the time period and place where the source was created to find relevant sources.

India, Raj and Empire
Primary source materials depicting, from a British colonial perspective, the history of South Asia (primarily India) between the foundation of the East India Company in 1615 and the granting of independence to India and Pakistan in 1947. Material types include diaries and journals, official and private papers, letters, sketches, paintings, histories, and literary works.
World Newspaper Archive, South Asia
Features titles published in India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka during the colonial era, 1864-1922. Titles include such key publications as: Amrita Bazar Patrika (Calcutta), Bankura Darpana (Bankura, India), Madras Mail (Madras), Tribune (Lahore, Pakistan) and the Ceylon Observer (Sri Lanka). Languages include English, Bengali, and Gujarati.
Global Commodities: Trade, Exploration and Cultural Exchange
Contains primary source materials for the study of global commodities in world history. It focuses on the history of 15 major commodities, and examines the ways that they have changed the world. In addition to historical documents, collection provides users with visual resources, such as thematic galleries, data and maps, and a searchable chronology.

Image Collections & Museums

ARTstor

Contains over a million images documenting artistic traditions across many cultures and time periods. Updated frequently, please check back often for updated searches & collections. Note: ARTstor users must create a free account to save and share images. Users must turn off the popup blocker.
Berg Fashion Library
Provides access to interdisciplinary and integrated text, image, and journal content on world dress and fashion.

Smithsonian Image Gallery
The Image Gallery includes over 530,000 electronic images from several archival repositories and museums at the Smithsonian.
Digital Library of the Middle East
The Digital Library of the Middle East (DLME) is a vital resource for scholars, students, and the general public interested in the rich history and culture of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
Aga Khan Museum
Founded in 2014, the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, Ontario is home to a growing Permanent Collection of over 1,200 masterpieces, including manuscripts, paintings, ceramics, and textiles from the 9th to the 21st century.
ArchNet
Focused on architecture, urbanism, environmental & landscape design, conservation, visual/material culture, and the built environment with a primary focus on Islamic architecture.
Getty Open Content
Prints, drawings, photographs, and other images from the Getty's collections.