Primary sources are evidence that date from the time period being studied, immediate to the events under investigation. There are many kinds of evidence, written, material, or visual, physical or electronic, and so on. For instance:
Reading secondary sources carefully to mine the primary sources that scholars have already cited is also an excellent method of learning about primary sources in a particular historical field or those being used to answer certain historical questions. Using any of the terms above, or their synonyms, may aid in searching for primary sources to discover them through library catalogs, indexes, databases, websites, etc.
The usual subheading for primary sources in library catalogs is “sources”. Sample subject headings include:
France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799 -- Sources
Soviet Union -- History -- Revolution, 1917-1921 -- Sources
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Sources
See the following for an overview on doing archival research:
Features select primary source documents related to critical people and events in African American history.
Catalogue Link: OneSearch
Black Thought and Culture is a landmark electronic collection of approximately 100,000 pages of non-fiction writings by major American black leaders—teachers, artists, politicians, religious leaders, athletes, war veterans, entertainers, and other figures—covering 250 years of history.
Catalogue Link: OneSearch
Ethnic NewsWatch is a current resource of full-text newspapers, magazines, and journals of the ethnic and minority press, providing researchers access to essential, often overlooked perspectives.
Catalogue Link: OneSearch.
Gale Primary Sources: Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive is devoted to the study and understanding of the history of slavery in America and the rest of the world from the 17th century to the late 19th century. Archival collections were sourced from more than 60 libraries at institutions such as the Amistad Research Center, Bibliothèque nationale de France, the National Archives, Oberlin College, Oxford University, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and Yale University.
The Northeast Slavery Records Index (NESRI) is an online searchable compilation of records that identify individual enslaved persons and enslavers in the states of New York, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Jersey.
Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture, and Law brings together a multitude of essential legal materials on slavery in the United States and the English-speaking world. This includes every statute passed by every colony and state on slavery, every federal statute dealing with slavery, and all reported state and federal cases on slavery.
Catalogue Link: OneSearch.
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.
A vast eighteenth-century library of the fully text-searchable corpus of books, pamphlets, and broadsides in all subjects printed between 1701 and 1800.
Gale Primary Sources: Nineteenth Century Collections Online is a multi-year global digitization and publishing program focusing on primary source collections of the long nineteenth century including topics on political revolution and reform, nationalism and nation building, the expansion of empire and colonialism, growing literacy and education.
Founded in 1843, The Economist is renowned for its consistent approach to internationalism and championing of minimal state in political and government affairs.
Gale Primary Sources: Making of the Modern World covers the history of Western trade, encompassing the coal, iron, and steel industries, the railway industry, the cotton industry, banking and finance, and the emergence of the modern corporation. It is also strong in the rise of the modern labor movement, the evolving status of slavery, and the condition and making of the working class.
Gale Primary Sources: Nineteenth Century Collections Online is a multi-year global digitization and publishing program focusing on primary source collections of the long nineteenth century including topics on political revolution and reform, nationalism and nation building, the expansion of empire and colonialism, growing literacy and education.
Ethnic NewsWatch is a current resource of full-text newspapers, magazines, and journals of the ethnic and minority press, providing researchers access to essential, often overlooked perspectives.
Catalogue Link: OneSearch.
Gale Primary Sources: Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive is devoted to the study and understanding of the history of slavery in America and the rest of the world from the 17th century to the late 19th century. Archival collections were sourced from more than 60 libraries at institutions such as the Amistad Research Center, Bibliothèque nationale de France, the National Archives, Oberlin College, Oxford University, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and Yale University.
American Decades Primary Soiurces by American Antiquarian Society Historical Periodicals Collection includes series 1-5 and provides more than 1,800 titles dating from 1838-1852. The themes reveal a rapidly growing young nation where industrialization, the railroads, regional political differences, and life on the western frontier were daily realities.
Catalogue Link: OneSearch.
European Views of the Americas: 1493 to 1750 is an archive of indexed publications related to the Americas and written in Europe before 1750.
Catalogue Link: OneSearch.
ProQuest Historical Newspapers is the definitive newspaper digital archive offering full-text and full-image articles for significant newspapers dating back to the 19th Century (1851-2018).
Catalogue Link: OneSearch.
American Antiquarian Society Historical Periodicals Collection includes series 1-5 and provides more than 1,800 titles dating from 1838-1852. The themes reveal a rapidly growing young nation where industrialization, the railroads, regional political differences, and life on the western frontier were daily realities.
Catalogue Link: OneSearch.
Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 is a resource for students and scholars of U.S. history and U.S. women's history.
Catalogue Link: OneSearch.
American Antiquarian Society Historical Periodicals Collection includes series 1-5 and provides more than 1,800 titles dating from 1838-1852. The themes reveal a rapidly growing young nation where industrialization, the railroads, regional political differences, and life on the western frontier were daily realities.
Catalogue Link: OneSearch.
Black Thought and Culture is a landmark electronic collection of approximately 100,000 pages of non-fiction writings by major American black leaders—teachers, artists, politicians, religious leaders, athletes, war veterans, entertainers, and other figures—covering 250 years of history.
Catalogue Link: OneSearch
