Online primary sources
Find digitized primary sources from our archival collection that you can use right now in your classroom.
Photos
- 8,700+ high-resolution images
- b&w and colour
- 1800s-1970s
- people, places and events across Ontario
- open use license
- 750 high-resolution images
- arranged by topic
Online exhibits
Visit our Online exhibits section to explore and learn how the unique primary sources in our collections tell stories about Ontario’s past.
Exhibit topics include:
- Black history
- Indigenous history
- histories of war
- photography
- theatre and culture
Why use primary sources in your teaching
Primary sources are the raw evidence used in all historical inquiry.
They include the original documents, letters, diaries, newspapers, photos, maps, films, etc. created by people of the past that researchers today use to understand and make claims about that past.
Aside from works of art or architecture, very little of what humans make in one era survives for future generations. The role of archives is to collect, preserve and make available a portion of this material for researchers today and tomorrow.
Benefits of primary sources in the classroom
Engaging with primary sources promotes critical thinking skills.
Because primary sources need to be put into historical context to be understood, engaging with them activates prior learning.
Primary sources inspire new questions about the past.
Primary sources challenge our assumptions about how people before us behaved, what they thought, what mattered to them and how the world around them worked.
Examining primary sources strengthens students’ understanding of the historical narratives you are teaching.