What are Primary Sources?
Primary sources are the evidence of history, original records or objects created by participants or observers at the time historical events occurred or even well after events, as in memoirs and oral histories.
Primary sources may include but are not limited to:
letters
manuscripts
diaries
journals
newspapers
maps
speeches
interviews
(and I would add autobiographies and law codes) klg
documents produced by government agencies, photographs, audio or video recordings, born-digital items (e.g. emails), research data, and objects or artifacts (such as works of art or ancient roads, buildings, tools, and weapons). These sources serve as the raw materials historians use to interpret and analyze the past.
From https://www.ala.org/rusa/sections/history/resources/primarysources
