While primary sources are vital to historical research, sometimes few written records exist. How do historians approach a research project where there are very limited primary sources?
I research African American history of the region around the museum I worked at for the past two summers. I'd like to write a book for the museum interpreters (and possibly sell it in the gift shop) once my research is complete. The museum is great, but little attention has been paid to African American history, and now I see why. There aren't primary sources! It has been nearly impossible to find primary sources, particularly from the African Americans I am studying. Records from the region were lost or never saved. The state archives has little to work with. (I am also limited by my own mobility and budget. I'm a recent college grad and not being paid for this project anymore, so I cannot travel to national or other state archives at this point.)
I'd like to learn historians' practices and accepted methods for overcoming little to no primary sources for a particular topic so I can produce a historically sound product. This story deserves to be explored and told by the museum in the most effective, accurate manner possible. Thank you.
I'm sure others can pipe in and discuss more, but you could turn to oral history. There's a whole methodology associated with doing oral history correctly. It's unfortunately not as simple as just interviewing people. A good place to start with methodology may be Zembrzycki (ed.), Oral History Off the Record. There's also ethics concerns involved, so you may need to seek ethics training in that regard. Depending on the period you're researching, this may be a good option for you.
Not a proper historian yet, but I do have a BA and MA in Modern History. While I focused on modern history (1700s-) I did take some modules in earlier history, such as Medieval and Early Modern. When historians lack a wealth of primary sources, such as government records, personal diaries, etc., they will often turn to other resources such as oral histories (which are technically a primary source). Sometimes, however, a lack of primary sources simply means making the best estimates with the resources available. A lot of history is just that, making the best of what you can find and contributing as best you can to the historiography. When this happens, in the case of a lack of/incomplete primary sources, an historian will try to make their best educated guess or estimate as to what happened.
When it comes to more recent history (my specialism is the Cold War, specifically US foreign policy), historians can face the opposite problem; too many sources. Some archives hold so much information that no one historian can possibly look over all of the archival material. This means that historians have to be selective in what they choose to use in regard to source material. One historian may prioritise some material while others may prioritise other material, or even disregard it. This means that there is an inherent and inevitable selection bias in all historiographies, which is why reading other historians' reviews of historical works is always beneficial. Controversy in the historiography is not uncommon as historians are constantly debating each other and challenging previous works as new material is researched or old material revisited. One of the more well known controversies of the last couple of decades was the controversy surrounding Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners which caused some debate in the historiography of the Holocaust and prompted Chrisopher Browning to write Ordinary Men largely in response.
In regard to your area of research, I may refer you to an interesting article I used in an essay a while back by Roland McConnell in 1949:
'The History of the Negro in the United States of America remains yet untold. Moreover, it will remain untold until the mountain of records in the National Archives are effectively utilized as an historical source. This is not only true of the history of the Negro but of American history in general, since the National Archives, the federal repository of raw record materials and original source materials of an official type in the United States of America, is virtually untapped as a source for research in history and the social sciences.'^1
I understand that you have trouble in travelling to national or state archives at the moment, but if you do get the opportunity then they will have some of the best available material. Staff at Archives can be very helpful and amenable to those with a genuine interest in the material that they handle, so even if you can't make it in person to the archives, it is worth contacting them via phone or email and they may be willing to help out (e.g. photocopying some materials for you). Just make sure you can tell them exactly the kind of thing you are looking for.
Sources
Recommended further research for how history is written and studied:
Beck, Peter J., Presenting History: Past & Present, (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2012)
Hughes-Warrington, Marnie, Fifty Key Thinkers on History, (Oxford: Routledge, 2008)
As someone who worked in a local museum for about 5 summers and getting to work with the records or what little records of indigenous and the black community there are a few things you can do.
So, from what you've told us there are a few places to start. I think the first piece of advice I'd give is to recognize areas where you have research and where you don't. Then ask yourself why? Why do certain documents exist, but not others? Right here is a knowledge gap, your job is to fill it. The answer doesn't have to be long, it can be a simple sentence to something worth writing it's own book about.
The next thing you might need to consider are those in the community who have been holding on to material in their attics or basements.
From what I gather you work in a small local museum which is heavily reliant on the community for things. Mine had a small basement archive where we were gifted with complete and incomplete genealogies which was neat but you could see things come up that raised their own set of questions.
Primary sources are important, but even with the primary sources you have you need to be skeptical of everything you read regardless of who it came from.
For instance Olaudah Equiano's tale is a really interesting one but should not be held up as 100% accurate. Take the context it was written in and for whom it was written. So considering the circumstances and some content of any primary source is important, not just for accuracy sake but for the other bunch of questions that'll come about.