Research Guides: English 241: Historical Primary Sources

General Advice

Primary sources can be a great way to get historical context for a literary work! Reviews can shed light on reception history; contemporary news accounts can give you a sense of what was going on, how it was being talked about, and what language was used to discuss contemporary events.

Primary historical sources give you direct information about how people thought during the historical period of interest. The more sources you have by contemporary authors, the better you can understand how people thought in that particular time and place.

Remember, though, primary sources are not scholarly! They're written for a different purpose -- generally, to inform or entertain an audience that lived a long time ago, and not to develop a scholarly conversation.

Finding primary sources can be a little tricky, and I'm not an expert in historical research. That said, here are some tips for novices:

Find Citations from Secondary Sources
- Good secondary sources cite the primary sources they draw from. Check them out!
- Some of the sources they cite are locked away in archives, and you can't access them directly. However, others may well be available to you. Check the catalog, and let me know if you're looking for something you haven't been able to find!
Choose your words carefully!
- Remember, you are searching the words that historical authors actually used. It's important to consider how they would have expressed themselves.
Pay attention to date
- This is something it's easy to lose track of, but remember, the point of history is that things change over time. Be sure you're not using documents from 1864 to explain 1799.
Limit by document type
- These collections include a lot of different kinds of things. It's worthwhile looking through the types of documents they offer and being specific.

Primary Source Collections at Queens College

ARTSTOR
ArtStor is a collection of image resources, including a lot of interesting historical images.
Note that you can search by geographical areas or historical periods as well as searching by keyword.
ArtStor is expected to be retired by August 1, 2024. For additional information please review the ER Dashboard.
Gale Primary Sources
This is the biggest primary source collection the library has access to, combining Eighteenth Century Collections Online, Nineteenth Century Collections Online, and some other collections.
Most of the material here is on the US and Europe (especially Britain) in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Includes books, newspapers, and more.
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times
Here you can find New York Times articles going back to the newspaper's founding in 1851. While the NYT is only one newspaper, it's a very relevant one when your research is specifically about New York.
Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000
Digital collection of sources documenting women's history in the United States from 1600 to 2000. Sources are organized into "document projects" addressing specific questions about history.
Gale Primary Sources: Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Burney Newspapers Collection
Gale Primary Sources: Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Burney Newspapers Collection represents the largest single collection of seventeenth and eighteenth-century English news media available from the British Library and includes more than 1,000 pamphlets, proclamations, newsbooks, and newspapers from the period.

Primary Source Collections on the Internet

Digital Bodleian
The Bodleian is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and the second largest library in Britain. The Digital Bodleian provides access to rare books and manuscripts in the library's collection.
NYPL Digital Collections
Digital Collections from the New York Public Library.
Early English Books Online (EEBO)
Early English Books Online (EEBO) is a collection of texts created by the Text Creation Partnership. The "open source" version that we have at this site contains texts from the 1470s to the 1690s.
Not all these texts are available, but this is a handy way to find the ones that are.
Folger Shakespeare Library
Includes the full text of Shakespeare's plays and digital surrogates of related objects in the Folger Library's extensive collection.
Dorot Jewish Division of the NYPL Digital Collections
The Dorot Jewish Division was established as a distinct collection with funding contributed by Jacob Schiff in 1897, just two years after the formation of The New York Public Library. Abraham S. Freidus, cataloger of the Astor Library's rich collection of Judaica, was appointed the Division's first chief and presided over its rapid growth for twenty five years.
National Archives: Early Modern Witch Trials
This document collection includes various documents relating to the witch craze in 17th century England. It allows students and teachers to develop their own questions and lines of historical enquiry on the nature of beliefs and behaviours, the role of the authorities and legal restraint, attitudes of communities or the role of women in society.
Historical Jewish Press
This site contains a collection of Jewish newspapers published in various countries and languages, spanning 240 years of history.

Physical Archives and Special Collections

Visiting archives is a multi-step process!

You can't just walk into most archives; you need:

An appointment
A specific document or set of documents in mind
It's hard to say in advance whether you will be able to gain admittance.

However, if you were interested in pursuing this route, I'd recommend: