HISTORY 201: The Historian's Craft: The US Empire (Fall 2023) : Find Primary Sources
What are Primary Sources?
Primary sources are original records created at the time historical events occurred or well after events in the form of memoirs or oral histories. They enable researchers to get as close as possible to what actually happened during an historical event or time period to help them understand and interpret the past. (See definition from the American Library Association's Reference & User Services Association's History Section.)
Some examples of types and formats for primary sources include:
- Books such as personal narratives, memoirs, and autobiographies, collected works, and collections of documents (these may be edited and published after the historical event or time period)
- Journal, magazine, and newspaper articles
- Government publications
- Archival sources such as diaries, interviews, letters, photographs, video recordings, and other media
Finding Primary Sources in Books (in the Library Catalog)
Use the tips below to search the Library Catalog for books that contain primary sources.
- Words in Catalog records may identify an item as a primary source. Search for format-related words like advertisements, autobiographies, correspondence, documents, interviews, journal, letters, manuscripts, personal narratives, sources, speeches, etc. You can combine a primary source format word with words describing your topic (for example, letters and Lincoln, diaries and civil war)
- To find diaries, letters, autobiographies, personal papers, etc. by a particular person, search for the person's name as an author.
- Use the "Years" drop-down to filter results to those published during a time period.
Selected Primary Source Digital Collections
Below are several digital primary source collections that may be useful in your research. More can be found here.
If the topic you're interested in isn't covered here, please ask a librarian for help! This list isn't comprehensive and librarians are glad to suggest other resources.
- American Indian Movement and Native American RadicalismThis collection includes extensive FBI documentation on the evolution of AIM as an organization of social protest. In addition, there is documentation on the 1973 Wounded Knee Stand-off. Informant reports and materials collected by the Extremist Intelligence Section of the FBI provide insight into the motives, actions, and leadership of AIM and the development of Native American radicalism.
- Associated Press Collections Online (1848-2009)The Associated Press Online Archive is a collection of news stories, in various stage of production, covering major local, regional, and national stories from 1848 to 2009.
- History Vault: Students for a Democratic Society, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and the anti-Vietnam War Movement (1958-1981)This module offers opportunities for research on the 1960s through the lens of two influential anti-war organizations, SDS and VVAW. Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) emphasized participatory democracy, community building, creating a political movement of impoverished people, and as U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War escalated, the anti-war movement. Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) organized major national protests, including Operation Dewey Canyon III (1971), which catapulted VVAW to a position of leadership within the antiwar movement.
Government Records
- Digital National Security ArchiveThe DNSA includes over 100,000 declassified primary documents relating to US foreign policy. It is separated into 42 collections consisting of over compiled and organized by top scholars and experts and exhaustively covers critical world events, countries, and U.S. policy decisions from post World War II through the 21st century.
- Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Daily ReportsThe Roosevelt administration authorized the creation of the Foreign Broadcast Monitoring Service (FBMS) in 1941. The mandate of the FBMS was to record, translate, transcribe and analyze foreign shortwave propaganda radio programs. In 1947 FBMS was renamed the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS). Its original mission was centered on radio and press agency monitoring and translation. But in 1967, FBIS' mission was expanded to include foreign mass media whether it was conveyed by radio, television, or print. The Readex FBIS electronic database consists of scanned copies of the paper issues of the various FBIS Daily Reports.
- ProQuest CongressionalComprehensive ongoing collection of U.S. federal government publications from the late 18th century to the present. Includes acts (laws), bills and resolutions, committee reports and documents, hearings testimony, and selected legislative histories. Also includes the Congressional Record (floor debate) and the Serial Set & American State Papers.
- U.S. Declassified Documents OnlineThe US Declassified Documents includes documents made available through the Freedom of Information Act from the period immediately after World War II through the 1970's. Nearly every major foreign and domestic event of these years is covered: the Cold War, Vietnam, foreign policy shifts, the civil rights movements, and others.
Research Guides
See the Research Guides below for more information about primary sources. They include many more online resources including ones with historical journals, magazines and newspapers and documents.
Finding Newspapers
Newspapers can be useful primary sources. below are a few of the databases holding historic newspapers. If these don't address your needs, check out the Newspapers research guide.
- African American Newspapers (1827-1998)Searchable archive of U.S. newspapers documenting the African American experience from the early 19th century to the end of the 20th century.
- America's Historical NewspapersHundreds of newspapers published in what is now the US.
- American Indian NewspapersAmerican Indian Newspapers presents the publications of a range of communities, covering periodicals produced in the United States and Canada, including Alaska, Arizona, British Columbia, California, Nevada and Oklahoma, from 1828 to 2016.
- American Prison NewspapersThis digital collection brings together newspapers produced in the United States by people who have been incarcerated for the purpose of assisting students and readers learn about the prison experience through the voices of those who have lived it.
- Ethnic NewsWatchNewspapers, magazines and journals of ethnic, minority and native press, from Asian-American, Jewish, African-American, Native-American, Arab-American, Eastern-European, Latino, multi-ethnic communities.
- International NewsstreamInternational Newsstream provides the most recent news content outside of the US and Canada, with archives which stretch back decades featuring newspapers, newswires, and news sites in active full-text format.
- Newspaper Source PlusContains full text for major English language newspapers such as The Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, The San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, and others.